OzGameShop going downhill?

9991 on 30/10/2013 - 12:39
Last edited 31/10/2013 - 12:12

Hi,

Is it just me or is Ozgameshop going downhill lately?

Its just, i've noticed the prices seem a bit more expensive then they used to be, and alot of sales items aren't really competitive. Don't get me wrong, i still find cheap stuff there, but alot of inconsistent pricing on certain items…

I also have found the customer-service a bit strange at times, not responding to queries about stock and then giving vague answers days later regarding back-order items. I asked if they were willing to let me use an earned voucher with the Halloween sales voucher, but they wouldn't allow it.

I dunno, I just wonder if the had to tighten things due to the economy or something? Is there some UK currency issues which have led to expenses and tighter customer practices?

Gaming

Related Stores

OzGameShop
OzGameShop

Comments

  • [Deactivated] on 30/10/2013 - 12:43
    +4

    Yea I think they've changed ownership. They just don't feel like the Ozgameshop of old.

    • scotty on 30/10/2013 - 13:14

      When did that happen? I thought the website is still owned by Xbite / 365games.

  • henrikoez on 30/10/2013 - 13:02
    +5

    I feel the same thing. I still manage to find cheap games but overall it isn't as good as it used to be.

    • [Deactivated] on 30/10/2013 - 13:06
      +1

      I haven't bought anything from there since GOW Ascension was released.

      • henrikoez on 30/10/2013 - 14:12
        +1

        I bought KH 1.5 and Beyond Special edition since they're much cheaper; but I haven't bought non-new releases from them because they rarely have good price drops anymore. Surprisingly EB and JB are quite good with old games.

  • YaBigGoose on 30/10/2013 - 14:39
    +1

    Quite often I can find their prices at JB or similar stores now, i.e. they're pretty shitty now.

  • Spawn Peak on 30/10/2013 - 15:27
    +2

    I found out about them in 2011. They were so good back then, but now… not so much.

  • Circly on 30/10/2013 - 15:34
    +1

    Yeah prices have gone up alot. I buy from blockbuster, fishpond, video ezy etc now. They do take alot longer with deliveries tho.

  • _Bruce_ on 30/10/2013 - 18:21
    +3

    Prices have been higher for some time now, but they are good on some items and delivery is good. Service is spectacularly bad.

    Here is my service history:

    Me:

    have a query about the following product:
    https://www.ozgameshop.com/pc-games/rocksmith-2014-solus-gam…
    I was wondering if this has the pre-order bonus track 'Cherub Rock' that some places are offering. Various places have other bonus tracks aswell (Australian pre-orders appear to get 'Elephant' by Tame Impala). There are no detail on this on the page, please let me know.

    OzGameShop:

    All of the contents that are currently included within this item will be stated on the listing. Please refer to this for further information. If we are to be updated of any further information from the manufacturer we will be sure to update our listings accordingly.

    Me:

    Wondering if you are you planning to get the new Firefly board game?

    OzGameShop:

    I cannot guarantee if we will stock/ restock this item; however I have handed this query directly onto our buy in team and hopefully, they will be able to secure stock of this item shortly.
    If it is the case that we manage to secure stock of this item, then the website will be updated accordingly.

    No mention of notifying me or giving any indication of likelihood.

    Me:

    Under 'My Player Points' I have 720 points which are 'Pending' from an order on 11/07/2013.
    The page states:
    "The points have been added to your account, but are not able to be used yet. Please note that points are not available to use until 30 days after dispatch."
    Yet the goods arrived months ago, so why are the points still pending?

    OzGameShop:

    I can confirm that these should be in your account soon :)

    • 9991 on 30/10/2013 - 19:41
      +1

      I've pretty much had the same type of responses to questions. Very vague aren't they.

    • henrikoez on 02/11/2013 - 09:47
      +1

      their customer service is so so now. If you ask about anything related with your account or order, they can help you. but if it's anything about the product details etc, they will give lazy answers.

      • _Bruce_ on 02/11/2013 - 10:59
        +1

        The player points question doesn't relate to my account?

        • Circly on 02/11/2013 - 11:50

          The trick is to post on their Facebook page. They get back to you within the day (excluding weekends)

  • Zylam Marex on 01/11/2013 - 14:46
    +2

    Yea, it's just not the same anymore, I used to buy like 3 games a month from them, now can't even remember the last time I bought a game, I think it was Tomb Raider.

