GAME reviewing overseas business

Cinaclov on 2 Feb '12 said:

They might want to consider lowering prices then. I can understand their wanting to charge RRP for a game at launch, but no way am I paying over £20 for a pre-owned copy of Mario Kart DS.

drake23 on 2 Feb '12 said:

in cardiff they have two stores in the one small store they have 3 managers whyyyyy also why two stores its obvious what they need too do shut most stores keep the flagship ones open advertise that you price match bring the prices down alot more espcially on prewoned ds games and wii even advertise on tv I MEAN COME ON FOR f**k SAKE...............

Sentinator on 2 Feb '12 said:

Screw you haters this is TERRIBLE news! I don't like buying from Asda because I don't trust them and the only other major chain is HMV. Why is everybody wishing this on them? They generally always deliver my games a day before release and I will miss them if they go under.

ricflair on 2 Feb '12 said:

Why is everybody wishing this on them?

I'm not sure people are wishing it on them, but they've no doubt got sick of the awful trade in prices that they try and flog for 2, 3 or 4 times profit, the lack of decent stock beyond the top ten or so games (at the expense of second hand and this is true in their flagship Oxford St branch), their shameless profiteering trying to sell PS3 controllers for about £50 and second hand 360 ones for £30, the fact they try and push you to buy second hand for £2 cheaper, their ridiculous tactics of having two stores within a stones throw of each other, the £43 prices on a lot of new releases, the staffs complete lack of knowledge and being totally unaware of the offers that are in store (at least in the London branches I go to), on numerous occasions they've hit my trade in price by charging me disc repair for discs that have no problems beside maybe a couple of finger prints...

You also seem to be talking about the website. Not so much of an issue with that, but the stores are crazy and along with HMV have nobody to blame but themselves.

Clusks on 2 Feb '12 said:

I remember when my Xbox 360 I bought from them (it had a good offer) got the E74 problem after just over a year. The sales staff were quite friendly and offered to trade it in and pretend I always had insurance with them (which cost £20 and was better than the £90 to get it repaired by MS!). I had so many problems with it because the manager of the store was being so petty and didn't listen to me. They gave me one of the very first Xbox 360s which didn't have a HDMI port and no matter how I tried to put the cables into my TV, it just wouldn't work. My TV didn't have all the necessary ports for the 6 coloured cables, so I couldn't get it in HD.

I tried to explain this to him and he told me that I was wrong and wasn't putting them into the TV the right way. I told him about my TV and he just dismissed me and was really rude. I'm not one of these people who kicks up a fuss for nothing, or one of these people who thinks that "the customer is always right", but I was trying to be polite and explain my problems only to have it thrown back in my face.

Fortunately, one member of the sales staff was nice and took it back and traded it for a pre-owned model that was actually built that year (had barely been used). The look on his face as I told him about it was pretty much saying "Oh God, what was the manager talking about?".

I also remember reading a blog post someone put up a while back about an argument they had with a manager in a GAME store (in Oxford street I believe, someone else might have seen it as well as it was RT'ed all over Twitter).

I think success and power got to everyone's head at GAME...

Chris_Shanahan87 on 2 Feb '12 said:

can't say i'm too fussed,

the only reason I used to preorder games through them is because they got delivered a day before release, but that seems to have stopped now *looks at game shelf with no Final Fantasy XIII-2*

kenbadguy on 2 Feb '12 said:

Goodbye GAME, you wont be missed!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

jacksaddiction on 2 Feb '12 said:

Again Ive noticed people complaining about trade-in prices. Yes Game and Gamestations on system prices are not very good, but Gamestation better any other trade-in price you are offered elswhere. Ive used this loads of times. They may offer £5 for an item and HMV may offer you £27 for the same thing, Gamestation will then give you £28 O_o
You just need to show proof of your offer (Im sorry but none of us are trustworthy enough for them just to take your word) and realistically, Gamestation then offer the best trade-ins.

Im not getting into everything else, Ive moaned too much about that in the past.

MysticR on 2 Feb '12 said:

Goodbye GAME, you wont be missed!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Tosser.

I've written at length on this subject in these comment boxes, so I won't repeat myself.

Game is not dead and buried yet; they have some issues - some serious ones - but there will always be a place for specialist gaming retailers in the UK. If Game can identify some of the mistakes they've made, and quickly, perhaps this downward trend will turn around.

I certainly hope so, for the sake of their many employees, and customers who do actually like to visit a store.

superfruit on 2 Feb '12 said:

People can claim others are 'hating' on GAME but clearly what is happening is the result of people voting with their wallets. It's as simple as that.

You want GAME to survive? Shop there. Only you can help by being a customer.

