GAME - Gamestation, about to fold?

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Hm, last time I bought a new game in any store was probably 2004...maybe.
I really can't see how they can state their service is better. What service do you get in a game shop exactly? You go to the counter, you pay them, you leave.

For starters, you can never be advised on which games are good. That's down to your opinion. All accessories and peripherals are plug in and play basic these days so you advise needed there.

Their prices are too expensive and ordering online is simply more convenient.


Not sure whether they will go under. There will no doubt be years of closing down stores etc first. For example, I can think of about 5-6 GAME stores within 10 minutes drive from Newcastle - a good few more if you include Gamestation. It's just not necessary to have so many.
But, look at HMV. I've never been able to understand why anybody would shop there...yet it's packed...all the time. Baffles me.
Haven't been in for 7-8 years though so maybe they are cheaper now...but I doubt it.


I'd say they will shift their focus to online, and cloe a lot of stores...keeping major ones open. Then see how it goes.


But every single company is at risk so it could well happen.
 
Yeah, as soon as Gamestation got rid of the decent older stuff, they were just another comedy store built around overpriced trade-in rubbish.
Stop trying to flog me a used game for £1 less than rrp please.

Online stores are the way forward nowadays and the highstreet has no-one to blame other than themselves.
 
DailyGeek said:
GAME's main issues are that they rely too much on ripping people off with trade ins
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Yes, I always feel like saying to people in Grainger Games in my town when they doing a trade-in. They are at the counter, getting offered £7 for a like new game that the shop have openely displayed on the shelf for £25 'used'. And these people are still doing it.

I feel like giving them £15 for it right there and then...then selling it online for £22. lol. Maybe I should.

My mate got offered £15 for a bunch of games, I gave him £20. I sold them for £50 online..so give him a bit back!
If all these parents etc catch on they will get no trade in business at all.
 
Neil King said:
Currys/PC World are bad too for harassing you, was in currys looking to buy a laptop and was asked three times if i wanted any help, one of them wouldnt leave me alone, was absolutely desperate for a sale and when i just said i'll need to think about it he went off in a mood, terrible sales staff in both shops, all they care about is making a sale even if it doesn't suit the buyer.
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Ahhh two shops I hate, Currys is full of shifty scumbag sales people who're only interested in flogging you a worthless extended warranty and PC world, even though they ask if you want help, wouldn't have the first clue how to help you if you ever said "Yes please!", the wonderful world of DSG retail ...
 
I'm shocked they've even lasted this long, they're not competitive with online prices or places like Steam. Hell, some of their deals make Origin look reasonable! :/

I actually worked for them a few years back for about 6 months. The management are absolute ****s and the store I was in had such bad morale you could generally cut it with a knife. In the end I just stopped going in, they never did anything for their staff so I struggled to give a hoot about them either.

For that reason really, good riddance. That and the fact that they're being unnecessarily stupid in a market that just don't allow for it.
 
anticonscience said:
I remember going to the 'experts' at GAME and asking if they had a copy of Wipeout HD and I got asked "Is that for the PS3 or the 360?"
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I asked the woman in our local GAME if they had Borderlands GOTY edition for the PS3. After looking a bit on the computer, she told me it must be game that's not come out yet when the PC version of it was on the shelf behind me and it's been out for.... ages! :mad:

But the two other guys who work there are really cool and actually know a lot about both PC and console games. Would be sad if it went under as they are the perfect kind of people to work in a game shop. All praise to them at GAME in Lincoln :)

I like going to game shops and not buying it online/ASDA so I hope at least some shops manage to stay up in the future. Here in Norway they are going up and it's only game shops that sells games. We don't have a ASDA equivalent pushing things down (even if the prices are a bit steep without much competition).
 
The GAME store close to me has a GAMESTATION right next door. Don't really see the point. I haven't been in them since like 2008. I drive 20 minutes up the road to Bristol, Cribbs Causeway. Now some of the staff are total retards it's not even funny but the manager is pretty clued on and so are some of the other staff. Generally seems like a good atmosphere in there tho they are so slow behind the tills.

As for trade - in. I got £4 quid for Bad Company 2 on Xbox back in September, £2 for Fifa 11 and £6 for Black Ops. I almost knocked the t**t out when he said that. Criminally insane.
 
No I don't understand the logic of that either I don't think people get hung up on the name above the door like they do with other brands and goods. Shares are 8.8p now :o
 
Davey_Pitch said:
I've shopped in CEX for years and have never had any money knocked off the countless games I've traded over the years. They've only ever refused to take one game off me, for a disc defect I didn't even spot myself (but was very noticeable after they pointed it out).
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Ive been to 4 different shops, always been the same. And the customer service is horrible, worse than game :p and the wait times... :|
 
They are always packed but I guess online sales are taking their toll.

I don't know where I'd get my actual console hardware from if the highstreet stores went away, trying to order one online for release day would be painful.
 
