ECA Update: Amazon discount gone "for the time being"; in process of self-destruction

Yeah, it's a shame. I became an Amazon-exclusive buyer after I joined the ECA in April. Along with many others, my orders from Amazon went through the roof thanks to them almost always having the lowest price, Amazon Prime w/ free 2-day shipping, and the 10% every video game purchased. I have pre-orders with them that are going well into 2010 as items kept showing up in my Gold Box on a regular basis. It was great! But I knew it wasn't going to last forever. We ALL knew that.

So in the end, none of this should be a surprise to anyone. There were tons of issues with the codes on a consistent basis. Throw in free membership advertised all over the internet which invoked the stacking bug -- there was no way it was going to last. That was the final nail.

My thanks to everyone who helped in updating us on when the codes were online while they lasted.
 
[quote name='doodofdoods']My only regret is that I didn't stack more.[/QUOTE]
^

Well ECA shot themselves in the foot with their 'trial' since stacking was inevitable once codes ran out as fast as they did. I encourage everyone to cancel their sub (and honestly, who hasn't by now) to send a clear message. Will be interesting to see what new benefits await, but I doubt they will be anything of worth.
 
I find it mind boggling (or deceptive) that the stacking issue, that has now been eliminated, is being used as a reason for eliminating the discount altogether. I mean, at worst, in its most hackish, they could just generate a few hundred thousand (million?) of the same class of code, and release x number of those to ECA at a time.

Even saying they've lost too much money to the stacking somehow implies that they'll make more money by not offering the discount than reinstating the 10% - I find this somewhat debatable.
 
[quote name='botticus']I find it mind boggling (or deceptive) that the stacking issue, that has now been eliminated, is being used as a reason for eliminating the discount altogether. I mean, at worst, in its most hackish, they could just generate a few hundred thousand (million?) of the same class of code, and release x number of those to ECA at a time.

Even saying they've lost too much money to the stacking somehow implies that they'll make more money by not offering the discount than reinstating the 10% - I find this somewhat debatable.[/QUOTE]

Amazon has the best prices for games
They now have Live and PSN games with some always cheaper then normal
They have free launch day delivery and money back for games
They have a boatload of preorder bonuses

They offer the best option for games and the ECA deal just made a great deal even better

I find it odd how people say that the free membership is what caused all this. Dirtbags who steal did all this.
 
[quote name='Jaysonguy']Amazon has the best prices for games
They now have Live and PSN games with some always cheaper then normal
They have free launch day delivery and money back for games
They have a boatload of preorder bonuses

They offer the best option for games and the ECA deal just made a great deal even better

I find it odd how people say that the free membership is what caused all this. Dirtbags who steal did all this.[/QUOTE]


you're right, but the free membership enabled many of the dirtbags, as you put it.
 
Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases.
 
[quote name='botticus']I find it mind boggling (or deceptive) that the stacking issue, that has now been eliminated, is being used as a reason for eliminating the discount altogether. I mean, at worst, in its most hackish, they could just generate a few hundred thousand (million?) of the same class of code, and release x number of those to ECA at a time.[/QUOTE]

It's probably just a handful (at most) of people working on this, and of those people, none of them have 'ECA Discount' as a top work priority.
 
The ECA should offer those of us who paid a prorated refund if we choose to cancel because of the lack of Amazon discounts. I know that they state the discounts are subject to change, but we all known that everyone signed up for the Amazon one and it was the most prominently displayed discount on their site and the top "perk" for joining.

It'll never happen, of course, but I sure won't be renewing my membership. I don't blame Amazon for pulling the deal though. It was being abused. I do hope it makes a return some day, but when it does countless people will just start seeking out new ways to abuse it.

Sad to see it go, but I (barely) got my money's worth, so I am not too upset in the end.
 
Everyone saw mayhem as soon as they made the program free yet they were still in denial on that site with mods feeding us BS. What a waste because to be honest the only reason I paid them $14 was to get that Amazon discount. Now its gone and I bet ECA has rubbed many wrong even if for awhile we benefited.
 
[quote name='Jaysonguy']
They offer the best option for games and the ECA deal just made a great deal even better
[/QUOTE]
In my view, it turned good deals into great deals, and in many cases, I wouldn't have bothered jumping on the good deal alone.

