New Target preorder program offers gift cards upon purchase

by JC Fletcher on Apr 16th 2009 9:50AM

Target has been taking pre-orders on games for a while, but the retailer's updated program may just lure customers in with the promise of free money. In Target, the store pays you! Stores will offer these $1 "Reservation Cards" for popular titles. When you return with the card to buy the game (as long as it's within seven days of the game's release) you'll get not only the reserved item, but a $5 Target gift card.

The list of reservable games includes Punch-Out!!, EA Sports Active, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, and UFC 2009 Undisputed. Is the prospect of one of these games buying you free salsa (or duct tape, or Diet Coke Plus, or whatever) enough to get you into Target's electronics section?

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Tags: gift-card, preorder, reservation, target

Reader Comments (41)

If the Gamestop preorder gifts are lame then yes, I'd be all over that for a game I know I'd buy.

So buy X number of games and the $5 gift cards will buy you a free game? Sounds great!

x=12

@tyguy92 :
Or x=10. Either way we have a winner

I buy games at Target when I am at Target and want a game. If there's something that I'm going to pre-order (ugh, just saying the word makes me feel dirty) I'll go to Game Stop...if only because there's 3 of them within 5 minutes of my house or my office.

Doesn't really matter right now anyway, since I don't think there's any 'must-have' games coming out for me for a while (since Bioshock 2 is being handled by a different team, I'll be waiting for the reviews.)

"I buy games at Target when I am at Target and want a game."

Seems logical.

Why reserve when 90% of the time within a week some idiot trades it in and you can save 10-11$?

Gamestop always has used copies on day 1. The reason you shouldn't buy them is that gamestop sells the copy for 60 dollars the first time, and makes maybe 5 bucks. They buy it back for 20-30, sell it for 50, and make 20-30 bucks. In other words, they can only stay in business because suckers are dumb enough to sell back the games they've just bought, and other suckers can always be counted on to buy those used games for a slight discount.

Buying new games supports the developer. Buying used games supports Gamestop. The right choice is clear, for me anyway.

Banana....
So from your logic you want these games sold for a Cheaper price, but ALSO want the trade in credit higher.
What happens when company wide, Trade dollars given exceed used sales? thats called taking a loss. Gamestop is a business,who has to record profit in order to..well..do anything.

I one time traded in a copy of super paper mario, 5 months after release and got 42 dollars for it using a "gasp" Trade promotion.

My main point was that when you buy used games, you aren't supporting the developer. I realize that Gamestop is a business, and that making money is the goal, but it's idiotic to think that it's somehow dumb to buy a game new when you could save a few dollars and get it used. I didn't list figures with the purpose of saying "look how little they pay!" but rather to highlight how they aren't a game store at all...they are a used game store. Most of their profit comes from suckers that purchase games only to sell them back at a loss.

It is too early in the morning to argue the merits and demerits of gamestop as a company, and of the used game market. Just like with pawn shops, there will always be a clientele that is willing to hawk their wares for less than they are worth, in order to get shinier, newer wares, which they will then probably hawk right back to the pawn shop.

Why should i care if it has shrinkwrap when i've never had a used game not work? Buying a game for 10$ cheaper is the opposite of a sucker move, paying 10-15 extra for 0 reason is the sucker move.

Also only idiots get 25ish for a new game, and why do i care if an idiot gets ripped? Smart people either EBAY or wait till they have like 5 games and get the 40% bump + the 10% from the magazine. I was more than happy to take the 48$ i got after burning through the way too short and overhyped Fable 2, hell a rental nowadays is fucking 9.50 to me, losing 12$ for 2 months of the game is more than fair.

Boo fucking who, if the developers don't like used/rental games, make games that are worth playing through more than once/having any lasting appeal. Why haven't i ever ebayed/gamestopped/craigslisted Fallout 3 and GTA 4? Because of upcoming DLC and a game worth more than 1 short 3-10 hour glance, Halo 3? Awesome online and new content, Burnout paradise? Same reasons.

Why did i Ebay Uncharted/MGS4? Why did i gamestop sell Fable 2 and Deadspace? Getting 45+ for all 4? Because there was no reason to go back, no reason to not take the 180$ and use it in Valkirya Chronicles/RE5/MLB the show, all of which have either awesome replayability or upcoming DLC.

