So I should mention i'm in the UK and looking at the UK amazon and the UK blizzard site, and its all in pounds.

Amazon sell it here for 32 pounds and Pre order is 45 pounds on my Bnet account... how can Amazon charge lower than blizzard?

Digital distribution is very often more expensive. Blizzard don't have too much incentive to sell it for a cheap price on their site, the people that buy it there are those that want to pre-load it or can't get it easily from a retail store in their country.

Oddly I have had a preorder with amazon.co.uk since may 2010 for about £20. Lots of people would probably prefer to just pre-load the game and have it active instantly at 12:01, so the dl version must be pretty popular. £45 is pretty greedy though. Sure starcraft did the same thing, did it do well through battlenet?

@emergency: @cosmiczombiebee:

Aham so I just figured out why the price is lower. Also its not true that digital distribution is more expensive, they make more money.

So Blizzard doesn't have faith that it will get as many sales if it sells it exclusively online at 30 pounds because if they did, the best way to buy it would be online, since other companies would have to charge higher than 30 pounds to make a profit(amazon manages to push 32). So the business model is made this way to give companies an incentive to buy the game from them. Blizzard doesn't want companies to feel like they are competing with blizzard on sales so it gives them an advantage: price. I think that's a pretty smart business plan. Probably why SC2 is still so expensive on the Blizz site.

Always be Amazoning.

@gamefreak9: I'm pretty sure he meant that digital distribution is usually more expensive to purchase than retail, not more expensive to produce.

@Fattony12000:

You know I would probably have found GW2 came out in like 3-4 weeks... why is it so sudden? no ads?

Publishers have to stick to their msrp or every single vendor will get pissed off at the publisher for undercutting and stop promoting / buying product.

The individual vendors can do whatever they want, Amazon thinks they can make more selling for less, that's their business.

Activision does not publish Blizzard games.

@Cataphract1014:

When someone says activision it implies the entity "Activision Blizzard"... I believe its ATVI on the stock exchange.

Always be Amazoning.

Yep

@Cataphract1014:

When someone says activision it implies the entity "Activision Blizzard"... I believe its ATVI on the stock exchange.

It can't be a price war when Activision Blizzard almost never discount anything. Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction still go for 20$ each, for a 12 years old game and an expansion. That's the kind of games that would go for 6$ on gog.com. Call of Duty games stay for 60$ for a while after the next one is out. Even on Steam Black Ops was still 60$ after MW3 came out.

@emergency:

Or people that prefer to be more environmently friendly :p

But really, that's not why, I already preloaded :p

Doesn't Amazon also use video games as the oft-heralded "loss leaders"? The items that drive traffic to their pages and get eyeballs in front of their listings for higher-margin goods, while Blizzard is only in the business of making/selling games.

@gamefreak9 said:

Probably why SC2 is still so expensive on the Blizz site.

I don't know if you've been to a video game store recently, but SC2 is still 60 bucks everywhere. Which is why I still don't own SC2.

@nintendoeats said:

@gamefreak9 said:

Probably why SC2 is still so expensive on the Blizz site.

I don't know if you've been to a video game store recently, but SC2 is still 60 bucks everywhere. Which is why I still don't own SC2.

No I haven't been to a store but I took 5 seconds to do an Amazon search and I find a new copy selling for 21 pounds

@gamefreak9 said:

@nintendoeats said:

@gamefreak9 said:

Probably why SC2 is still so expensive on the Blizz site.

I don't know if you've been to a video game store recently, but SC2 is still 60 bucks everywhere. Which is why I still don't own SC2.

No I haven't been to a store but I took 5 seconds to do an Amazon search and I find a new copy selling for 21 pounds

HOLY SHIT! A GAME IS CHEAPER IN THE UK THAN IN NORTH AMERICA! I think that this is the first time that's ever happened.

This thread saddens me, just put it down... please Doc..I don't want him to suffer anymore.

@Beaudacious said:

This thread saddens me, just put it down... please Doc..I don't want him to suffer anymore.

um why? Its a good way to find out that its cheaper on Amazon!

I already downloaded the client, but I'm getting a physical copy. I did the same thing for SC2, just need to unlock it and pop in my CD key and I'll be good to go come the 15th.

And yes, always be Amazoning. Always.

Client download link, if you're interested.