[quote name='Lan_Zer0']It's probably just a handful (at most) of people working on this, and of those people, none of them have 'ECA Discount' as a top work priority.[/QUOTE]
That or they don't really like the influx of people getting 10% for nothing - when it wasn't free, they could generally count on people ordering at least $150-$200 worth of merchandise from them at 10% off to make their membership fees back.
 
glad i wasted 20$ to use this only once. Where can i cancel the auto renew so i don't pay for this worthless service again?
 
[quote name='Jaysonguy']I find it odd how people say that the free membership is what caused all this. Dirtbags who steal did all this.[/QUOTE]
It's cause and effect. The trial presented the opportunity, which is fact because the codes worked flawlessly for several months and had very short downtime. If you want to point the finger at stackers, fine, but don't blame the ocean for what the river brings.
 
[quote name='botticus']In my view, it turned good deals into great deals, and in many cases, I wouldn't have bothered jumping on the good deal alone.[/QUOTE]

Truth.
 
Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases. Please let me know if anyone else is having this happen. Please before we bash Amazon and ECA we make sure that this isn't there middle ground to deal with those who stack codes.
 
It was probably the biggest mistake, on the part of ECA, to open up memberships as free. That should've been stopped ASAP and not let it run rampant, like it did.
 
I saved $16 on the MW2 hardened edition, $5 on Uncharted 2 and $10 on NBA 2K10 for a total of $31 in savings. I also used the free ECA code to sign up so I hate to see it go, but it was good while it lasted.
 
I don't even know why they opened up their membership for free.

So are all Amazon codes void now? I still have one remaining.

But yeah, you can't blame just CAGers here. People on Slickdeals, Fatwallet, etc were exploiting the glitch as much as everyone else.
 
[quote name='basketbowler']Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases. Please let me know if anyone else is having this happen. Please before we bash Amazon and ECA we make sure that this isn't there middle ground to deal with those who stack codes.[/QUOTE]

Well like many others, I used my student email to get $5 off the eca membership. So can I change my e-mail with eca, or would I have to do so with amazon.

This whole thing is a headache. Oh well, I guess if I can't get my amazon discount anymore, I'll just start getting from gamestop again.

You hear that amazon! Gamestop!
 
[quote name='Jaysonguy']Way to be proud of being a thief

If you can't afford games perhaps you should have picked another hobby[/QUOTE]

[quote name='Jaysonguy'] Dirtbags who steal did all this.[/QUOTE]



methinks you are confusing ethics with the law
 
[quote name='mis0']I don't even know why they opened up their membership for free.

So are all Amazon codes void now? I still have one remaining.

But yeah, you can't blame just CAGers here. People on Slickdeals, Fatwallet, etc were exploiting the glitch as much as everyone else.[/QUOTE]

So what was the stacking glitch anyway? Using the discount with other discounts or were people somehow able to use the eca discount multiple times on one product?
 
[quote name='basketbowler']Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases. Please let me know if anyone else is having this happen. Please before we bash Amazon and ECA we make sure that this isn't there middle ground to deal with those who stack codes.[/QUOTE]

It was doing this for me but stopped a few weeks ago. I'll have to check if my email addresses match up.
 
[quote name='Jaysonguy']Amazon has the best prices for games
They now have Live and PSN games with some always cheaper then normal
They have free launch day delivery and money back for games
They have a boatload of preorder bonuses

They offer the best option for games and the ECA deal just made a great deal even better

I find it odd how people say that the free membership is what caused all this. Dirtbags who steal did all this.[/QUOTE]

I agree that the stacking sped up the process. But my question from the beginning was what amount of codes was Amazon comfortable with distributing. Sure, the quicker the codes are used, the more sales Amazon makes, BUT how much it's actually raising profits is difficult to determine. I never got the feeling that Amazon was comfortable just giving the ECA an endless supply of discount codes.

My feeling is that this is a partnership Amazon was reluctant to form in the first place, and these problems just showed them what a bad idea it was. I don't expect to see any prominent businesses linking up with ECA from here on out. The "new businesses" they're talking about adding will probably end up being Circuit City (aka Tigerdirect 2.0) or Barnes & Noble (aka We'll Give You 15% off by Charging 30% More!) As a paid subscriber of the ECA, until I hear something positive they actually accomplish for the gaming community, here's hoping they go down in flames.
 
[quote name='basketbowler']Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases. Please let me know if anyone else is having this happen. Please before we bash Amazon and ECA we make sure that this isn't there middle ground to deal with those who stack codes.[/QUOTE]

This is not happening for me. I just placed an order (I was waiting for the codes to return) and it didn't take anything off.
 
