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PSA GAME UK in financial trouble again...

MilkyJoe

MilkyJoe

Member
If you have those gift cards for Christmas you had better start offloading them before they decide to not honor them again.

In not the most surprising news ever, GAME has announced it will close dozens of stores in the UK, with 13 sites already having had notice served. GAME hasn't offered a complete list yet but the stores in Mansfield, Canterbury, Watford, Glasgow Fort, and Leicester are all confirmed to be closing. Derby, Norwich Chapelfield, Lakeside, Bexleyheath, and Carmarthen have also been served notice and are amongst 14 sites owned by property firms Intu and NewRiver.
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Nothing has been said about whether this is permanent, but to be on the safe side, use those vouchers.

metro.co.uk

GAME to close 40 shops in the UK due to ‘challenging retail market’

The UK’s biggest video game retail chain is to close 40 of its 300+ stores, including sites in Watford, Leicester, and Glasgow.
metro.co.uk metro.co.uk
 
Well again, what do you expect? Back when I was fresh out of school I worked there, and most of the guys I worked with were A+ people.

Trouble is, the higher up are complete and total tits. They only see in green.

They will sell you a product that's preowned and £10 more expensive than the same product NEXT DOOR, that's brand new. Then they talk about retail unit costs etc, which other stores don't seem to factor in so badly, but then give the same price online.

No word of a lie, I haven't bought a single new game from them in years. When a new game comes out, it's usually amazon. And if they screw that up or I can't get it, I will go anywhere else instead of game, because I could travel 10 miles in another direction, and STILL be quids in.

I always feel bad for anybody who loses their job, these are people with families. But it's the higher ups with the massive fat salaries that need a kick in the teeth.

Idiots.
 
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I tried to order from them several times in the past but they don't ship to Germany. No mercy for these idiots.
 
the game near me is staffed by some of the most amazing people. they never try ti up sale me with anything.

however, i did hear that they were down year on year during xmas this year.

while i believe games pricing is part of the problem here i hope this store does not shut. i will on occasion buy stuff from them if the price is good. (they were the only place i could find a copy of the outer worlds)
 
GAME are so far behind the times.

Their pricing structure just ensures complete and utter failure. There was a time when it and Gamestation were brilliant, once they purchased Gamestation outright and swept up it's competition, it got much too big for it's boots. Many new games costing £54.99, pre-owned games for not much less than that, more stores shutting, crap management and treatment of shop floor staff.

Some were just using them for the trade in offer where they'd beat CEX by £1 on every item traded in.
At some point it is going to disappear completely, which I hope is also a good thing for the independent shops, but internet shopping, game pass etc... throws a huge spanner in the works really.
 
Are they still all about addons? When I was there (many moons ago I will add) it was all about "you can't just sell them a game, sell them this magazine, this memory card, this bit of chewing gum under the table".

My wife went in over Christmas and sent me a weird text that there were more cans of pop in there than games...? What?
 
chigstoke said:
GAME are so far behind the times.

Their pricing structure just ensures complete and utter failure. There was a time when it and Gamestation were brilliant, once they purchased Gamestation outright and swept up it's competition, it got much too big for it's boots. Many new games costing £54.99, pre-owned games for not much less than that, more stores shutting, crap management and treatment of shop floor staff.

Some were just using them for the trade in offer where they'd beat CEX by £1 on every item traded in.
At some point it is going to disappear completely, which I hope is also a good thing for the independent shops, but internet shopping, game pass etc... throws a huge spanner in the works really.
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I've just been looking online to see if there is anything out that I can waste my voucher on, and a game that is £49.99 is £47.99 used. It's a fuking disgrace.

o'dium said:
Are they still all about addons? When I was there (many moons ago I will add) it was all about "you can't just sell them a game, sell them this magazine, this memory card, this bit of chewing gum under the table".

My wife went in over Christmas and sent me a weird text that there were more cans of pop in there than games...? What?
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My local tries to get you to pre-order the latest AAA and purchase disk insurance. They don't seem to like being reminded that pre-ordering is the cancer of the industry
 
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MilkyJoe said:
I've just been looking online to see if there is anything out that I can waste my voucher on, and a game that is £49.99 is £47.99 used. It's a fuking disgrace.



My local tries to get you to pre-order the latest AAA and purchase disk insurance. They don't seem to like being reminded that pre-ordering is the cancer of the industry
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Their pre-owned prices were always laughable at best. You'd go in store and see 3 year old games for £15 pre owned. I could go on ebay and get it for a fiver. They rely a lot on impulse buying or being the only game shop in a town.

