The gradual decline of GAME (the shop)

[Cassius_Smoke]

I've said before, as a 40yo I don't want to walk into a shop with a rucksack full of games and say 'please sir, can you give a good price on these.' It's a really dated and ****ty system. The whole shop and experience is uncomfortable.
Put a library type scanner by the door and it might be a minor improvement.

[teddymeow]

It went downhill after Teddymeow left.

You know it!

[MarioMark]

End of an era. I never really shopped at Game because of the extortionate prices but it's still sad to see one of the original UK game shops decline to togethiness. Maybe it's because I'll be telling my Grandkids one day "we used to walk in a shop to buy our games on cartridge and disc back in the day". I'll probably get the same look my Son gives me when I tell him games used to come on Tape and you had to wait half and hour for them to load, usually while having my tea.

[Neon Ignition]

It was always disgusting that GAME was even allowed to buy out Gamestation. The thing is, CEX plainly works and often with quite big units. Sprinkle in some new release stock and there's still a viable business of sorts there. GAME was just like a niche Curry's though, focus on new stock and upselling. They let themselves be boxed out of the second hand market and online sales leaving them drowning and Sports Direct's protracted death cry support is all that's kept them going this long. They were always pretty rubbish though.

[MrKirov]

Oddly, I find myself using them more than ever before, though my local two stores remain stores and not tiny corners in a Sports Direct.

When getting two PS5’s from them (one for me and one for my nephew) at launch, they recommended I sign up to Game elite in advance ( an upgrade to their loyalty scheme that costs £3 a month, but significantly increases benefits around reward point collection)

They said I would get something silly like 5-10% back in point on the console purchases, and 10-20% back in points for accessories and games bought- considering I was buying all that, twice essentially, it made sense.

I bought everything on launch, and had something silly in points about £150 or so, just for the one £3. But then you find yourself in the trap, because spending those points gets you more points at the same percentage on what you buy, so even when spending them all I kept having decent balances. So I always find myself having money off for PSN credit, or games on sale or preowned- which does end up helping a fair bit, so I’ve ended up keeping it up for £3 a month. If you don’t use the points/get the £3 a month back in points in a year, they give you a lump sum at the end of the year to make it up so you at least get the money you put in back.

I was against it, but surprised how often they shoot up with a quick purchase or trade, as it makes the trade values better than CEX in a lot of cases.

I tend to use them not for new stuff though, but for sale or preowned. Only because they don’t seem to care that some games are rare/special editions etc- And price them all the same.

I picked up Gravity Rush on PS4 the other day for 9.99 in a 3 for 2 offer, when that alone is tough to find and worth £50. Then things like Horizon complete edition with DLC for 4.99 as it was priced the same as the regular, and the steelbook/deluxe editions of FF15 and DMCV for 2.99 each as they are priced the same as the normal.

So I find it’s not all bad, and my local are great to me, giving me spare preorder bonuses and the like, doing a few refunds that maybe wouldn’t be given normally. That kind of thing. The company is the ****show though. They just haven’t moved with the times/progressed at all, and expected people to still walk in and buy from them as they were the only option.

They should never have been allowed to buy Gamestation.

[Asura]

In some ways I can't say I'm that bothered, but it does strike me as sad overall to see what I think is probably going to be the ultimate death of high street game shops, unless you count Cex but that doesn't sell new stuff. I'm happy to support brick-and-mortar places but Game has been a glorified toy shop for the last few years, more concerned about pushing Funko Pops and throwaway LED junk from China. The only things I remember buying there in recent years were a very reduced price copy of Project Highrise and a couple of used games (I'd have thought selling used games would be at odds with selling the new ones to be honest).

Any time I've entered their stores it always seems a bit directionless, with very little care as to what is actually stocked, jack of all trades and master of none. When you look in the window, the main thing they're trying to push is a confusing mixture of used mobile phones and new Casio wristwatches. Why don't you offer key-cutting services while you're at it? Odd things are often stocked but not given any kind of presence. There's a Retron 5 on a lower shelf with no real explanation of what it is or does. There's one of those huge Capcom Home Arcade sticks with the box getting gradually more and more torn up - I doubt anyone will ever buy it unless it gets reduced to £150 or something. I literally can't remember a single time I've ever been in there and seen a PS5 demo unit that was working, rather than sat there with "an error has occurred" on the screen. Just a general lack of care and attention, they just buy things at random it seems.

There's a useful phrase in business, which goes along the lines of "Start with why".

Every good business has a "why", that goes beyond their desire to simply "provide service, make money". They have to fulfill a need, satisfy a niche, or perform something useful to a particular person.

Back when Gamestation was its own independent business, they had a really good "why". GAME, at the time, had already become more of an everyman retailer. Gamestation was intended to be for a discerning shopper, who probably knew what they wanted before they walked into the store.

