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Fed up with Amazon and Day One pre-orders... Alternatives?

Diseased Yak

Gold Member
So I had pre-ordered God of War Ragnarok way back in July when it first went up on Amazon. As release got close, they updated their estimated delivery to be 2 weeks out from day of release!
Ok, I thought, some weird anomaly, so I cancelled and just bought it digitally, even though I prefer to buy physical.

Anyway, now I have Callisto Protocol pre-ordered, and same fucking thing! Release day shows Dec 2nd of course, but my delivery estimate shows December 20th!!!

I've never had this issue with them before in the past. I have a huge distribution center in my city for fuck's sake.

Short of buying from GameStop/Best Buy in person, what is GAFs alternatives for home delivery, day one?
 

njean777

Member
Amazon has never done that to me, got POKEMON Scarlett on release recently. The usual places (target, BB, Walmart, etc) are what I would try but a lot of them you do have to go to the store. Maybe if you have Walmart + they may deliver it release day? may want to look into that.

Of course there is always buying it digitally and skipping the store altogether.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
There's always going to be some uncertainty with delivery options. If you want 100% reliability, going to a store and picking it up is the only guaranteed way.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
There's no way that's normal. Never had anything remotely like a 2 week delay on a new game in well over a decade of Amazon use. Get in touch with them and ask what's going on.
 

Topher

Gold Member
I preordered God of War: R at Best Buy and got notified that it would be a day late. Nope. I drove up to Best Buy on release day and bought it. Next day I returned the one they delivered to the store. Not messing around with delivery bullshit anymore. Buying in store from now on.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
I think gamers hearts are in the right place with pre orders but I root for digital gaming because it’s faster.
 

Bartski

Gold Member
my last physical preorder was GTAIV, came to the store early morning and was told they were all sold out because f U. Never again. Always on time digital
 

JayK47

Member
Since you like to pre-order, just see what happens once. Order and see when it shows up. Maybe the estimate is way off. It is an estimate.
 

ahtlas7

Member
Go to the store and buy that sweet physical copy off the shelf or have a different retailer ship. Doesn't (assuming US) Walmart or Target ship release day delivery?
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I've had this same issue with Amazon for years. I recently got fed up and swapped all my existing pre-orders over to Walmart. So far, I've had good luck with them, and some games (to my surprise and delight) actually have arrived a day or two early.

Don't fall in to the trap of buying digitally, you're giving away a ton of your consumer rights doing so. For me personally, I'd rather wait.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I'd ignore that, had 4k Blu-ray's say something similar and they arrived on day of release.
 

Amiga

Member
Just go all digital for day 1 play. Keep physical as collectors items if you maintain a library and buy them later on a discount.
 
Depends where you’re located. In the UK we have a ton of different outlets for games. The Game Collection, Simply Games, Base and loads more. Not sure what it’s like elsewhere though.

Amazon are shit and at every opportunity I’ll avoid paying into the Bezos fund.
 
Hmm, haven't had that happen with me for a preorder, but Ragnarok came out when I was on vacation, so I was ordering it about 5 days after release, Amazon said it would be like 2 weeks, I got it from Target in 2 days. It seems they may be slow with the second wave of stock on games.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
join the digital age…. You don’t own anything but it’s convenient
 

Quezacolt

Member
I never pre-ordered anything from amazon. I pre-order from stores around my country, and most of the times i either receive the games on release day, or even 1 day earlier.
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
I've gotten a few games late by a few days before from Amazon, seemingly happens more now than it did years ago.

Then again, I got Elden Ring one day early.

EDIT: Just checked my Callisto Protocol pre-order on Amazon and mine too says December 20th now. Not to worried right now. If it's not updated close to release I'll cancel it and buy from in store.
 
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PhaseJump

Banned
With all the virus mandates, regulations, and supply chain disruptions, inflation, rising fuel costs.
Shipping and delivery companies can barely keep long haul and delivery drivers employed across North America.

Meanwhile, Amazon is totally ruthless to it's own work force, and would probably cut your throat to save a nickel on delivery contracts.

I don't expect day one preorders to show up on time. I never did. They can't even meet 2-day prime shipping standards half the time.
 

Laptop1991

Member
Amazon's delivery service has been awful this year for me, they keep losing my dispatched stuff and i have to be refunded a lot!!. must be the drivers.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
With all the virus mandates, regulations, and supply chain disruptions, inflation, rising fuel costs.
Shipping and delivery companies can barely keep long haul and delivery drivers employed across North America.

Meanwhile, Amazon is totally ruthless to it's own work force, and would probably cut your throat to save a nickel on delivery contracts.

I don't expect day one preorders to show up on time. I never did. They can't even meet 2-day prime shipping standards half the time.
Nah. UPS still delivers just fine. Amazon went through a radical cost cutting over the last several years. They also like to still advertise aggressive delivery dates instead of accurate ones.
 

saintjules

Member
I no longer purchase games for delivery. Playstation Direct is probably the only place for PS Exclusives I'd ever consider. Otherwise, Gamestop, Target or Best Buy for in-store/curbside pickup same day.
 

[Sigma]

Member
Most of the time, it's Best Buy for me. They've been consistent for me at least in terms of getting it day one unless another outlet has a steelbook edition I want. For PlayStation 1st party exclusives, it's always PS direct(unless I miss cut off time to pre-order because they always have small quantity available before release on the website to make it look like that shit is so much in high demand🤭).
Go digital.
dave-chappelle-laughing.gif
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
Go to the store and buy it? Games don't sell out like consoles do, never understood pre-ordering games on amazon. Seems too risky with it potentially not arriving on launch day.
 

Rob_27

Member
Sam thing but 3rd Dec. Er it's out on 2nd!

Cancelled. Repurchased. See what happens if same thing will go digital
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Is it normal to expect the release day delivery? I mean, sometimes curriers take more or less time to deliver a package, the fact they even offer it as a "service" is weird to me
 

EDMIX

Member
Here is the thing, it will say that and still release day 1. I don't really know what the issue is there regarding tracking lately, but they keep listing ETAs like days or weeks ahead and the game literally will arrive that day or something.

So if you didn't cancel, 99.9% it would have arrived on release day. I almost did the same thing and even went to Wal Mart to buy God Of War and got one of the last copies, installed it and went to bed only to wake up to a copy that came from Amazon.

So they are giving an incorrect date and it issue is more so based on that vs not coming day 1.

So I'm still going to keep my pre-order of Callisto Protocol with them.
 
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