WTF happened to the PAL We Love Katamari?

[EvilBoris]

The thing with GAME is, they are a mainstream, lowest common donominator games shop. I don't expect them to stock indie titles like katamari, just as I wouldn't expect PC World to stock the more obscure components.

[Concept]

I agree that Game are mainstream and therefore more inclined to obviously what sells, but do you expect the most successful specialist film and music stores to stock only mainstream releases? I know I don't.

They're a specialist games shop which happens to reach the most people out there. Personally, and this is my viewpoint, I don't see how failing to stock games can be plausibly defended when you consider the size of Game.

Katamari and Psychonauts are hardly unknown even if they're not going to set the charts alight. The choice should be expected to be made available on release.

To put this into comparison, Gamestation have had no trouble on this front in my town - the only reason I don't often shop there is because they don't stick to sealed games for the most part. One of the reasons this bothers me is that if smaller releases do get ignored by popular videogame chains, then it means on top of publisher conservatism, developers looking to try something a little different are going to have to place distribution concerns into whether they do or not. What's the point in producing original content, finding a willing publisher (or one that will agree funding) only then to find it's difficult to actually get it into the shops?

That's what concerns me, even if it is a hypothetical scenario. Hopefully, these couple of games aren't a sign of a policy change from Game - I'd like to think they weren't, and something has just screwed up somewhere along the lines.

Still, I find it really bizarre in this thread that there are some people defending the fact that certain known games aren't being stocked on release. Whether a mistake has been made or it's a conscious decision somewhere, for me it's just plain wrong.

[IanE]

Conversely, if the manager is in charge of stocking games (as for what's coming in), then I personally believe he or she should know what's due for release each week. I'd expect that of any large-scale store, music, film, whatever.

If it's another issue, i.e. something further up in the chain, it sill applies.

I really don't see how you can rationalise not stocking games. There isn't much of an excuse for it... and neither is this some elitist stick-up-for-the-quirky-Japanese-games mindset either. It's simply a case that if I visit the UK's most well known videogame store, that I expect them to stock all the major releases each week, whether those be critical or commercial.

And I disagree that the main reason for posting opinions is to immediately contest them. That's a presumptious vantage point you're automatically going to contest anything, and as I said before leads back to:

Right, but you're levying that blame with the people in the store, you'd be surprised how little power the manager of a GAME store has.

I'm not rationalising it, I can get the game in my local GAME and Gamestation store - all I can guess is that other stores got delivery, and just shoved it in the back. That's just rubbish management and organisation, of which I have seen a lot of.

That's not the main reason, I didn't say that. I said if you're posting an opinion, don't expect not to get any responses or opposing opinions.

[Concept]

Fair enough, and I'm sorry for having a snipe if I did.

[teodi]

They probably didn't stock it in any real numbers because they knew, with an rrp of 39.99 and so I'm guessing quite a high buy in price, it wouldn't sell in numbers high enough to warrant buying a large amount in.

My Gamestation had 8 Katamari on release and sold I think 3 despite it being in a prominent instore position and being demo'ed since they had it in stock and all the staff liking it and getting behind it.

People would play it, enjoy it and then not buy it. It's only really people who read boards such as these that will go out looking for games like Katamari, your average punter won't want to risk their money

[EvilBoris]

The thing is, the buyers of games shops are advertised to by publishers and reps. Usually using the tried and tested formula of pushing how big their marketing budget for said game is or how well previous games have sold. The problem comes with Katamri only being distributed by EA, the EA reps are too busy telling you how great FIFA 09 is going to be or pointing and threatening to get you in the ****e because your stores arent' carrying the agreed 20% EA POS coverage.

GAME will also be so used to having the bulk buy super discount they get, they will probably object to buying any decent quantity of an unknown game like Psychonauts or Katamari at full cost price.

To have low quantities of such an ill-publisced game is nothing new, the exact same situation occured to other niche titles.

[Sony Fanboy]

Still, I find it really bizarre in this thread that there are some people defending the fact that certain known games aren't being stocked on release. Whether a mistake has been made or it's a conscious decision somewhere, for me it's just plain wrong.

There are over 1000 PS2 PAL titles alone (1037 according to the full list, not including many budget titles). There simply isn't enough room for each individual store to stock every new release.

[EvilBoris]

It's only really people who read boards such as these that will go out looking for games like Katamari, your average punter won't want to risk their money

Exactly I was recently speaking to an acquaintance about games, after destroying his self perceived knowledge of games, he tried to claw some respect back by saying that he played a game called Gitaroo man once and thought it was really good, but the then went on to say "but I wasn't gonna pay 40 quid for THAT"

Thats the exact attitude that 98% of GAMEs customers have, and unfortunately 98% of people who own a console.

[Concept]

There are over 1000 PS2 PAL titles alone (1037 according to the full list, not including many budget titles). There simply isn't enough room for each individual store to stock every new release.

That's missing the point of my argument. There aren't 1000 titles released every week. We all know old titles aren't stocked - these weren't old, and they were high profile (critically) at a time when the release schedules aren't overflowing.

[anephric]

The thing with GAME is, they are a mainstream, lowest common donominator games shop. I don't expect them to stock indie titles like katamari, just as I wouldn't expect PC World to stock the more obscure components.

Surely it's analogous to HMV, isn't it? GAME are supposed to be the videogame equivalent. If I go into a reasonably sized HMV I know that I can, on release day, buy pretty much any more obscure or arthouse/BFI etc DVD, even though they're a mainstream, high-street store. Why can't GAME manage it? Because they're in thrall to their Deals of the Week, bundles etc. If it isn't going to shift muchos units, we ain't stocking it.

[IanE]

My HMV have a surprisingly lacking selection of more obscure stuff, that's why I buy online, not to mention the shocking prices.

[Sony Fanboy]

? But Katamari was stocked - and in much more stores than most other Japanese imports, e.g. the 505 games.

People really need to remove subjective opinions of the game - as far as retailers are concerned, it's nothing special.

[Kubrick]

The last time I was in a GAME store, at least 25% of shelf space was devoted to DVDs and copies of FHM etc.

[Concept]

anephric - I think that's probably the case. In my Game store, second hand material takes up a good 40-50% of the entire shelf space during a time when releases (high profile ones) are thin on the ground. I'd still like to see the situation improve though. To come back to the point about choosing what should be stocked and what shouldn't, there's obscure licenced tat where I live that I'd probably say has less chance of shifting units than the likes of Katamari.

The one thing that bothered me about Psychonauts missing its release was that THQ had clearly delayed the game from the traditional mad spell of Q4 2005 (and the 360's release) so it had more chance of shifting units during a relatively quiet period. This got scuppered.

Sony Fanboy - I'm talking about where I live.

[IanE]

The last time I was in a GAME store, at least 25% of shelf space was devoted to DVDs and copies of FHM etc.

Must have been ages ago, as they stopped stocking DVDs (only have one or two 'bargain' ones like Valiant for ?7.99 now and again) and don't sell FHM last time I checked.