Independent Game Shops?

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

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Joined
31 May 2005
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Nottingham
Do any exist anymore?

Much like independent record shops, they appear to have gone/be going the way of the dodo.

Just checked Yell.com in my area and all that came up was them owned by the guys who pretty much run the high street gaming business.

VERY VERY sad indeed.

I remember as a kid, the ONLY place I could buy my Spectrum games from WAS independents be it mail order or from a shop.

I only know of one Independent etailer to be honest.
 
There is at least one I know of in Edinburgh, called 1up. Honestly cannot see how any independant game store can make a profit. Some amazing deals online, not to mention deals in the high street gameshops or supermarkets selling the newest titles for £20 at times.
 
I know of a few indies in mancheser and ashton/oldham. I doubt they make any profit on new games, as they all have extensive 2nd hand sections.

I would think the market for tradeins and 2nd hand games is still good and thats what keeps them going. I got pc tomb raider underworld for £14 in mint condition about a week after it came out.
 
Around here we had castle computers and microcentre. bought my first amstrad CPC 464 game from there!

It's just changed with the times. it's a more lucrative market. Big shops (big music chains etc) will get a good discount when they buy 100,000 copies of a game to sell nationwide. A small shop ordering 6 copies won't be able to compete. Even then it's a risk to the small shops when they hold stock. How many times have you seen a game "£39.99 reduced to £29.99" when you know full well you can get it at numerous places on the high-street for £15
 
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There's a GForce (GameForce?) in glasgow, union street that i had been going to for years. Was much, MUCH better than EB and GAME (EB prices were ridiculous back then, not sure about now). They had good prices, had swaps for a £5, all round good game store.
Still alive AFAIK.
 
Back in Canada, I worked in a small independent computer shop (2 locations and 30 or so employees) and I did the ordering for all software.
Doing end of month, we rarely made anything on games at all and usually just managed to break even.
It's just the way it is, small shops pay more for their stock because they can't order in mass quantities.
We only carried them because it helped get people in the door which in turn resulted in more sales of products with higher profit margins.
 
CeX is a chain.

Nothing around me these days except for the usual chains. Growing up there was only the one small shop in my hometown but a few more in Hull - M Micro, Tomorrow's World but they disappeared years ago.
 
Not just games shops is it though, traditional high street stores have been disappearing over the last 20 years but now some of the major chains are struggling too I feel there wont be a high street as we know it in the future
 
We have an Indy in Hinckley & have just had a big chain move to the town as well, The Indy is doing Brilliantly up against the chain & is much more personal. I would say that 75% of my games are bought from my local Indy & 25% from the chain.
 
Azagoth said:
There's one downstairs in the market, just where you get off the escalator by the cafe, and there's the music/DVD store opposite HMV that also sells games now.
Click to expand...

if you mean discs and disks down in teh market.. its been gone a good while
 
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