[quote name='basketbowler']Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases. Please let me know if anyone else is having this happen. Please before we bash Amazon and ECA we make sure that this isn't there middle ground to deal with those who stack codes.[/QUOTE]

You must have codes still left over in your account, there never was any sort of link between the 2.

And I am sure emailing Amazon to ask them to apply the ECA 10% will end pretty soon once word trickles down as well.
 
Well, this sucks, but on the other hand, people should have known that abusing the system often leads to a loss of privileges. Here's hoping that the ECA is really doing the advocacy work that my membership fees were meant for in the first place.
 
[quote name='basketbowler']Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases. Please let me know if anyone else is having this happen. Please before we bash Amazon and ECA we make sure that this isn't there middle ground to deal with those who stack codes.[/QUOTE]

The Amazon e-mail I used was not the same as the ECA one. Logging in with the ECA e-mail (or creating an account with it) did not yield a discount.
 
I'm confused, can someone explain what was done wrong? o_O

Did people use a glitch to put multiple ECA codes on 1 order? OR Did people just keep using codes so that it's on their accounts but still only used 1 per order?
 
[quote name='basketbowler']Members of ECA still get 10% off. If your Amazon account email and Eca email are the same they automatically deduct 10% from the purchase price. At least that is what it is doing with my purchases. Please let me know if anyone else is having this happen. Please before we bash Amazon and ECA we make sure that this isn't there middle ground to deal with those who stack codes.[/QUOTE]

it's just a glitch, other people have had it happen to them as well, in fact some people had stacked eca discounts stuck to their account.
 
to be honest I'm glad it's confirmed to be gone. It seemed inevitable anyway and I've been holding out on MW2 with some slim hope it would return. It was nice while it lasted. I feel bad for the folks who recently paid for memberships before it went free though.
 
I feel bad for the people that were stupid enough to think this was actually profitable for Amazon. You know who you are.
 
Maybe Amazon took it away, because they saw the interest in it and now want to do it themselves. ;x Make the money off the memberships, while holding a large client base.

Was a sweet deal while it lasted, I more than made up enough money to cover the cost. GL to the ECA ppl and ty.
 
[quote name='Jackie Chandler']There's still B1G1 free on Fandango, right? That's pretty nice.[/QUOTE]

That isn't an ECA promotion... it's a Visa Signature one (it even still requires it according to their website, so it's kind of puzzling... seems like they're trying to pass off someone else's promotion as their own). I've been using the Fandango promotion with my Visa Signature card for the past several months without the aid of ECA.

As far as Amazon goes, this completely sucks.
 
Where are you guys seeing that it's definitely gone? All I see is the Amazon listing on the benefits page saying "This promotion is no longer available."
 
[quote name='leshrac55']That isn't an ECA promotion... it's a Visa Signature one (it even still requires it according to their website, so it's kind of puzzling... seems like they're trying to pass off someone else's promotion as their own). I've been using the Fandango promotion with my Visa Signature card for the past several months without the aid of ECA.

As far as Amazon goes, this completely sucks.[/QUOTE]
Yeah lol, for me they basically only brought it to my attention -- not offered it.
 
I think this is entirely the ECA's fault for poor management of great perk that should have been better protected. They continually made it possible for people to screw Amazon over with this promotion, particularly by being stupid and offering free membership to pretty much anyone on Earth. Even before that, people could generate unlimited codes and sell them or give them away (they finally restricted it to one per day, but it was way too late by then).

When the 10% discount was worked out with Amazon originally, I'm sure Amazon was thinking that the ECA's membership numbers would remain somewhat limited because of the $20 membership fee, so there probably wasn't a huge worry about the discounts getting out of hand. Things sure went to hell the moment they offered free membership and opened the flood gates, though.
 
Sad to see it gone. I was definitely one of those guys who would never have bought something unless if it was Gold Boxed + ECA'd. While I did purchase my membership at $15 close to when it first came out, I definitely made my money back plus a lot more. Luckily, I did preorder a bunch of stuff ahead of time.
 
I think it's hilarious people are trying to say that the free memberships were the issue and not the people stacking 3 or 4 codes. That's some dedicated denial right there.:applause:
 
[quote name='Tomeeboy']I think this is entirely the ECA's fault for poor management of great perk that should have been better protected. They continually made it possible for people to screw Amazon over with this promotion, particularly by being stupid and offering free membership to pretty much anyone on Earth. Even before that, people could generate unlimited codes and sell them or give them away (they finally restricted it to one per day, but it was way too late by then).

