Bizarre Online Pricing.

Online game pricing. It's a dark art poorly understood by mortal men, and based in a world where the rules of logic don't seem to apply. I speak not of the WoW Auction House where Cobalt may be on for 1000g a stack, nor eBay where the prices is the ever troubling £0.01 (reserve not met), but rather of the Online Pricing of Wrath of the Lich King itself.

I greeted the news of a new online purchase option for Wrath direct from Blizzard with some interest. Always looking to save a few bucks I checked out just how much it would cost me to get it direct from Blizzard expecting a competitive price, if not a bargain. Here is the relative pricing:

Play.com: £17.99, free P&P.

Amazon.co.uk: £17.99, free (sloooow) P&P.

Direct from Blizzard: £29.99.

Okay, I know to a certain extent you're paying for the convenience. But that is all your are paying for, you don't get any of the additional bumpf that a retail box comes with, simply an e-mail with a CD-Key. A 67% mark-up seems a bit much for not waiting 24hrs one week after the Expansion has been released. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I wouldn't expect to pay more for a slip of paper than for DVD+Case+Manual+slip of paper.

So if you are planning to get a second copy of Wrath for your second account, or if you haven't got the Expansion yet and are looking for deals, look elsewhere than from Blizzard direct.