My Single Mom Life

I just want to give a huge shout out to Hubba Games, and mostly to Andrew in their customer service department.

I told you all how I had pre-ordered Guitar Hero 3 for Sebastian on the 10th, well, today I log in to Amazon and now it can be pre-ordered for $10 less.
I was kinda pissed off ya know? I paid $99.99 + $20 for shipping, and here's Target selling it for $89.99 and only $2.98 shipping.
I was like fuck! I got totally ripped off!

So I sent Hubba Games an email asking what's up with the pricing here, did I get ripped off by you guys or what?
Andrew sent me an email like within 5 minutes, asking for my home number, so I sent him an email with it.
He called in less than 2 minutes from hitting send.
He talked to me for an hour about pricing and distribution issues.
Hubba Games is a distributer, they get the games before most retail stores do, they make sure they can fulfill every pre-order they get, where Target can't.
Target takes a lot of pre-orders on games and then has to cancel those orders, because the distributors didn't send them enough because they actually weren't allocated for the amount of orders they took. I know this is true because I've pre-ordered from Target before and had them cancel my order days after I was supposed to get it.

But being a distributer, they can make sure that they get more than enough games to fill every single pre-order, and even orders that come in after the pre-order stage.
Andrew guaranteed my game would arrive on time, he verified my address, told me exactly how it would ship, and even gave me his personal cell number to call him 2 days before the game release date, because he said they will actually have it that early. He said if I call him and he has the game, he'll ship it before the release date just like they do with all their pre-orders, and be able to give me my tracking number over the phone.
They have never shipped late unless the game maker sends it to them late, and they actually ship 90% of their pre-orders within 2 days prior to release dates. (the remaining 10% is because the game maker sends it to them late)

I got off the phone feeling very secure about my purchase, where as before I felt like I got ripped off. Having worked in retail before, I know a bit about distribution, and knew what he was talking about.
He also told me about their website (linked above) where the prices are actually cheaper than Amazon in some cases, mostly on the shipping fees.
Amazon takes a 15% commission on every single video game that's ordered.
I had no idea they did that, and so from now on, I'll be doing a lot of comparison shopping on my game purchases.
I'll check Amazon, and then check their website, if it is indeed cheaper, I'll order directly from them.
Yeah, I'm an Amazon affiliate and by telling you all this, you may not click on my links anymore, but I want the best prices possible on my purchases and I know you do too.
If it means I don't make an affiliate sale because people are buying directly from the distributors, not a problem for me.
I'd rather know people are getting the most bang for their buck because hey, we all want to save money when we can.
So anyway, I'm much happier now that I know why the prices are the way they are, and know that I have a personal guarantee on my game purchase.