New (beta) price watch site for games - ozgamegoat.com - please test

AssociatedLtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 10/04/2013 - 11:00
Last edited 15/01/2015 - 18:03 by 1 other user

Hi folks,

To scratch a bit of a personal itch, and uphold the ozbargain virtues, I've whipped together a new site to monitor game prices, across various online stores.

It's called http://ozgamegoat.com - my wife likes goats, ok?

It's very much a beta, but I'd love to have some feedback on what you like, and what you hate. I'm not going to explain the interface, because it's meant to be straight-forward (though it probably isn't).

Still to come:

  • email alerts - choose a game and a desired price and get an automated email when it hits your target. This won't require yet-another-account-signup, because, well, I bloody hate those.
  • more stores!! (suggestions welcome)

Things I know are a problem:

  • I don't differentiate between stores that offer free shipping and those that don't.
  • Some stores offer two versions of a game: 'import' and normal. Should I keep the differentiation, or do you folks just not care?
  • There are still many games that appear under different names, thus making the price comparison difficult. I have a tool to fix these, it just takes time and effort :-) Maybe I need moderators :-)
  • The site is really not deployed in any production-status way. Go your hardest, but if it doesn't hold up I'm going to yank it. This is definitely a beta!

Thanks ozbargainers, looking forward to your comments!

Gaming

Related Stores

ozgamegoat.com
ozgamegoat.com

Comments

  • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 10/04/2013 - 16:20

    That's the sound you hear when you realise you could have gotten a game cheaper :-)

  • [Deactivated] on 11/04/2013 - 18:59

    Why no play-asia, yes-asia, cduniverse etc OP?

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 11/04/2013 - 19:05

      Thanks for the ideas - I'll certainly add them to my todo list.

      DSE is next on there, since they often have pretty good prices.

      My only real requirement is that shipping is either negligible, or easy to calculate. No point something being flagged as cheap if it costs $20 to get it to your door!

      Do people care about filtering based on store? Does store loyalty ever outweigh the cheapest price? :-)

      Thanks!

      • [Deactivated] on 11/04/2013 - 19:11

        If I see a store I prefer perhaps with a few dollars I may go with my preference but tbh it's not important. Perhaps if we could click on the link to the game and see all store prices for ourselves and then decide from there?

        Play-asia are free postage on orders over $25, Yes-Asia are free over $40 and cduniverse (USA store) are reasonable postage fees. Their postage worked out half the price of Amazon's on the same item (Muramasa Rebirth Limited Edition) that I purchased last night.

        • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 11/04/2013 - 19:20

          You can already compare the prices for a game (just click the game title). I still have a lot of work to eliminate the similar names though to make that work as well as it should :)

          You can also setup a price alert for email from the same place -as of about 30 minutes ago :-)

          I do the currency conversion where necessary (Zavvi for example) already, and for any sites that have simple shipping rules I should be able to cope with that.

          So many things to work on :-)

  • jtd on 24/04/2013 - 11:22

    love the goat so far, but just some suggestions & personal opinion:
    - yes, separate imported & region if possible. A few gamers purchase things according to certain principals and this would help greatly. There's also the issue of region specific DLC and region lock.
    - another price comparison site has a price history line chart, not sure if anyone else finds this interesting but price history in chart form or not is great.
    - store rankings, some stores are less consistent than others.

    Also, happy to volunteer as mod to weed out duplicates e.g. goty = game of the year seems to be a common thing.

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 24/04/2013 - 12:11

      Thanks!

      I've already got different types for prices in the DB (ex-display, import etc) I just don't do anything with it yet. I'm thinking little icons next to the price, with some pop-up help.

      There's already a line chart, if you click through to a game title :-)

      How would you calculate store rankings? I'm a little bit wary of singling out any store - I'd like to think that there is advantage to everyone being listed (it's more sales right?) so I don't want to make any out to be "bad".

      PM me your email address, when I have some better tools I will keep you in mind for mod :-)

  • NiteMice on 27/04/2013 - 19:48

    Are you planning on including digital distributors too, e.g. GreenManGames, Steam, etc.? That seems to be where all the bargains are on PC games these days, yet no comparison site I know of covers…
    As far as the postage thing goes, for now, even if you just have a page that says how much each store "typically" charges for shipping, it would be better than nothing.
    Also, I'd be interested in helping out as a mod too, if you want some more help!

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 28/04/2013 - 13:11

      I've been debating doing digital stuff - it's certainly on the cards.

      Good idea re: shipping, I'll see what I can do.

      PM your email address re: mod.

  • Mentoscoin on 27/04/2013 - 22:35

    This is probably the one thing that people have wanted, ever since gaming got a bit more expensive, I would suggest giving it a more obvious layout.

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 28/04/2013 - 13:12

      Hi Mentoscoin,

      I'd like it to be as streamlined as possible, so if you want to define "obvious" I'd be happy to take a look :-)

      • Mentoscoin on 28/04/2013 - 18:30

        Having tabs up the top, also with a searchbar

        • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 29/04/2013 - 11:43

          Good idea re: searchbar, done!

  • jtd on 01/05/2013 - 12:03

    I don't get how you're implementing features so quickly…

    is it possible to include prices when they're part of multi-buy sales (like the 2 for $40 and such ozgameshop run all the time) ?
    Also IMHO it'd be nice if there was an 'historical lowest' or similar when searching.

