CEX are not much better, run by scammers. Sell stuff that doesnt work then refuse to refund it.
Maybe they will do a zavvi and go just before xmas! best get rid of the giftcards if you have any
GAME - Gamestation, about to fold?
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CEX are not much better, run by scammers. Sell stuff that doesnt work then refuse to refund it.
Maybe they will do a zavvi and go just before xmas! best get rid of the giftcards if you have any
Meh, I've had no problems at all with CeX. Love 'em.
i remember when GAME floorspace was 70% pc games , 10% graphics cards/sound cards , 10% pc peripherals and 10% left for playstation etc
those were the days
Oooo the days when Voodoo cards were on sale with all the pc games and HL1 was in the shop window as a proud display
Well it was their main selling point to be different from the competition and as an offer it really did have to stop at some point as it got silly being able to return more or less anything. Just a shame as a company they didn't do anything different to replace it, so instead of being a fairly expensive place to buy games (but somewhere that would take it back if a £50 n64 game was really that bad) it just became an expensive shop that sold game. Their own inability as a company to be competitive in the market place is their downfall and has been a long time coming
Well, yeah, that's a fairer summation of the problem.
I expect most media stores of this kind will go under in due course, to be honest.
Good riddance IMO.
Online distribution (PC's and Consoles) and etailing is the future and they cannot stop it and have not evolved enough to do anything about it now.
They dabbled in Retail Parks but by that time, it was too late for them and the cost to transfer their business to that model now would be too much.
All they have done is bad mouth everything else as "monopolistic" when refering to Steam and the PSP Go... Mmmm... pot/kettle - HELLO
They are getting what they and their ****** board deserve.
Ironically, they are the ones who killed off the retail gaming sector and forced everyone to look at etailers IMO.
Online distribution (PC's and Consoles) and etailing is the future and they cannot stop it and have not evolved enough to do anything about it now.
They dabbled in Retail Parks but by that time, it was too late for them and the cost to transfer their business to that model now would be too much.
All they have done is bad mouth everything else as "monopolistic" when refering to Steam and the PSP Go... Mmmm... pot/kettle - HELLO
They are getting what they and their ****** board deserve.
Ironically, they are the ones who killed off the retail gaming sector and forced everyone to look at etailers IMO.
Same here. Thought i've not bought anything in a year or so (last thing I bought was Borderlands for PS3), they always let you check the disk and packaging to see if it's acceptable condition and they're the cheapest 2nd hand shop for games to my knowledge.
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I miss the days when Gamestation used to stock retro items.
Theres one guy in my local GAME that seems to know his stuff. Bought a few games on his recommendation and thoroughly enjoyed them. But the difference was he spent more than 2 minutes with me asking about what other games i'd played and what i thought of them before making any suggestions.
Although now CEX have opened in town i'll most likely shop there when i know i want something. For the sake of £1-2 on a single second hand game i'm not that fussed. Christmas prezzies are another matter as the difference on two or three games could pay for another for myself.
Although now CEX have opened in town i'll most likely shop there when i know i want something. For the sake of £1-2 on a single second hand game i'm not that fussed. Christmas prezzies are another matter as the difference on two or three games could pay for another for myself.
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it's got nothing to do with the staff, when they were number 1 there was zero competition. now there is high competition, coupled with their huge running costs.
game would have been better off, if they had sold all of their stores 5 years ago, then opened a warehouse in jersey and ran it purely as a online site.
I suppose the other problem they've got this coming Xmas is that there is no big wow piece of hardware to sell this year.
Last Xmas we had the Kinect and Playstation Move which sold very well.
While about 80% of the games for this year seem to have been released this month, it's unlikely that they are going to turn around the same kind of money as they did last year.
With their share price dropping and further economic downturn predictions, I can't imagine they are going to be in a very good state come the end of January.
Last Xmas we had the Kinect and Playstation Move which sold very well.
While about 80% of the games for this year seem to have been released this month, it's unlikely that they are going to turn around the same kind of money as they did last year.
With their share price dropping and further economic downturn predictions, I can't imagine they are going to be in a very good state come the end of January.
