Lack of PC Games in retail stores! :(

neoglow

neoglow

neoglow

Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
Posts
3,480
Location
South UK
Just recently I have bought a number of PC Games, some old, some new. All of them were bought online apart from one.

Normally I do most of my shopping for things online, purely cos its easier and I bargain hunt to get the cheapest price.

The last couple weeks Ive been on annual leave from work and have been catching up with shopping for clothes etc which I havent done for while.

I was amazed of either the lack of a good selection or any PC Games at all on the shelves in highstreet retail stores. Even my local medium sized HMV dont stock ANY PC Games at all. Other stores like Gamestation have a very poor selection against a mass array of console games. PC World had the worst PC Games shelf I've ever seen in a "PC" store.

Tesco had some, the chart titles and a few others, Sainsburys (my local one) dont sell them at all.

What the heck is going on? What annoys me is new games are coming out every week, a lot of them multi platform, but it seems that 'multi' just means PS3, Xbox and Wii. These same games come out on the PC too you know! Obviously the PC platform is still 'current' or the developers wouldnt make games for the PC.

It should be compulsory, if you sell chart videogames then you sell them on every platform.

>Rant over.
 
Looking through the games I have in my drawer, I think the last game I bought in a shop was UT2004.

A shop will only stock games that sell, why should they stock ones that don't?
 
only time i go retail is when im gettin Used games tbh or a crazy good deal/

Only recent exception was for starcraft 2 picked up for little over twenty quid via price matching. (is it just me or they rarely check price matches they just blindly believe you if its only something small hehe)
 
I can't see why a lot of you are obsessed with steam,its ok for sales,but having a retail disk if far better imo,the argument about patches up to date dont wash,the babies who say they are not buying BF3 because its not on steam is just childish,buy retail which would have been cheaper in the first place.
 
neoglow said:
Just recently I have bought a number of PC Games, some old, some new. All of them were bought online apart from one.

Normally I do most of my shopping for things online, purely cos its easier and I bargain hunt to get the cheapest price.

The last couple weeks Ive been on annual leave from work and have been catching up with shopping for clothes etc which I havent done for while.

I was amazed of either the lack of a good selection or any PC Games at all on the shelves in highstreet retail stores. Even my local medium sized HMV dont stock ANY PC Games at all. Other stores like Gamestation have a very poor selection against a mass array of console games. PC World had the worst PC Games shelf I've ever seen in a "PC" store.

Tesco had some, the chart titles and a few others, Sainsburys (my local one) dont sell them at all.

What the heck is going on? What annoys me is new games are coming out every week, a lot of them multi platform, but it seems that 'multi' just means PS3, Xbox and Wii. These same games come out on the PC too you know! Obviously the PC platform is still 'current' or the developers wouldnt make games for the PC.

It should be compulsory, if you sell chart videogames then you sell them on every platform.

>Rant over.
Click to expand...

Seriously I don't get your rant at all. You answered the question in the first three sentences of your post.

just recently I have bought a number of PC Games, some old, some new. All of them were bought online apart from one.

Normally I do most of my shopping for things online, purely cos its easier and I bargain hunt to get the cheapest price.
Click to expand...

In fact I cant understand why you would type those 3 lines then ask why Bricks and Mortar shops don't stock PC games. :confused:
 
What's even more irritating is that despite having bugger all shelf space for PC titles, GAME can still hassle publishers into giving them 1 months exclusivity before some titles make it onto Steam.
 
Used sales are one of the biggest reasons for the decline in PC gaming at retail.

High street retailers are now essentially pawn shops specialising in video games. They can sell a single console game over and over again making a large profit each time - buying games a a fraction of their value from customers and reselling them at just under full price - whilst due to DRM they can only sell a PC game once. That makes PC games much less profitable for them, and less worthy of shelf space.

It must be very lucrative because even the supermarkets are getting in on it. Do supermarkets sell anything else second hand? Blu-Rays? CDs? Nope. Just games.
 
Spook187 said:
I can't see why a lot of you are obsessed with steam,its ok for sales,but having a retail disk if far better imo,.
Click to expand...

Why is it better in your opinion? What features does it offer that digital distribution doesn't?

Oohh a disk! It goes in the machine, it comes out the machine! In, out, in, out, in, out, sits on a shelf. Magic.

Crummy plastic boxes do nothing for me compared to the big cardboard offerings from yesteryear packed with goodies.
 
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