    I've noticed the games that used to be in their 20's are now in 30's. Could always find awesome games for 25, brand new but it's all gone now.

    Really sad man I feel like crying. Ozgameshop was the best.

  • Tal_Shiar on 02/11/2013 - 15:29
    +1

    It's a bit sad, but I'm quite happy paying around $10 more at eb knowing I can walk in and take home rather than wait for ogs. Some people on Facebook hadn't even got gta 5, by the time id put 38 hours into it and finished it smh

  • jtd on 06/11/2013 - 13:40
    +3

    I've probably bought more than $1000 of stuff from them over a year's time, then nothing for several months. Everything about them has gotten worse except delivery times which are marginally better.

    • prices aren't as compelling.
    • you get less reward points, and they now have expiry dates.
    • increasing restrictions on redeeming coupons & codes.
    • service still friendly but less helpful.
  • PayPal Sucker on 30/11/2013 - 20:38
    +2

    Yes this mob are shocking. I've had my first and only experience with them, I will never use them again. Their name is intentionally misleading as they are called ozgameshop implying they're in Australia but turns out they are not. I had some kids advent calendars sent from them which I ordered maybe a month ago. Took quite a while to arrive but that didn't bother me so much.

    The product that arrived clearly wasn't brand new and was mostly destroyed by the time it got to us. There were holes in the box, torn and smashed items inside. This could only have been intentional damage. ozgameshop offered a paltry partial refund on seeing photos of the calendars which meant I was still going to be left with $60 worth of useless junk so I rejected the offer and asked to be provided what I paid for instead. As a result of this they insisted I send it back to the UK! Obviously this wasn't economical, it was going to cost more than I paid for the product. The company wouldn't budge at all so I logged a paypal dispute.

    In retrospect I could tell they knew this would go nowhere from that point as paypal's dispute policy doesn't allow for anything other than sending the article back, regardless of circumstance. So this is their business model. Send substandard product, overcharge for it, offer a paltry refund and profit. No matter my justification or circumstance, all I got from paypal were a bunch of generic, blind responses insisting I send the goods back and that they hadn't seen my tracking info yet.

    So I went back to ozgameshop and agreed in retrospect to accept the paltry refund, just to put it all behind me. At least i'd get something back. This is where I saw ozgameshop's true colours. They insisted I only deal through paypal from then on and would no longer provide any refund.

    Anyway, lesson learned. I had a couple of junk advent calendars which my kids would no longer receive for Christmas but instead have gone in the bin. The irony is these were cheaper at Myer but I didn't do my homework beforehand. ozgameshop are now on my blacklist and paypal are close too. At least I now realise them to be useless when it comes to the majority of shonky business practice, and I will certainly no longer recommend them as a safe way to buy online, as I've been guilty of doing in the past.

    • Circly on 01/12/2013 - 23:26

      you should spam their facebook page with this im sure they will be more 'helpful' then.

    • SirFlibbled on 02/12/2013 - 10:55

      One of the rules of buying online from overseas is that if things go wrong you just need to accept it and move on as the cost of sending it back it prohibitive (unless it's Amazon who are excellent to deal with).

  • Cptn America on 01/12/2013 - 23:48
    -2

    Not sure why so many of you bother, Dungeon Crawl is far superior. They actually have a retail shop in melbourne cbd and the ship all there stuff from it so you will get it quickly. Games are usually $60-$70.

    • Tal_Shiar on 02/12/2013 - 05:02

      We are based in Moorabbin, Victoria, but please note that we do not accept walk-ins to our warehouse. This helps us to keep our prices low. Please direct ONLINE ORDER enquiries to [email protected] OR 03 9017 4990 - do not call the retail store for online orders, they will be unable to help. At peak seasons, we may not be able to answer the phones, but will reply to any email enquiries within 24 hours.

    • exit on 08/12/2013 - 15:54
      -1

      don't know why people are negging this. dungeon crawl is among the cheapest and offer free shipping which arrives in like 2 days. As well as a retail shop

      • Circly on 08/12/2013 - 18:29

        cheap? I dont think so.

        • exit on 11/12/2013 - 15:34
          -1

          Depends what you buy

    • Snatcher on 11/12/2013 - 09:58

      Sry, but Dungeon Crawl is a joke, especially on ebay. False pics/infos……

      • exit on 14/12/2013 - 09:30
        -1

        They clearly state that its import

        • Snatcher on 14/12/2013 - 18:25

          yeah and what about the "cover can vary". Be honest, you never know if you are going to get a Pal, NTSC (could be even Japanese lol) Version, added to that "Greatest Hits" and "essentials" but they never put these Covers on display…..