When the 10% discount was worked out with Amazon originally, I'm sure Amazon was thinking that the ECA's membership numbers would remain somewhat limited because of the $20 membership fee, so there probably wasn't a huge worry about the discounts getting out of hand. Things sure went to hell the moment they offered free membership and opened the flood gates, though.[/QUOTE]Pretty much exactly what I said once free trials began. I even wrote ECA exposing their folly, but here we are today with them still handing out free trials. I'm taking bets on how long before the trial just magically ends.

Now that they've milked the codes and the few weeks of uncertainty to increase their subscription base, I suspect it will end.
 
[quote name='The Long Haired Bard']I think it's hilarious people are trying to say that the free memberships were the issue and not the people stacking 3 or 4 codes. That's some dedicated denial right there.:applause:[/QUOTE]
Pot. Kettle.
 
I'm wondering why we aren't hearing from all the holier-than-thou posters that frequently responded to complaints about the codes being down with arguments that it really wasn't about the codes for them and that they loved the work ECA was doing? Are all of them going to keep paying to belong to ECA now that the membership is worthless?
 
THe only reason I'm disappointed is for not abusing it when I had the chance ........ Had I known these codes would have gone under I would have bought more :cry:
 
I'm hoping for some sort of Gamers Club program direct from Amazon. Instead of dealing with promo codes they could just subtract 10% off the current price via log in (if thats possible).

But I hope the upcoming ECA benefits make it worth it, I don't want to cancel but might given that i'll forget about auto-renew in 8-9 months time.
 
[quote name='Stele']I feel bad for the people that were stupid enough to think this was actually profitable for Amazon. You know who you are.[/QUOTE]

You're right, people abusing the system to get 30% off already discounted games was not a profitable model. 10% off games is and was a profitable model, however. In fact, Amazon had the biggest quarter in their history, so your theories about 10% off games damaging their bottom line has been pretty conclusively shown to be bogus.
 
[quote name='The Long Haired Bard']I think it's hilarious people are trying to say that the free memberships were the issue and not the people stacking 3 or 4 codes. That's some dedicated denial right there.:applause:[/QUOTE]

I think most of them are just saying that there was a cause and effect of the free memberships.

1. Before memberships were free, the codes did not run out very quickly. When they did, they were up again very shortly.
2. Free memberships created more demand for the 10% codes. People began "hoarding" the codes and saving them in order to not be caught without one when codes ran out. Which then started taking days to replenish.
3. All the saved codes and the re-issue of different codes meant that people were holding onto different batches of codes; J-codes, L-codes, 66-codes.
4. Some people that decided to cancel existing orders go back and thought they needed to apply a new code, only then noticed the old code wasn't canceled and that the new code "stacked" onto the old one.
5. Those people report what happened to them and all hell breaks loose.
6. Many people cancel their older orders that are still open so they can stack.
7. Amazon gets pissed and cans the promotion.

So yes the free membership didn't directly cause this to end, but it sure did play a big part in it happening.
 
I joined ECA in early April and the only issue was the codes running out periodically. After a few days, Amazon would provide new codes and everything would be good again. Everything was great through the Spring and the Summer. Then in September the the free memberships started and everything went to hell.

The stacking may have never happened if it wasn't for the free memberships. Once that started and the SD and FW masses got their hands in the mix, it was doomed.
 
[quote name='The Long Haired Bard']I think it's hilarious people are trying to say that the free memberships were the issue and not the people stacking 3 or 4 codes. That's some dedicated denial right there.:applause:[/QUOTE]

Not denial, just the begining of the snowball to avalanche.

Just compare it like that.

Amazon gives ECA 100 codes... they run out quickly because of muliple codes per click.
Amazon gives more codes that stack, along with ECA giving out free subs.
Free Subs = more dbags, more dbags mean more stacking with codes running out for a 3rd and 4th.
Ultimately alot of freeloaders are Triple stacking...

Before it was give away, there were only a handful of people affording the $20/$15 price.

This would be the same way as Gamestop giving away Edge cards... or the massive amount of people getting it for $2, that was shut down.... so is Amazon shutting down the codes.

It's the stacking that Amazon flagged to end it all, but it's definately the freeloaders that ultimately ruined it because of the running out of codes, opening up to abuse because that's when the stacking started.

Series of unfortunate events, all equally bad, but all starting with the Freeloaders.
 
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