Price Disparity? (Let me buy it straight from you!)

from Sins Forums

I recently convinced one of my friends to buy this game, but an interesting issue came up when comparing prices.

 

Buying the game straight from you guys as a direct download costs 40 bucks.

 

Buying the game new from a reseller on amazon.com or even gogamer.com would cost 30-35 bucks.

I'm assuming you guys get a bigger cut when we buy from you directly?

 

So please, lower your direct download prices!  If I could buy the game direct from you guys for 30 dollars, I'd rather do that than buy the game at retail for 30 bucks.  And in that case, you guys would end up with more $ right?

 

Just sayin.

12,728 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Amazon would have bought those copies as wholesale from Stardock, meaning that on release they would have sold it at the MSRP. With loose stock on hand they are just looking to get rid of it. The MSRP is still $39.99

 

This thread is just another example of why Amazon and others have done it as well; the increased popularity of Direct Download is beating the sale of Discs with a big stick.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Agreed, it should be cheaper directly from the maker themselves, but the point above is valid, they'd like to unload extra copies they've got sitting around.  Remember they didn't pay $39 for each of those boxes, so chances are they're still making a profit, just not as much.

I am one of those people who started off with an "improperly obtained" copies and had a blast with it, and was also very surprised by how Stardock conducted themselves with relation to copy control and DRM so I wanted to support them.

Didn't want to pay $40 for it, but I told myself that as soon as I could get it for $30 I'd buy it.  I've never seen it that low, but I had a coupon for stardock directly so I purchsed it online for $29.96 exactly.  Was very happy and am just waiting for the Entrenchment add on pack.

I think it would be great if we could in the future purchase just a CD-Key from the makers of software so that if a friend is interested in getting a game after seeing it, it's just a copied disc and a extra low price for a key. Probably a pipe dream....

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Even though the price from Stardock is higher, you get the Collector's edition to make up for it. It comes with a music CD, some posters, and a Sins desktop theme. You get the physical goodies if you get download+box, or mp3s/pdfs if you get download only.

It's sad that the publisher can't undercut the retailer to keep them happy, but the retailer doesn't share the same consideration for the publisher :P