Amazon places select games behind the Prime paywall.

Here's the story (with the update)

"UPDATE: Amazon has provided VideoGamer.com with the following statement in response to this story:

"One of the many benefits of Amazon Prime is access to exclusive selection on a number of great products. Customers who are not Prime members can sign-up for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime, or they can purchase those items from a Marketplace seller."

ORIGINAL STORY:Amazon has extended its "Prime-Exclusive Items" initiative to block non-Prime members from being able to purchase certain video games.

The change was spotted by customers this morning, with the PS4 versions of GTA 5, Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin's Creed Syndicate now only available to Prime members, along with the PS4 and Xbox One versions of FIFA 16, Far Cry Primal, Battlefield Hardline and more.

If you aren't a member of Amazon Prime, you will now see a box with a blue border on the right of the page "identifying the item as Prime-Exclusive", and will not be able to add the item to your basket."

What does everyone think about this? Seems like a pretty bad call though if you want to buy games from Amazon you can still get them from private sellers. I guess the only loss is the free shipping you could get with a certain total of qualifying items if that happens to include a "Prime Exclusive" title.

Could this become something like Sam's club, that may lead to more discounts on new games?

I've run into this before. I was looking to buy Diablo 3 for PS4 and saw it was prime only but a day or 2 later went back to everyone. Not sure if this is more of a permanent thing but items go in and out of prime wall as Amazon pleases. Honestly though, not being a prime member, ever since they bumpped free shipping to $50+, I haven't bought anything. Thanks Amazon for helping me save on impulse buying.

the ps4 version of gta is already cheaper so that seems exactly what they are doing.

bold move that im sure will piss some off but they are big enough it probably wont affect them much. Im mostly fine with it. Its not hard to get GTA 5 from somewhere else if you want to

@liquiddragon: oh wow so this has been occurring? I must be out of the loop I hardly buy games on amazon anymore.

It seems sort of crazy to do this sort of thing with common products like big-name video games. I'm sure they have plenty of highly-paid people on staff who've run the numbers on this already, but I'd just go buy from somewhere else if I wasn't a Prime member.

This:

One of the many benefits of Amazon Prime is access to exclusive selection on a number of great products.

is some great spin doctoring, though.

That's a weird choice, they must do a huge volume of games, why restrict that?? I feel like Prime is too expensive for the average gamer to justify the convenience of amazon shipping. Just go to walmart i guess?

Or spend 30 dollars for 2 years of Best Buy's gamer unlocked program. Same benefit and you get a lot of $10 Best Buy bucks for pre-ordering too for future purchases.

When I first saw this I thought it was an error on Amazon's side.

They're big enough to have done the research, and maybe they think that getting people to sign up to a Prime trial or membership is worth shutting out other customers (and losing them to private sellers and other outlets).

I know it's a moot point, because other retailers are available, but there is no way in hell I'm going to pay the Prime fee just to order a game you can get elsewhere.

It just seems like a totally arbitrary decision to artificially increase the value proposition of Prime.

@nickhead: yeah I first found this out when I got my PS4 in September. At first I was a bit shocked and confused but it's the kind of thing that pushes be away from Amazon, not consider Prime. It's purely a power play and goes to show how big Amazon has gotten.

I have multiple friends who use the Best Buy thing as well. It sounds like that's the best way to go with anything like this, which makes Amazon's choice more strange.

Plus, if you're buying a lot of games each year or two, you really should get Prime or Best Buy gamers club. BB Gamers Club, $35 for 2yrs, is a pretty damn good deal since it pays for itself after buying 3 new games. I actually bought it with Rock Band 4 band-in-a-box pack, and it actually saved me quite a bit to buy gamers club with it, so it paid for itself and then some right away. And if you combine those with BB RewardZone and maybe even a RewardZone Credit card, you get an additional 5-10% back in gift certificates too. That's even better than prime, and you can actually get stuff right on release day too without paying for overnight shipping.

