let me think. Do I want to pay $80 on Steam or ~$20 pre-ordering from a store in the UK, especially considering the bandwidth offered to Aussies is such that games take a week or so to download anyway? 
Civ 5 for £9.95 - no longer available
- Thread starter Greybriar
- Start date
let me think. Do I want to pay $80 on Steam or ~$20 pre-ordering from a store in the UK, especially considering the bandwidth offered to Aussies is such that games take a week or so to download anyway? 
Frank Drebin
Police Squad!
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2010
- Messages
- 456
how do they do this?
either the normal price is extremely bloated or this is fraud.
either the normal price is extremely bloated or this is fraud.
Tylerryan79
Emperor
I think it's legit, maybe they buy so much product they can cut prices like this? Or they have a deal with take two or 2k? Does anyone know if other games are this low, or is it civ only?
"welcome to crazy zavvi's, where everything must go go go!! We're so crazy we are slashing prices on products we don't even have!!!! I'm crazy zavvi, come on down!!!"
"welcome to crazy zavvi's, where everything must go go go!! We're so crazy we are slashing prices on products we don't even have!!!! I'm crazy zavvi, come on down!!!"
It's the former.
Or like a lot of online businesses, having no shopfront (or few if any) and operating with extremely low overheads compared with big retail stores means games can be sold very cheaply. In order to be competitive they need to beat the prices of the big stores and take less profit from each sale. Of course, the suggestion that they also earn free publicity if they're selling the game at a slight loss is a plausible explanation. I am pretty sure Valve/Steam highly appreciate and take advantage of the free advertising done by its fans of Steam's weekly specials.
They have Football Manager 2011 (which is one of the top selling titles in the UK, year after year) on pre-order at 40% off the RRP, so cutting the margin to make up on bulk seems to be their business model. Although 75% off as in the Civ5 case doesn't really leave much margin, not for zavvi and probably also not for distributors upstream. Those DVDs still have to be made and shipped and handled and royalties paid to 2K.
helpless_writer
Warlord
Well I just cancelled my pre-order on steam and am hoping this is as legit as you guys say...
Basically shipping to east coast US it comes to $15.80
If most games were that price I would need a bookshelf.
Basically shipping to east coast US it comes to $15.80
If most games were that price I would need a bookshelf.
White Elk
99 > 1
Agreed! They make no profit, and actually pay a portion of the per-unit cost. Spend advertising budget to undercut your competition. Players will spread word of your service for free. Appreciative customers might stick around to pay full retail for future games. Or perhaps the store will sell other titles at a reduced, but still profitable cost.
ZimbuTheMonkey
King
Just ordered one.
Might order more, who knows.
Might order more, who knows.
helpless_writer
Warlord
I think they sale at wholesale levels. I mean really I doubt Firaxis builds up a budget to compare next to Halo and Modern Warfare. To command 49.99 it a bit much.
Okay, investigated a bit:
In their termes of use it is said, that there's no guarantee, that your game will be delivered, that it can take weeks until you get it, and that they are free to cancel any contract, if they don't have the game. But then you'll get your money back.
But: This seems to be not that sure, there are some articles about that this can take relativly long, but the sources are not that reliable.
Additionally, this corporations seems to be economically not that stable, e.g. look here or here.
So, ordering might maybe be a bit risky, and you'll probably not have the game in your hands in september, or even not in october.
In their termes of use it is said, that there's no guarantee, that your game will be delivered, that it can take weeks until you get it, and that they are free to cancel any contract, if they don't have the game. But then you'll get your money back.
But: This seems to be not that sure, there are some articles about that this can take relativly long, but the sources are not that reliable.
Additionally, this corporations seems to be economically not that stable, e.g. look here or here.
So, ordering might maybe be a bit risky, and you'll probably not have the game in your hands in september, or even not in october.
the "economic stability" issue probably isn't an issue. My understanding from what I've seen so far is that they were a chain, went under, then were bought by another company and relaunched as an online store. The articles you found related to the "old" zavvi.
The only possible issue I've seen is the issue of stuff being shipped very late. But there's no fraud going on from what I see. So the risk is waiting awhile after the release before you get your game, worst case scenario maybe being that you have to get a refund rather than wait any longer. The risk isn't being scammed altogether. As for lateness, if I weren't planning to order from steam that's a risk I'd take to get a 50 dollar game for 15 bucks or so.
Based on what I found about that company/website on web I agree with your post.
moscaverde
Prince
They don't ship to Brasil. =(
ZimbuTheMonkey
King
Kind of a good sign, I think
If they were shady you'd think they'd be equal opportunity scammers.
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2007
- Messages
- 9,316
Looked around a bit further, you seem to be right.
But this somehow still looks suspicious.
Yeah, this seems like one of those "too good to be true" deals, but from an unusually legitimate company for that sort of deal. They don't charge until they ship, though, so it's not a ploy to basically get an influx of money now in the hopes of sustaining their business until they are more profitable, and then accepting a loss on it later. It wouldn't surprise me if they order a very small number of copies should they be taking a loss on each copy sold, and they sell a lot of copies.
