Amazon Gold Box "Deals"

I just had to write on this. I love Amazon - I practically did all my Christmas shopping there - and they have some fantastic deals on video games and mp3 downloads (I haven't bought a CD in years, but I've probably bought 10 digital albums in the past year, usually under $5 - makes me wonder how people can buy stuff from iTunes). Every once in a while they have an all-day XBox 360, Wii, or PS3 Gold Box day where they have system-related game/movie deals hour-by-hour for the entire day. Yesterday was a PS3 day.

Granted, I don't need to be buying any more games; I can barely find time to play the ones I have. But one of their clues was for the new Tomb Raider game, so I thought for the right price I'd take the plunge. I noticed that they had the game for $46.99 the day before, so I was hoping for a deal in the $30 range. To my surprise, when the "deal" became active they had a price of $44.89 (or close - can't remember the exact cents) - a real savings of $2.10 (they had raised their "regular" price of the game to $56.99 for the day - so they claimed a savings of $12.10). To my greater surprise, the deal sold out within 15 minutes. Apparently $2 is the big savings folks were waiting for...

After seeing that, I thought I'd check the game today to see what Amazon was now selling for. Unsurprisingly, the price today is $46.99. What a deal.

I guess I can't really blame Amazon - hell, they sold out at a $2 savings, so they got what they wanted out of it - but that's really shady to me. If you're going to keep people in anticipation for a deal, at least save them a little money; and if not, don't lower the price back down the very next day.

I feel I should mention this though: they did offer Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway for $10, which really was a $50 savings off their regular price. That was pretty amazing (and one of the reasons I had my hopes up for a great price on Tomb Raider Underworld). However, their Deal of the Day was Motorstorm Pacific Rift for $40 - which is the same sale price that Best Buy has it for this week. They definitely hit both sides of the "bargain" spectrum yesterday.