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They don't seem to be interested in real gamers now and seem to be geared towards parents buying stuff as gifts etc.
I know they have to pay rents etc but they don't even offer the same prices in store as they offer online which are sometimes O.K. Surely if they dropped prices they would sell more volume and make the more profit overall and get more repeat custom, I don't even go in unless they have special offers on a game now as know its going to to expensive.
The pre-owned games are the same, if the prices were at a reasonable level I would buy a lot more but why pay £10 more than ebay or even CEX who drop their prices to online levels after a while.
 
Only good thing i can think about buying from game (online) is that the delivery has been good on pre orders most times i have ordered, having come one day before release or on the day. Where as amazon free delivery is either on the day or a day after release.
 
fieldy said:
yep! lol I remember the good ol' days when CEX used to do import, Pokemon blue US import £40? go on then lol!

just reading the telegraphs news on GAME and there describing yesterdays share price fall as a 'collapse' and say that some analysts are questioning the long term future of their business :eek:
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I remember buying Pokemon Gold JPN version from cex for around that price, then not long after they stopped selling nintendo imports.

Game will end up gone, HMV have got pretty bad lately aswell. I can sum up what's caused their downfall in one word: GREED.
 
PiKe said:
My friend is a manager at Game, so this wouldn't be good as far as I'm concerned :(
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It would no doubt be the worst thing that would happen, I don't see it resulting in this just yet.

I'm going to bat on the other side here since there is nothing but negative comments towards them.

Even though I haven't bought a new game from them for a very long time, they are the only "game only" store left on the high street. We can mention CeX but frankly I'd rather not (as per some other comments here).

One thing I do like with Game is their used game prices, I just picked up 3 decent games for £26, Resistance 2, Battlefield 2 and I think the other being Medal of Honor. Now I wouldn't have bought them for the individual price of £12.99 as it's only about £4 cheaper than brand new! But reguarly Game have offers such as buy 2 get 3rd free. I'm happy to go for that.

I do agree that many don't buy new games because of the price, I'm one of them. But there are many who don't risk pre-ordering and are willing to pay an extra £5 for a game on release day. Think about it, if you're going to buy a game on release day you clearly want that game very much, and many will prefer to go out and collect it to ensure they have it! Again I'm not one of them, but I sure as hell know many do.

Their service is quite annoying when they come up to you as soon as you walk in, but they never push and leave as soon as you say no thanks. And given how many games there are for all these consoles, you can't really kick off if they don't know what some random game is.

Game are not the best, but they certainly aren't the worst.
 
I thought it was well known that Game were in trouble, I'm sure it was posted a good while back from industry analysis of their business. It's the Pre-Owned market that has kept them where they are. If they were still only selling new games, they would have folded a long time ago, presumably when the Credit Crunch hit and we lost many other high-street chains.

What has changed though is that they largely used to have the Pre-Owned game market to themselves, but now everybody is getting in on the action because it's pure profit. Supermarkets are doing it, High-Street Stores are doing it, online retailers are doing it, Game are loosing what is keeping them going.



I actually had my first ever summer job working in Game, which was 12 years ago now.
Inregards to comments on staff being useless.... well it depends on the staff themselves and their knowledge of games. For example I knew what I was talking about, as did a few of the other staff. However the Manager was somebody who moved between management positions for various shops, previously having been a McDonalds Manager, so you can see how they don't necessarily have experience with the products they are supposed to be selling. I used to watch the Manager outright lie to people in the shop about games he knew nothing about. Similarly, he would also hire people who knew nothing about Games, such as people who used to work in his McDonalds. Company policy was that you were supposed to be able to answer questions about games, but all that went out the window.

Also the hassling people to check if they need help was something head office made Managers make staff do. It's pretty standard customer service in many stores, as annoying as it may be at times.


I can't actually remember the last time I bought anything from Game, as I don't do the whole second hand thing. But I occasionally go into their flagship Oxford Street store and it's embarrassing just how few new games there are on the shelves.

I miss the days when Game looked like the store I once worked in, where it was all corrugated metal as part of the window displays, spray painted graffiti of Mario and Sonic etc....
 
I miss the days of Electronics Boutique. A fine retailer. The local store was filled with friendly, knowledgable and pleasant staff who were always happy to have 2 minutes to go over games and accessories. They also stacked a fine collection of magazines (another thing that's unfortunatley been eroded thanks to the internet) and the manager wouldn't mind knocking down the price to compete with other offers or the early internet offers. Could you imagine the students in Game doing any of that?

Some staff are OK but really in this day and age they have to be amazing to keep regulars. Parents don't care about any of the above. They want the game as cheap as possible for thier kids. Children want the games as soon as possible. It's the inbetweeners that should be the bread and butter of Game and the like.

If anything the really need to take a long, hard look at Games Workshop and try and emulate that. When was the last time your local game had a tournament or anything that involved you staying in the store more than 5 minutes?
 
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