Amazon Prime will Now Give Members A Pretty Hefty Discount On New Games

It looks like Amazon wants to gain a stronger foothold in the games market, offering a new deal for Prime users that would grant a 20 percent discount on new games.

It sounds like a pretty sweet addition to a Prime membership. As part of the $99 annual fee, Prime members will now get 20 percent off of all new games, including pre-orders and up to two weeks after a game launches. That’s not a super wide post-launch window, but if you’re looking to get a game early and save a few bucks in the meantime, it could add up to quite a savings over the year.

Unfortunately, you won’t see the discounted price on the item until you head to checkout, but you can probably expect a savings of about $10-$12 for the average $60 game. This discount applies to all special editions, too. The only real catch is that the game must be a physical copy that is sold and shipped by Amazon, which is pretty much all major titles at this point.

Full details can be found on Amazon’s official listing, where the new 20 percent discount is shown off alongside games like Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Far Cry Primal, Dark Souls III, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Street Fighter V and Lego The Avengers.

If you’ve already got a Prime membership, you’re good to roll with this new promotion. If you’re not a Prime member, then there’s a link on that same page to grant a free trial. There’s also a reminder that, along with free two-day shipping, photo storage, Prime Music, Prime TV and movies and Kindle books, gamers who subscribe to Amazon’s premium service enjoy release day delivery at no extra charge for games, as well as a pre-order price guarantee that makes sure you’re getting the lowest price available for your new games.

It makes sense that Amazon would try to beef up its Prime offerings for gamers, since they’re kind of a massive audience at this point. There’s also the fact that other retailers, like Best Buy, offer similar programs. Best Buy’s Gamers Club Unlocked, for instance, offers the same 20 percent discount and extra Rewards Club points if you buy a new game; all for a $30 annual fee.

It’s going to be a pretty massive year for games, so getting on board with a program like one of the two mentioned above might not be such a bad idea. If you buy, say, more than four games in a year, you’ll almost certainly have your cost of entry covered. And with everything listed above, we’ve also got games like The Last Guardian, No Man’s Sky and Star Fox Zero coming down the pipe, so it shouldn’t be too hard to make your money back in savings.