I'm with BananaBoat. Buy new. Support developers of awesome games.

i only preorder online these days because i'm never sure if i'll get to a particular store on release day.

In Soviet Russia...

...eh, I decided against finishing the joke.

The Internet appreciates your temperance.

I just think that you didn't have the punchline to finish it...

but that does not stop the majority of Russian Reversal jokes... so kudos and huzza to you.

This will help, yes. Though I'll still be buying most of my games through GameFly, since my MO is just to rent it and keep it if I like, I get 10% off from there anyway.

I do that too...lol...

you get a BRAND NEW GAME ofr a "USED" price...even when you are the FIRST person to get the game..I got Resistance 2 for like $46 after having it for 2 weeks and I was the FIRST person to get that copy as they sent it to me as soon as it was released

The closest Target to me is 20 miles away, or about a 2 hour drive. Even free money is not enough to make me willingly deal with that traffic.

20 miles is a 2 hour drive? Are you driving 10 miles an hour?

The mathematics skills in this thread are INCREDIBLE!!!

Still...2 hours to drive 20 miles? Do you live in a swamp?

By drive, he clearly means fast walk.

Some places have horrible traffic. Wrong time of day and, yeah I could see 2 hours as being plausible.

Traveling to that Target is mostly an exercise in trying not to die. Walking would be faster if there were any way to avoid those roads, but since there isn't, I'm fairly certain that the resulting trip to the hospital would increase my travel time by several days if I'm lucky.

I'm never paying $60 for a game again. At least for this generation.

Besides the 360 launch itself, the only time i did were NBA2k games (im an NBA junkie) Halo3, Fallout 3 and GTA4, the rest were worth waiting a week to save 10-15$

What a country!

I only pre-order special editions anymore. We're years beyond the time when there was actually a risk that you wouldn't be able to get a game on day one if you didn't pre-order (last time it happened to me was GTA Vice City. Every store in town was sold out, then after midnight, I found a copy at K-mart of all places). The next special edition game I'll be buying is the next Team Ico game (if we actually get a special edition in the US this time...), so I don't know if it would be worth it for me to pre-order at target.

I pre-order games from Amazon.com and they are often time $3-6 cheaper AND I have free shipping with NO tax. So I dont think this is enough to get me to pre-order at Target. Suppose its a good market plan on their part tho

Yeah this is a lot better of a deal than GameStop, especially if reserving means you're actually reserving (unlike at GameStop where they'll sell reserve copies anyway on day one).

However, as mentioned above, generally I go with Amazon when I preorder. Free shipping, no tax (unless you live in NY), generally a few bucks cheaper, popular preorders generally come with a free $10 gift card, and sometimes you get games a day early (I got Gears 2 a day before release).

I do most of my game purchasing at Target, but that's just because I get to use my moms employee discount. So now I get 10% off and five bucks if I reserve it? Interesting....

So much you can get with $5, especially in these economic times... and it's a Target.

I only buy games at GameStop because I have friends there that fill me in on how to cheat the system. But I fucking love Target. Count me in.

Target DOES NOT get games on their release date. I bought a "reservation" card from them once only to find that they were not getting the game until TWO WEEKS after the release date. So if you want the game when it comes out, reserve it elsewhere.

My Target gets them on release date.

@WRE: Do tell more so we can all try to cheat the system...

Interesting take on the loyalty card i suppose...

This will save very few people money. While I can appreciate how savvy most of us that frequent this site are, common consumers will only use that $5 as an excuse to add in more games or (as I'm sure Target hopes) accessories.

They're not giving anything away here.

$5 isn't enough to make me drive farther away when Gamestop is like a half mile from my college, maybe less.

Circuit City used to give a $10 giftcard, which was nice.

You what? I bought my dead Xbox Elite from target along with other peripherals and they have the BEST, so far, customer service I've had the sad pleasure of dealing with. I think this might have just been the tiny push to avoid at all costs and all possibilities Gamestop. I HATE you Gamestop!!!! Nuff said, go Target on this one. Now get some gaming exclusives and we're GOLD BABY!!!

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New Target preorder program offers gift cards upon purchase

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