This is a really bizarre decision and I wonder if it's a temporary test to see if it impacts Prime subscriptions in a meaningful way. Regular users can still buy the games from third-party sellers so I can see two outcomes:

• Users don't see a difference as the site defaults to third-party sellers when Amazon's personal stock is depleted.
• Third-party sellers increase their prices because they can

This really could swing in either the PR-nightmare or commercial footnote direction.

On the one hand, I already subscribe to Prime and find it to be a good service. On the other hand, I absolutely never buy games from Amazon.

I use prime so I can two day ship everything, and the video stuff is a nice bonus, but now they started discounting game pre orders by 20% which is nice considering I'm not concerned with downloading everything. It is weird they put random items behind a wall, I understand locking out features but, I mean it's a store... they'll buy it somewhere else.

That's fucked up.

Maybe they're trying to switch over to a Costco model or something.

That's kind of shi***. I always thought Prime was for bonuses, discounts, deals, shipping etc., now they are making certain items exclusive to it? People are just going to go buy it somewhere else, not join prime to buy it lol

Fine by me, but I also have prime so maybe I'm biased.

pretty much. plenty of alternatives out there, and prime is a good deal for me, so i don't really see the negative impact. plus amazon for students is something like $50 in the US.

Strange, i wonder if it's just a times exclusive to make sure prime members get first stock? Does it include the third party market places that sell the same game through Amazon?

Couldn't find a Prime exclusive game, just games with a Prime discounted price.

That seems kind of odd to say the least

"Pay us so that you may be graced with the great service of buying stuff from us."

Fuck off.

It does not include the market place, so technically that title is still available, through amazon, just not sold by Amazon. I quickly checked for Grand Theft Auto V, which was one of the examples, and it does indeed say "price prime exclusive" with a button to join prime.

The idea that it may be to keep inventory more available to Prime members sort of makes sense?

UPDATE 2: Amazon appears to have lifted the Prime-exclusive restriction on video games.

GTA 5, Far Cry Primal, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Battlefield Hardline and Rainbow Six Siege now appear to be available to purchase to both Prime and non-Prime members. VideoGamer.com has not heard anything further from Amazon since our initial update.

Well then, glad they reversed the decision. I'm already a Prime member, but either way, the mere idea that they would even try that seems insane.

I only searched for GTA and it was still showing that Prime button for me. If they reversed this that fast that would be pretty funny though.

regardless of what ends up happening, is the model really that insane? it's essentially a mandatory membership fee, which isn't unprecedented. and i don't know why i'd be shopping at amazon if it weren't for prime- it's the most compelling part of their service.

I have prime and that still seems shitty.

I've just looked at FIFA, Far Cry Primal, and Assassin's Creed Syndicate (all PS4) on the Amazon UK store, and they are still showing as available to Prime customers only.

Some people that have responded to the original videogamer.com story on Twitter have implied that it might be a temporary measure, since MGSV was Prime-only a few months ago, and connected to stock levels. If supplies at Amazon are running low, they might only be available to Prime customers?

@thisisacooltag: Prioritising low stocks for Prime members makes some sense, although it's weird that the Amazon response in the article didn't mention it.

Yea, like day-of games being shipped to you is cool, but you can go to a store, or download it from your console or pc. I only buy amazon games when there is a weird sale.

As a prime member it kinda pisses me off, almost want to cancel my membership to not support bullshit like that. That's fucking terrible and idiotic "pay us 100 a year to buy this ps4 game!" " nah i think ill just go to walmart or order it digital on the psn store instead."

They have had prime exclusive deals before, even keeping lighting deals exclusive for 30 mins for members, but i think you could always still buy them as a regular user (i think, i have prime so not 100%). And low stock would be odd, since all those games are fairly new and big names you would keep a stock of anyway (although they are apparently out of Xbone, but no mention of a low stock on the PS4 version so who knows). I get the prime exclusive deals, but not letting regular users buy them at all at the regular price just seems odd all around on amazons part.

Battlefield hardline is a very odd choice to restrict people from buying

I've had Prime for years, but I still think this is awful. Amazon got me to buy games there because they used to offer $10 or $20 credits. Which, in turn, got me to buy just about everything over there. Now they're going to actively push new customers away? Eh, what do I know.