        • exit on 16/12/2013 - 11:50
          -1

          They state that all their games will work on australian/pal systems. They also have excellent ebay feedback. 200k+ pos feedback and only 0.4% have had problems with them. Clearly, you haven't bought from them.

        • Snatcher on 16/12/2013 - 16:46
          -1

          lol seriously, do you work for them?
          I bought 3 times from them, every single time through ebay and every single one of them was a disaster. So I just gave up…..

          edit: wrong, one was through fishpond but the seller was still these guys.

        • Snatcher on 16/12/2013 - 16:57
          -1

          Ah yes and answer me this one. Why don't they just put the picture on ebay which displays the game you get instead of always doing false advertisement…..

        • exit on 17/12/2013 - 18:21
          -1

          No i dont work for them. I just dont get why you're hating them so much. Clearly you just had bad luck or something wrong with you address.

          About the photo, it's only stock and will tell you what game you're getting. They don't need to show you where the game is from because it still SHOULD work on Australian/pal systems.

        • exit on 18/12/2013 - 20:21
          -1

          Not to mention, why would they want to send you a different game than what you ordered. LOL are you serious? Because thats the only "reason" you have to hate them so much.

  • Linkwick on 02/12/2013 - 12:07
    +1

    I can understand that their prices have been affected by the 15% slump in the AU$ (against the GBP), but even their "sales" have been lacklustre IMO.

    I used to buy semi-regularly from 'em, but I've been buying more games locally now - when Big W & JB are selling new releases for around $70 or so, it's sometimes even more expensive to buy imported online (not to mention the 5-10 business days wait). Even some local sales have had some better deals, unfortunately

    • SirFlibbled on 02/12/2013 - 13:30
      +1

      Not unfortunately. It's a great thing to support local business where they are price competitive.

      • Tal_Shiar on 02/12/2013 - 13:39

        Unfortunately you missed the past tense of picking up a great bargain!

      • Linkwick on 02/12/2013 - 15:38
        +3

        Sorry, yeah "unfortunately" was for lack of online bargains, not locals price-competitiveness.

  • Peaky on 04/12/2013 - 17:22
    +1

    Game prices have definitely creeped up, however I feel like it's more noticeable since Aus prices (for the most part) have gone down.

    There's no longer these huge price gaps and I'd be more willing to pay $10 more and not have to wait 2+ weeks.

    Never had to email them so no comments about customer service. They used to post a lot on whirlpool, though I feel like they've slowed down on that.

  • RI4V4N on 04/12/2013 - 17:29

    OZ game shop gets some good PAL releases we dont get in Aus tho.

  • henrikoez on 05/12/2013 - 09:52
    +2

    I've been buying stuffs from them and yeah, they're going downhill. I've been having problems with my latest orders from them. One of them is damaged badly and the other one is missing. I contacted them via email about it and got partial refund but those problems make me worried about buying from them again. Pay $10-20 more on local retailer and I will get the same game but undamaged or missing anything.

  • johnno07 on 13/12/2013 - 23:36

    I've spent a lot of money (thousands) with OzGS over the last few years - since they were just an eBay store. I've always found their customer service, even recently, to be excellent. Though I have definitely been buying less from them lately as local prices are a LOT better than they were a few years ago. If a game is $79 from JB and $69 at OzGS - I'm going to JB. Might as well keep the money in Australia, plus I get the game 10-14 days earlier.

    I also buy quite a lot from Beat The Bomb and MightyApe. Though I'm not buying less from the latter as they've recently doubled their postage cost. I still buy from OzGS but it's mainly just cheaper, back-catalogue stuff.

    • 9991 on 15/12/2013 - 20:42

      Yea, I wouldn't touch MightyApe anymore, found they really aren't very cheap. Yea, Im finding stuff is a bit more reasonable here, though still expensive, but i agree that the price difference is not as high as it used to be, but those 'cheaper' games take alot longer to get cheaper.

      Very sad Ozgameshop isn't the one-stop gameshop anymore. At one point they made it alot easier and affordable to buy games (2 years back).