You could see this in how they operated. At Christmas, GAME would have an offer for a PS2 with 6 games, all crap, last-year's football, a wrestling game two iterations out of date... Gamestation's would only come with 1 or 2 games, but it would be "any game in store".

Gamestation knew what they were, and that informed their business. Whether they achieved that goal, you can debate all day, but they at least had one.

Prior to the growth of Amazon, GAME's thing was that they were the every-person store. They were for parents to buy gifts, kids to buy games, everyone in-between. In their early days they even used to sell anime & movies on VHS, and proper Toys-R-Us style toys (as opposed to the diet-Coke Forbidden Planet stuff they have now). But once Amazon grew, they lost this.

They tried to pivot to being "the" destination for videogames, but that was daft when you walked in and everything they had was either top-10 (so COD, COD, Battlefield, COD, FIFA, another FIFA, Need for Speed, COD) and whatever was top 10 in the last 3 months.

As of this moment, I don't know what GAME's business model is. They sell phones now? I think? They sell Amiibo cards... To staff, so they can eBay them (at least at our branch).

They've lost their "why".

[Neon Ignition]

They need to chuck out the gaming sections they have that replicate the failed venture HMV made of wasting floor space to banks of seats you can pretend esport in. eSports... it's not a damned thing outside of a very particular niche. It's like when sportswear shops used to have basketball courts in them sitting empty.

[Asura]

They need to chuck out the gaming sections they have that replicate the failed venture HMV made of wasting floor space to banks of seats you can pretend esport in. eSports... it's not a damned thing outside of a very particular niche. It's like when sportswear shops used to have basketball courts in them sitting empty.

Actually, GAME might have a point with this, but they have to go absolutely ham on it.

Our shopping centre has a VR attraction, but supposedly their most profitable part of the business are the banks of computers at the back set up to let kids play stuff like Overwatch as a team. It's the same as when my parents used to drop us off at Quasar or Laserquest in the 90s.

So, basically, teenager creche.

[Hirst]

I’d just like to agree that Gamestation in their prime were really good, except the smelly carpets. If you read about some obscure new game in the magazines that month, chances are they’d have it on the shelf at the best high street price, often same as the best online price. They also used to have imports and retro stuff, but that all disappeared in about 2003-ish from memory – some years before the GAME takeover. It got steadily worse from there. Every so often I see one of their older price stickers with the blobby font on charity shop PS1 games and it makes me feel melancholy.

Just went to the “inside Sports Direct” store and it’s absolutely tragic. Maybe a quarter as much retail space as the old store. They’ve shoved it right in the back corner and it’s basically a few racks on the wall, a few shelves of mostly rubbish/board games, the glass cabinet with the used phones and one depressed-looking guy in a GAME fleece who probably spends his entire lunch break ringing recruitment agencies. Hasn’t even got a checkout. Barely worth visiting just for the laugh. If it’s still there this time next year I’ll be surprised, it’s bad to the point where I’m wondering if it’s a sincere but misguided attempt to fold the store into another or if it’s an asset-stripping exercise. Genuinely pathetic.

[gunrock]

As others have said, online mega-retailers, supermarkets and digital game releases did for Game. Basically, the stores and business model were always a shambolic lot of shee-ite but cheaper outlets and digital just meant that consumers didn't need to put up with it anymore.

I browsed them whenever I passed a store in my area and occasionally there would be a reasonably priced game and even less occasionally, a bargain.

About the unsealed games, in Woolies once, bought Half-Life for Xbox new (9.99) and the lady gave me an opened one. I said it was a present and wanted a new sealed one, so she took out a new, sealed copy and unsealed it in front of me and said "There, you can see it was new".

[wakka]

I said it was a present and wanted a new sealed one, so she took out a new, sealed copy and unsealed it in front of me and said "There, you can see it was new".

My favourite description of Woolworths that I have ever heard is 'A shop for people who want to buy something but don't have any money'.

[Asura]

My favourite description of Woolworths that I have ever heard is 'A shop for people who want to buy something but don't have any money'.

Yeah; I had to admit when I heard they were closing down - I had an immediate thought of "oh, what a shame" followed swiftly by the realisation that I hadn't bought anything there since 1994.

[Hirst]

The Woolworths game bit was always a bit lousy in mine, I remember them charging full RRP on everything. It was the first place I saw the Master System version of Sonic 1 running on a TV though if that counts for much.

Even from many years ago, I knew they'd eventually hit the wall. I was in there in about 1992 and they had a Trolli "Mini Burger" jelly sweet thing and it was something insane like 85p. I used to go in there just to laugh at it. The idea of somebody buying a tiny jelly burger for nearly a whole quid was just preposterous to me. I've had it in for Woolworths ever since.

[wakka]

I don't think it's controversial to say that the decline and eventual closure of the chain can be traced directly back to that 85p jelly burger.

[eastyy]

Went into a couple of GameStop's in Dublin and they had so many Funko pops (i cannot stand them) and actual games felt they were taking less space