Skill Point Games Opens

Published on October 23, 2012, by - Posted in News 4

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If you’ve been holding off saving money by buying games online simply because you believe you’re destroying Aussie jobs or not supporting Australian businesses  a lifeline has come.

Based in Sydney and run by a good friend of mine, Skill Point Games is a new online store that is basing itself on its lower-than-RRP pricing for everything it stocks. It also is priding itself on customer service and transparency regarding the video game retail industry.

“The truth is, many of the bigger stores get away with high margins on games. We keep our margins low, because we’re not all about our bottom line. We commit ourselves to providing the best customer service in our field, and do what we can to make sure our customers are the happiest around,” says Adrian Vergara, director of the new business, “The difference between us and other ‘cheap gaming stores’ often deal in imported stock, which can be problematic if there are any defective items or if anything goes wrong with an order.”

“Some sites also masquerade as Australian game stores, but the truth is they are based overseas, which means delivery times can be long and frustrating.”

Adrian Vergara, owner of the business and fellow video game journalist at Level Up Times also says that, “By keeping the business in Australia, we can ensure a speedy service, quick delivery on items – including release-day delivery for pre-orders, support Australian businesses, and have some very happy customers.”

The store can be found online at http://www.SkillPointGames.com/. Those interested can follow Skill Point Games on Twitter (@SkillPointGames), Facebook (Facebook.com/SkillPointGames).

 

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Author: Kieran View all posts by
I like to embarrass my friends in public by speaking in different accents. Machinima dude and game journo - http://www.youtube.com/KieranMFilms
  • http://twitter.com/iJinjo Isaac Hendry

    $90 for MOH? $80 for Halo 4 and AC3? Stick with OZGS.

    • LevelUpAdrian

      Hey, I run the shop (no I’m not going to give you a marketing pitch). I’m here to explain why we’re more expensive than OzGameShop. It’s pretty simple, actually. OzGameShop deal in imported games (from the UK). As they’re actually based in the UK, the delivery time takes a while and if there’s an issue with the game, refunds/exchanges can be a pain.

      As we deal with Aussie copies of games, they’re more expensive (that’s not us, that’s how much the publisher set their games at cost value for shops to buy from). However, delivery is super fast (before-release-date delivery sometimes, depending on the game) and any issues (like DOA items, etc.) can be easily and quickly rectified.

      Hope that clears up why prices in Australian game shops (both Skill Point Games and other game shops in Australia) are so expensive.

      That said, we usually do tend to have the cheapest prices when it comes to Aussie copies of games.

      • http://twitter.com/iJinjo Isaac Hendry

        Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of the way your business is run in comparison to a brick and mortar store as well as in comparison to an overseas based one such as OZGS and what I am getting at is that I buy online because I want the cheapest price possible, whether that comes from OZGS, eBay, DungeonCrawl or you.
        I’m a patient man, I can wait a few extra days or weeks for 95% of games. There have been exactly 3 occasions in the last 2 years where I’ve purchased a game from a brick and mortar store (such as EB Games) at the full price and actually kept the game after the 7 day ‘trial’ period.

        All that said, I wish you the best of luck and I hope your company succeeds, we need more people in this country undercutting EB, just as we need to educate more people about the existence of sites like yours so they know they don’t have to do their shopping at EB.

        • LevelUpAdrian

          Thanks for your reply.

          Yeah I wasn’t trying to sound all defensive (so I apologise if it came across that way) but wanted to clear up some assumptions about what games we deal in and why we price them so.

          We think of ourselves as the in-between. Not so far away as an online store but obviously not as accessible as a B+M store. We’re in Sydney, and this is our full-time thing, so we’re able to provide quick service and fast delivery, and sort out any issues extremely quickly.

          We also have prices (obviously for not everything) for a lot of items that are cheaper than the competitors (like OzGameShop).

          Thanks for the well-wishes for the business. Any competition at the moment is good for the industry in general, and I really do hope this all works out! At this point we’re counting on spreading the word, and seeing where it goes.

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