    • Linkwick on 18/12/2013 - 13:58

      MightyApe has become 10x worse IMO, in the last 12mths. Postage is now $7.90 and kills most bargains (unless bulk-buying), and their quoted "RRP" is ridiculous!! When the "savings" they advertise are (for example) based on a RRP of $70-$80 for 3DS games, you know they're full of it.

      Really disappointed how uncompetitive they've become.

  • shadowarrior on 17/12/2013 - 15:15
    +2

    For games I can wait till they get to me, I just sue Play Asia. For games I want to get my hands on straight away, I just find a good price from the brick and mortar shops around here.

    • SirFlibbled on 18/12/2013 - 10:42
      +5

      No need to litigate. Just buy from them :p

      • shadowarrior on 18/12/2013 - 12:07
        +2

        LOL!!! Did I just type 'sue' instead of 'use'. Woah!! :P

  • diddy50 on 30/12/2013 - 10:56
    +1

    What REEEEALLY annoyed me was I was going to buy the special green Wii U remote Luigi for $55 a few days ago. then after Christmas we get the special code in the email and I get a 10% voucher, but oh look at this the price has gone up by 10% to $61 all of a sudden…so the end price is the old price

    That is just deceptive, but yes they are still the cheapest, still not right

    • Circly on 30/12/2013 - 12:24
      +1

      nah they arent the cheapest. No way. Even local stores are around the same price for new games.

      • diddy50 on 30/12/2013 - 15:08

        True, but for the wii u remote it is.

        Videoed is cheaper. Noticed the 20% off games currently. Wow super Mario wii u for 52$! Like 15$ less than ozgs!

  • meka on 03/01/2014 - 22:51

    Blockbuster is cheaper, always having 15-20% off, although their shipping times are slow.

    • CT Eon on 21/01/2014 - 20:59

      I think it's not as slow as oz game shop now I ordered off them last time and assuming they had stock it only takes a week or so
      Either way since I discovered blockbuster unless I am after premium versions (which oz game has at times) I no longer go to them which is sad…the fall of a great game site

  • cheepwun on 25/01/2014 - 02:12

    I have had an issue recently with a refund being less than what I paid for.

    Ozgameshop said the item was in stock when I made the order. Several days later they responded that it wasn't and I was refunded. Only it was a refund that was 14.99 instead of 21.49 that I paid. I'm not quite sure how this can happen. As a form of compensation I was offered a time-limited (30 days) coupon for $5 off which I still haven't used. I'd be interested to see if others have had the same issue. It was eventually sorted but I was taken aback at the apparent cluelessness of a staffer at ozgameshop named Seanie. I received a response from Seanie that told me that this refund I got was correct when in fact it simply wasn't (as the most quick check of the order would tell you). Not quite sure what's up with that. I actually sent 2 messages to them (one was sent a few days later since I didn't receive a response to my first message), and Seanie said the amount refunded was correct while 2 other employees (Jade and Jessica G) said it wasn't correct and I would get the remaining moneys.

    So 2 different stories from the same shop.

    The remaining moneys were refunded properly, but not without some hassle and apparently a clueless ozgameshop employee. I never used ozgameshop until recently so I don't know of their glory days, but an event like this where you think "how could this happen?" does tend to change your perceptions a bit.

    Aside from the stock issue and the clueless staffer that can cock up something so basic (and whoever processed the first refund), I'm happy to say that (so far) they actually sent new items when ordering new, unlike my terrible experiences with JB-Hifi (first online order ever with them) https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/127309 and EB Games (first negative experience out of a handful of otherwise good orders) https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/130252

    I notice Blockbuster have been better with pricing on about 8 out of 10 items I'm chasing. I don't have enough experience with them to speak of them yet.

  • Circly on 08/02/2014 - 14:37

    Shipping is $2 for an order under $50 now

    • henrikoez on 08/02/2014 - 15:51

      I just knew about it a couple days ago, kinda disappointed. I always bought small orders from them, now? I don't know.

  • Echelon86 on 27/02/2018 - 22:09

    Yes Buyer Beware

    Ozgameshop.com is an awful unreliable company

    I've had several orders not arrive or arrived damaged.

    Staff are rude and unhelpful

    They pretend to be located in Australia and then ship stuff untracked.
    They cancel orders and have stock problems fufilling orders.

    I would recommended spending a few $ to get whatever you are after from a reliable Australian store.

    BUYER BEWARE - AVOID!!

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