Beware of it!
“Game credit” and “gift cards” have become very popular among suppliers. An almost universal way of enticing us consumers to buy hot new game releases. Why has it become so popular? Because suppliers know that they can give us this reward, and most of us will think we’re getting twice as much as they’re actually giving.
Don’t get me wrong, I love these incentives. They’re pretty much giving them to us on games we would buy anyway. However, it’s imperative that consumers realize exactly what they’re getting and how much they're actually paying. The “double dipping” mentality when it comes to these credits and GCs is deceptive. For example, Amazon gave away a $10 credit for Halo 3: ODST. You can go into the ODST deal thread and see a lot of people saying they got the game for $56, minus the $10 game credit, and equating that to a $46 net cost. While that calculation by itself is legitimate, you will most likely see some of these same people in the CoD:MW2 thread saying “$60 game - $20 game credit - $10 ODST credit = $30 net cost.” Right there, in our minds, we have just turned Amazon’s $10 ODST credit into a $20 credit. Amazon essentially just gave us a deal twice as good, without actually having to give it.
It’s genius on their part. And while overall, it is good for us too, I just want to make people aware that if that is how you calculate your deals, you’re probably spending more money than you think you are. My advice is to avoid calculating “net cost” on the game you’re buying based off a credit that you will get AFTER the fact. To make things easy, just base the cost on what shows up on your statement. So ODST was $56 and MW2 was $50. And if you go and buy L4D2, it’ll be $40.
I know this is nothing new, but the mentality is still very prominent, and I figured I'd bring it up. In threads where you see people doing their math like this, just point out to them that they may have counted a credit twice, and that they may be paying more than they think they are.
“Game credit” and “gift cards” have become very popular among suppliers. An almost universal way of enticing us consumers to buy hot new game releases. Why has it become so popular? Because suppliers know that they can give us this reward, and most of us will think we’re getting twice as much as they’re actually giving.
Don’t get me wrong, I love these incentives. They’re pretty much giving them to us on games we would buy anyway. However, it’s imperative that consumers realize exactly what they’re getting and how much they're actually paying. The “double dipping” mentality when it comes to these credits and GCs is deceptive. For example, Amazon gave away a $10 credit for Halo 3: ODST. You can go into the ODST deal thread and see a lot of people saying they got the game for $56, minus the $10 game credit, and equating that to a $46 net cost. While that calculation by itself is legitimate, you will most likely see some of these same people in the CoD:MW2 thread saying “$60 game - $20 game credit - $10 ODST credit = $30 net cost.” Right there, in our minds, we have just turned Amazon’s $10 ODST credit into a $20 credit. Amazon essentially just gave us a deal twice as good, without actually having to give it.
It’s genius on their part. And while overall, it is good for us too, I just want to make people aware that if that is how you calculate your deals, you’re probably spending more money than you think you are. My advice is to avoid calculating “net cost” on the game you’re buying based off a credit that you will get AFTER the fact. To make things easy, just base the cost on what shows up on your statement. So ODST was $56 and MW2 was $50. And if you go and buy L4D2, it’ll be $40.
I know this is nothing new, but the mentality is still very prominent, and I figured I'd bring it up. In threads where you see people doing their math like this, just point out to them that they may have counted a credit twice, and that they may be paying more than they think they are.