    Would also like to suggest adding mygames.com.au, generally they're pricey but they have some great prices from time to time.

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 01/05/2013 - 12:10

      I don't get how you're implementing features so quickly…

      Mad skillz? :-)

      is it possible to include prices when they're part of multi-buy sales (like the 2 for $40 and such ozgameshop run all the time) ?

      I have thought about this, but it's already tricky to track the normal prices (the hijinks some of these sites do, I tell ya) and I'm not sure how you'd present that? Game X is the cheapest on Y, but only if you also buy Z?

      Also IMHO it'd be nice if there was an 'historical lowest' or similar when searching.

      I might show that on the game info page.. I know they do that on camelcamelcamel, where prices do tend to go up as well as down. It seems generally games just head downwards, then bottom out until they disappear from sale. So I'm not sure yet how useful it is, apart from making you feel bad that you missed a sale or pricing error :-)

      It is already pretty easy to see this on the game info graph - just mouse over the graph and it shows you the prices. Not the best, but the data is at least there.

      Would also like to suggest adding mygames.com.au, generally they're pricey but they have some great prices from time to time.

      Cheers, I'll take a look.

      • jtd on 05/05/2013 - 11:39

        I have thought about this, but it's already tricky to track the normal prices (the hijinks some of these sites do, I tell ya) and I'm not sure how you'd present that? Game X is the cheapest on Y, but only if you also buy Z?

        Maybe put a small icon or an asterix for combo deals, which upon mouse-over will pop up a small block of text which will say what the combo deal was.

        IMHO a historical lowest price can help people determine value & what they would be willing to pay for a game. Sure I feel bad when I've missed something from a big sale, but if I really want it and know I'll either play it a lot or get a lot out of it I'm fine with paying a bit extra over the historical lowest.

  • Roary on 10/10/2013 - 13:48
    +2

    Awesome site dude..
    Keep up the hard work and I hope it pays dividends soon

  • String name on 11/10/2013 - 20:58

    I really like this concept and even the execution. Digital distribution would be great if it hasn't been implemented yet.
    Great work!

  • Tnetennba on 11/10/2013 - 23:31

    Could you add dungeoncrawl? I've purchased from them in the past and they seem to have similar prices to ozgameshop :) Some good bargains on there once in a while.

  • gibspmuh on 18/10/2013 - 11:43

    Just wanted to say thanks for the site, been using it for a while now and the price alerts in particular have been great. There's a few bargains that I've picked up now that I'd never have gotten otherwise - especially on some of the more obscure titles.

  • Luminary on 18/10/2013 - 12:26

    I think you should differentiate the imports and local because for Nintendo, you can't redeem points for imports. Great site! Got a few games in mind so will definitely help.

  • Circly on 17/03/2014 - 15:03

    Ive noticed that Mighty Ape is featuring alot on your site, but most of us know there are not that many bargains to be had on that site anymore especially now that shipping is around $7.50. If possible are you able to factor in shipping into prices too? That would make it more useful.

  • britta on 17/03/2014 - 15:08

    This site has been up for sometime hasnt it??

    • Circly on 17/03/2014 - 15:10

      yeah it has but i seem to use it less and less these days.

  • sarmen2 on 17/03/2014 - 18:52

    Thats really cool but no Big W or Target? Is it because they don't usually have all games available online?

  • redpump on 18/03/2014 - 10:48

    Been using your site for a while, thanks for your hard work :).

    Would be good to put the retailers in, I would rather buy it from them if possible. The Good Guys, Big W and Target seems to have good deals every now and then.

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 18/03/2014 - 10:59

      I need to find the time to give the site some love - BigW is in there but their site probably changed format and broke the scraper.

      If I get a chance I will add The Good Guys and Target as well.

  • shadowfangz on 18/03/2014 - 10:58

    It'd be great to have an option to sort the list from local and online retailers

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 18/03/2014 - 11:03

      In the beginning I always envisioned it as an 'online only' list - so as not to exclude anyone in Australia.

      Doing geographical prices is difficult for a number of factors. EBGames for example - I'd have to do a whole bunch of requests for each game just to find out what stores it's available in. That's not really feasible.

  • bogrolls on 18/03/2014 - 11:31

    Gday Goaters,

    http://ozgamegoat.com/search?q=fifa&p=ps4

    This shows fifa to be 59 bucks at blockbuster, but when I clicked the blockbuster link it trundles off to the blockbuster site to show 75.

    Anyway thumbs up to you for coming up with an idea and actually getting this far putting it into practise - I'll use it once it gets off the ground. Hopefully you can generate income with a fee per click to the sites you redirect to, who knows.

    Cheers,
    Bogrolls.

    • Associatedtardisx @ ozgamegoat.com on 18/03/2014 - 11:35
      +1

      Hi Bogrolls,

      I'll take a look at that. Web scraping is more art than science, and sometimes it gets it wrong. Sometimes sites change their prices too….. I also have my suspicions that the scraper is not always "seeing" the same thing that regular users do - i.e. prices shown depend on the the user agent and the IP address source.

      Re: income, I'm of two minds, as I don't want to do anything except show the best price, no matter which store it's with, and I'm not sure that that mission isn't compromised with referral links :-)

      • Circly on 18/03/2014 - 17:48

        Put one or two ads on the site? (I have adblocker so I'm not sure if u have them already :p)

  • Circly on 14/01/2015 - 18:56
    +2

    What happened to this site :(

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