I miss the days of there being competition to drive the prices down really. Another World, Gamestation, Game, Toys R Us etc... 10 odd years ago we had it good.
 
chigstoke said:
Their pre-owned prices were always laughable at best. You'd go in store and see 3 year old games for £15 pre owned. I could go on ebay and get it for a fiver. They rely a lot on impulse buying or being the only game shop in a town.

I miss the days of there being competition to drive the prices down really. Another World, Gamestation, Game, Toys R Us etc... 10 odd years ago we had it good.
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Yeah, there really is fuck all where I live. GAME, Argos, Tesco and Sainsburys. Maybe if GAME collapses there would be room for independent to start popping up.
 
One of those stores is in my city and we have two of them, literally 5 minutes walk away. I assume one used to be a Gamestation but it's excessive and the one they're closing is shit anyway.

GAME though is generally crap. I used to work in Waterstones which is kinda similar insofar as being a store dedicated to a specific medium. I'm not the biggest fan of the chain but it's true that they do a lot of things right that GAME doesn't. While gaming has been trying to gather a more mature image over the past few years, GAME is stuck in this mindset that the only people who buy games are spotty teenagers and parents of kids who don't know any better. As such their stores have staff with weird social skills, a poor selection of stock choices, and it creates this low-standard that makes shopping there a v. unpleasant experience.

The sooner it goes the better IMHO. Argos is the best place to buy games IRL these days.

EDIT: Canterbury still has a second hand games store called Level Up so it's funny that GAME is closing and they aren't.
 
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MilkyJoe said:
Yeah, there really is fuck all where I live. GAME, Argos, Tesco and Sainsburys. Maybe if GAME collapses there would be room for independent to start popping up.
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We have Tesco and Argos in my town. You'd have to go to the city centre for game. We had a local Chips store but they got bought out by The Game Place and then they went bump.

Meanwhile though, we have a couple of retro gaming shops that seem to be thriving.
 
Piece of shit stores needs to close down completely. When I think of all of the great independent shops that closed over the years but the out and out worst game store the country has ever had is holding on to its continued miserable existence.... I go in to game about 8 times a year just to see what's what. I have not bought a game from one of their shops for about 20 years.

The latest awesome deal I saw in GAME was Dragonball Fighters for £54.99. It is £12ish digital. Hell a few months back they were still asking £50 for Nioh. Game shops are dead, they died 15-20 years ago and it was sad. These particular shops just NEED to go.
 
One of the biggest surprises I had the first time I went to Hobbiton was going into one of those stores in London. I thought I'd stepped through some kind of Gamestop portal because it was just as overpriced and dirty. The only difference was it stunk of grease and french fries instead of grease and burgers
 
This is the 3rd time in as many years they are in financial trouble. Before EB Games lapped up GAME and GameStation (i always thought GAME were the evil ones, but turns out it was EB who re-branded themselves as GAME once they bought them in the UK). It's the staff i feel sorry for more than anything, 3rd time in as many years where they could be threatened with job losses.

They need to restructure in a major way, stop trying to cater for the 90's and bring forth the 21st century. Places like HMV and Waterstones have adapted and are doing ok (HMV still are adapting since the last time they went into administration). CEX in Newport, the staff hound you to the point i walk out. GAME in Newport, the staff don't hound you and are pretty decent for a chat. We have a comic book store i reckon might take on the void left from GAME, they stock gaming merchandise but who knows.

Good thing i offloaded my GAME vouchers i had for Christmas onto the PS4 for their sale.
 
I feel sprry for their workforce but they deserve nothing more than going out of business. They are a rip off company preying on clueless parents who dont shop around. If you shop in game you are wasting money, plain and simple. The game is up.
 
I miss Gamestation a bit and was gutted when Game took over them, had some decent deals at gamestation & was able to pick up a few decent retro things cheap before CEX came along to my town. Strangely our local Tesco's stopped selling games now well last time I checked, we have a small argos so there is that at least, got to go to the city a few miles away for everything else.
 
Jacknapes said:
CEX in Newport, the staff hound you to the point i walk out. GAME in Newport, the staff don't hound you and are pretty decent for a chat. We have a comic book store i reckon might take on the void left from GAME, they stock gaming merchandise but who knows.
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Is that Sin City Comics in Commercial Street? I'm quite surprised that place is still open, it always looks deserted.

I miss Gamestation, it was a great shop and surprisingly had a wealth of import stuff. I had both Japanese GBAs they had on launch day (initially got the white model but took it back for the purple one as I preferred the colour) and Dreamcast Crazy Taxi the day before it was released in Japan. Good times. It all went downhill when GAME bought them out.
 
