Best Buy Shutters Popular Gamers Club Unlocked Membership Rewards Program

With the simple $30 annual membership, gamers could save 20% off of any new game, which means that the card would be quickly paid off after only a few purchases. Beyond that, the card enabled a 10% trade-in bonus, 10% off pre-owned games, double My Best Buy points, some special one-time use coupons, and "exclusive offers".

It's not clear why Best Buy decided to cancel its Gamers Club program, but it unfortunately follows the trend of declining value in such programs. Ultimately, Best Buy may have simply not been making money on it, and if owners of the card only bought anything supported by it, and nothing else in the store (like a brand-new TV for that Xbox One X), then the value proposition on its end might not have been worth it.

While the service costs more than $30/yr, Amazon Prime is going to become an obvious choice for many of those affected by this program's closure. In addition to free two-day shipping, and unlimited access to video, music, and reading, subscribers will get the same 20% discount on new games that the Gamers Club offered.

If you don't want any other Prime perk, $119/yr isn't going to seem attractive, but if you can take advantage of anything else, the value increases greatly. For some reason, Amazon doesn't make it obvious on its Prime subscription page that this perk is even offered, so if you didn't know the capability existed, now you do!