I worked for game 7-8 years ago, It was great at the time, all the staff actually gave a crap about what was being sold and we were all gamers ourselves and could really help customers who wanted advice or just a chat about the latest games,
After I had been there for about 3 years there was a massive change change in the stores, they axed the return policy, put the average price of a new title up to £44.99 and cut the hours available for staff by a lot, this meant that the staff didn't have any time to dedicate to customers as 90% of your shift would be tidying up or doing charts, A lot of the knowledgeable staff left to find more hours elsewhere and were replaced by kids on 4 hour contracts, nobody on a 4 hour contract is going to give a crap about their job,
I left shortly afterwards, I still pop in when I'm in town and it is a horrible experience, It's a shame really because I have fond memories of that store even as a kid going in for my Amiga games, but it is too damn expensive and the staff are useless so I just buy online now
After I had been there for about 3 years there was a massive change change in the stores, they axed the return policy, put the average price of a new title up to £44.99 and cut the hours available for staff by a lot, this meant that the staff didn't have any time to dedicate to customers as 90% of your shift would be tidying up or doing charts, A lot of the knowledgeable staff left to find more hours elsewhere and were replaced by kids on 4 hour contracts, nobody on a 4 hour contract is going to give a crap about their job,
I left shortly afterwards, I still pop in when I'm in town and it is a horrible experience, It's a shame really because I have fond memories of that store even as a kid going in for my Amiga games, but it is too damn expensive and the staff are useless so I just buy online now
I think that somewhat mirrors my experience of when I had my Summer job with them back in 2000.
The store itself back then felt unique. It had high ceilings, which were dark with lots of corrugated metal hanging, along with various bits of graffiti from artists of characters such as Mario and Sonic, and the Game logo itself. There was also a huge back projection TV just inside the door where we would hold dance offs, with dance matts and other tournaments.
I'll give you that the look would be somewhat dated today, but however after I'd left to go to Uni and the big national rebrand later happened, the store changed completely. False ceilings were put in, making the store seem much smaller and it now just looked like every Game store in the rest of the country, and for that matter most electronics shops.
A few little anecdotes I do have though are the following:
- Game staff used to be able to borrow any game for three days, so that you can make an opinion about it to inform customers. This mean't you ended up selling games as brand new that were effectively second hand!
- Just before I started, the previous Manager had been arrested because he had taken a load of money from the Safe and was caught with it in his home.
- The Reward Card scheme isn't actually very good, but you were made to push it as hard as possible, and they had a tally of how staff were doing with it.
- The Pre-Owned stuff was in its infancy at the time and the member of staff who was supposed to train me on it, didn't really do it properly. I thought I had been told that once you'd valued what the game was worth, one of the options was to give cash for them. So I was doing this for a few weeks and nobody seemed to batt an eyelid. It wasn't until one girl and her Mother who I had given cash to, came back one day with pretty much all her games! The Manager saw it and was like "Wait a minute.....!"
I then had to apologise to the Area Manager over a phone call and everyone seemed to know about it, such as the jobsworth Deputy Manger in Electronics Boutique (as we were obviously the same company) who hated me anyway because I was going to Uni and it was people like me that mean't he never got to be a Manager. I felt pretty stupid having to apologise, as it was down to lack of training and a poor manager not spotting as to why it happened.
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That style was a leftover from the days of Future Zone if I recall.
That's probably why GAME decided to renovate and ditch that style.
I think independant / smaller games stores are making a comeback.
I recently bought Skyrim from Grainger Games (seen a few popping up around my area) for £30 on PC, was £35 in Game which is literally 20 seconds around the corner and they wouldn't even price match. They could have had my money their and then but they basically told me to go buy it around the corner for cheaper.
Not surprised when they work like that. I should add at the time I went in (Friday dinnertime) I was the only person in the store apart from the Manager and 1 staff member.
I recently bought Skyrim from Grainger Games (seen a few popping up around my area) for £30 on PC, was £35 in Game which is literally 20 seconds around the corner and they wouldn't even price match. They could have had my money their and then but they basically told me to go buy it around the corner for cheaper.
Not surprised when they work like that. I should add at the time I went in (Friday dinnertime) I was the only person in the store apart from the Manager and 1 staff member.
Just read about that, pretty bad I agree, but if they are cheaper and Game don't want my money then I'll keep buying from them.
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