I remember reading the monopolies and mergers report into GAME and Gamestation and both were barely past 1% profit margins years ago. One of them had £225m turnover and £2.5m profit or something poor and the other wasn't much better. I think at the time one of the main problems was Gamestation had bought too much used stock it couldn't shift. This is probably why you'll only get £8 for COD3!!

alan666 on 2 Feb '12 said:

if people are un-happy about the trade in prices they get why not just sell them on ebay ?

just to lazy i suppose, you walk in with a game & then walk out with cash, you are simply paying for the convenience.

Very_Silver_Ownz on 2 Feb '12 said:

Looks like GAME have lost all of their lives. GAME over

mw123 on 2 Feb '12 said:

I used to use game a lot for new releases and preowned i even used to by preowned hardware from them but a small incident just made me stop and go elsewhere.
I wanted to buy a preowned game i took it up to the girl at the counter and asked to see what sort of state the disc was,begrudgingly and after huffing and puffing she showed said disc,it was scratched beyond belief so i asked if they could put it through the cleaner to which she replyed there's a charge to do that.if you don't want to pay the charge then you will have to take your chances.

In that one sentence game has lost probably a grands worth of buisness from me.
online with everybody else from then on.

Imaduck on 3 Feb '12 said:

I actually like GAME and will miss them if they go. Never had a problem with them.

To those of you with the "lol bye, I buy game onlien!" stuff, try to think a little ahead, like what this means for games on shelves as a whole and what that'll mean for you.

It's like the issue the musical instrument industry has. I can buy guitars cheap online man, that's great. But at the end of the day, you still generally need it set up really well - in a shop. And if you break a string in some bad situation and need another 1 immediately - online's 2-3 days delivery won't be any help

There's room for both, and we need both. The trick is for both to work out their strengths and weaknesses and play to them I reckon (pun not intended). This shakeup time will hopefully do that. I reckon they need more or those sort of "try it" stands in GAME, so you walk in the door , see something running , are drawn to it ........ 2 hours of play later you get kicked out but with the game in a bag

Zabba 2 on 3 Feb '12 said:

As someone mentioned before, GAME and Gamestation match (and beat) trade in prices with most other competitors as long as you have some sort of reliable proof from the other store. Sometimes you don't even need proof as sales staff might check for you via phone/internet if they're nice. Granted, it requires a bit of moving back and forth in some cases, but the feature exists and should be taken advantage of. For customers, trade in prices shouldn't be an issue.

One of the main problems is undoubtedly the number of stores they have. Two GAME stores and two Gamestation stores within one shopping complex or a city centre is simply not needed and I can't see how it can be profitable. Sometimes the locations are ridiculous, I've seen a few stores mere minutes away from each other.

As someone else mentioned before, if we give a damn about the company's future, the most we can do is aim to shop there as much as we can. Pre-owned titles net them 100% profit, and let's be honest, you can get some great deals (£5 LA Noire anyone?).

Also in terms of staff behaviour and expertise, bear in mind it's not a requirement to know about games to work there. You might go in feeling all self important because you know titles like Bastion exist and what developers have planned for the year, but if the staff don't that's no reason to berate them. They're hired to sell and have a level of retail competence and if they do, that's good enough for the company. You'll always get good staff who go above and beyond the requirements, staff that meet the bare minimum and bad staff, whatever company you go to. In my experience, I've seldom come across clueless staff at GAME or Gamestation.

TOKEN on 3 Feb '12 said:

GAME use to be called electronic games(name change)Game own Game station,EB games own by gamespot,meaning Game maybe lossed but the worldwide company isnt.

Magicbigsi on 3 Feb '12 said:

Game was orignally founded in the UK in 1991. They bought all of the Virgin games stores in 1993.

Electronics boutique (now EBgames in the US) came over to the uk in 1995 and bought a stake in Game, a large-ish uk chain called MegaZone and took over the spaces left from of concesion that went under in debenhams stores. They rebranded all of the shops to Electronics Boutique stores (trading as electronics boutique stores UK). Its CEO was an american guy that was also in charge of the US side of things.

In 1999 EB bought Game out completely.

In 2002, the EB name was dropped as the american arm was asking for too much money from the UK arm to use the name.
(which I never got my head round as they were the same company) All of the stores were rebranded to Game and the company was changed to the Game Group.

I know all of this as i was employed by EB during the inital takeover and was quite friendly with the HO.

EB started out as quite a good company, but as the years past they started to slide down a slope, getting far too greedy and allowing their standards to drop. The managment team was a joke and most of the people in charge knew sod all about games.

The best games retailers were the independent ones, something that is now defunct as the bigger Games store in the UK (Game) had much more power over distribution. Now game are finally feeling the pinch.

I saw this coming years ago, and with some companies selling games online for up to £20 cheaper than Game, its only time until Game Has no choice but to rethink they way in which they trade.