Dazrael said:
Is that Sin City Comics in Commercial Street? I'm quite surprised that place is still open, it always looks deserted.

I miss Gamestation, it was a great shop and surprisingly had a wealth of import stuff. I had both Japanese GBAs they had on launch day (initially got the white model but took it back for the purple one as I preferred the colour) and Dreamcast Crazy Taxi the day before it was released in Japan. Good times. It all went downhill when GAME bought them out.
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Gamestation was great for stocking Dreamcast games, IIRC even up to about 2006/7 they were still stocking used DC games.
Another World for me was my favourite for Dreamcast games, but I'm not too sure if Another World had multiple UK branches. Forbidden Planet took over the Another World store in Stoke once they filed as dormant.
 
Dazrael said:
Is that Sin City Comics in Commercial Street? I'm quite surprised that place is still open, it always looks deserted.

I miss Gamestation, it was a great shop and surprisingly had a wealth of import stuff. I had both Japanese GBAs they had on launch day (initially got the white model but took it back for the purple one as I preferred the colour) and Dreamcast Crazy Taxi the day before it was released in Japan. Good times. It all went downhill when GAME bought them out.
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It's moved to Friars Walk, long story cut short. The place they had flooded late last year and the landlord/insurance wasn't playing ball to get things moving for repairs. So Friars (different owners) offered them the old Mothercare unit and they've moved in.

I preferred GameStation myself, better service and better overall. Shame they were rebranded when EB Games bought GAME and then GameStation.
 
Cheers MilkyJoe MilkyJoe for this PSA. It's funny because I £40 in vouchers and was thinking last week "shit, I best spend these before it goes under again", only half joking.

I made a killing the last time Game went under, hopefully I can do it again.

Although, fuck Game. They sold Borderlands for £55 (first retail game I've bought from them in years) and when I asked why it was so expensive, I got a snotty answer of "you should have pre-ordered it". Apparently, Game slap a £5 mark-up on all games bought in store that weren't pre-ordered....

Good business model you set of cunts.
 
They refused to refund a switch I picked up over Xmas that had a cluster of dead pixels.

Honestly, if you can't offer good face to face customer service you deserve to be devoured by online shopping.
 
What amazes me is they still somehow manage to get decent enough exclusive items, last weekend I was looking to pre order a DualShock 4 back button attachment online, Amazon nope, Argos nope, Tesco nope, tried John Lewis guess what nope, so I do a search up pops GAME, clicks the link it's bloody exclusive to them in the UK.
 
Jacknapes said:
It's moved to Friars Walk, long story cut short. The place they had flooded late last year and the landlord/insurance wasn't playing ball to get things moving for repairs. So Friars (different owners) offered them the old Mothercare unit and they've moved in.
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That's a much better location although it's very telling that the high street has out priced itself.
 
i avoid them as much as possible. they were a bit of a cunt trying to replace a faulty xbox. i also bought a xbox one controller to use on my PC and it started drifting and even though i had bought the stupid extra cover they refused to replace it.

other than the xbox/controller the only thing i've bought from them is a PS3 at launch back in 2007. usually i only go in to sell old hardware but now i tend to go to C.E.X more for that. i just got an xbox/controller because i couldn't be arsed waiting for Amazon to deliver it.
 
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When Game and Game stop close down, I think mom and pop shops should proliferate once again....
I'd definitely open one in a local town or city.

It's because there are too many game shops that are all the same and have nothing special to offer, the prices are too high and products the exact same as cheaper stores.

Make a store feel special, personal, know your customers and do favours / deals for them.

Game and Game stop are too strict and mean.
 
Bryank75 said:
When Game and Game stop close down, I think mom and pop shops should proliferate once again....
I'd definitely open one in a local town or city.

It's because there are too many game shops that are all the same and have nothing special to offer, the prices are too high and products the exact same as cheaper stores.

Make a store feel special, personal, know your customers and do favours / deals for them.

Game and Game stop are too strict and mean.
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and then amazon comes over and fucks you because you will never ever compete.
gl with that retail = dead
 
Shit i got £194 credit with them was hoping to use on one of the next gen consoles 🤬


Please stay alive till then
 
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I popped in my local store today while the wife was shopping, Modern Warfare still £54.99 and that was expensive at launch.
Say no more.
 
It's not surprising in the slightest. They've still not adapted from the past few times it's happened, from the times I go in and immediately leave after seeing everything is overvalued still i've noticed they sell a shit load more t-shirts etc and for some reason drinks.

Edit - Nevermind. Apparently he took over game last year.
 
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