GAME (as in the shop GAME): Retailer Of The Year 2019

Have GAME removed the part of the website where you could price check games for trade in? I can’t seem to find it anymore

ITSMILNER wrote:Have GAME removed the part of the website where you could price check games for trade in? I can’t seem to find it anymore

Yeah, I think so. I tried to find it the other day. There’s even a link to it from another page, but it goes nowhere.
EDIT: The app still has it, but I guess the prices could be wrong if they’re meant to have phased it out.

rinks wrote:

ITSMILNER wrote:Have GAME removed the part of the website where you could price check games for trade in? I can’t seem to find it anymore

Yeah, I think so. I tried to find it the other day. There’s even a link to it from another page, but it goes nowhere.
EDIT: The app still has it, but I guess the prices could be wrong if they’re meant to have phased it out.

Tried the app and they are offering rubbish prices on games compared to CEX, like most are not even close to what CEX offer. I don’t even think they do the whole price match a local business thing anymore either do they? Guess that saves me a trip to GAME

ITSMILNER wrote:

rinks wrote:

ITSMILNER wrote:Have GAME removed the part of the website where you could price check games for trade in? I can’t seem to find it anymore

Yeah, I think so. I tried to find it the other day. There’s even a link to it from another page, but it goes nowhere.
EDIT: The app still has it, but I guess the prices could be wrong if they’re meant to have phased it out.

Tried the app and they are offering rubbish prices on games compared to CEX, like most are not even close to what CEX offer. I don’t even think they do the whole price match a local business thing anymore either do they? Guess that saves me a trip to GAME

I think they officially stopped the price match thing around 5 years ago, you get a little bit more in points if you are a elite member (I always sign up for month if I’m buying because you get 10% back)

Not something I expected to see on the front page of the GAME website...

Interesting that they are now actively encouraging people to poke Barbie on the boob

Games, as in games patriarchal propaganda*.

*Now people with disabilities inclusive.

This is the way the store has been going for a few years now when I’ve popped in.

Middle section full of toys. It used to be (even back to Electronics Boutique days) a section with gaming merchandise, trading cards and such which was cool, Gamestation always had a back wall full of goodies and special editions.

But now Game seems part toy shop part games. Probably makes more money as that and fits more under the Mike Ashley umbrella of stacking stores with as much tat as possible.

Abacus wrote:

jawaX wrote:I *think* my nearest GAME store is still open; albeit I haven't been there since the pandemic lockdown started and - IIRC - the only game I've bought there in the past five or so years was a pre-owned copy of Avengers on the Wii U.
Living in saaf Lundn you'd kinda think that there would be a few gaming stores around but there are hardly any; supermarkets sometimes have a few games - though they're usually out of stock - and that's about it.

Oh, and the past few posts have changed title to "Game shares collapse" - I could be wrong but I don't think they have? If "Game Digital" is the correct one then that hasn't really changed for two years.
Edit: ^ Buy, yeah, they did in the few years previous to that!

I'm being thick here, but I didn't see the thread title change?

Also, I'm pretty sure the reason the share price hasn't changed in 2 years is because that's when they were bought out by Sports Direct (now called Fraser's group). So, there's no active market in shares any more.

To be honest, it's a wonder how so may of the shops bought out by Sports Direct are still going, I'm just surprised they didn't buy Woolworths and Blockbuster as well, but that's for another day.

I had no idea GAME was owned by Mike Ashley now. Explains why they're now situated inside House of Fraser in Norwich. At one point we had 5 Game / Gamestation stores. We now have one concession in HoF.

I just find it’s a shame about what Game could be to what it actually is. I’ve no idea if GameStation was taken over by Game or just went out of business themselves (I don’t recall having seen a Grainger Games in years too, guess these are gone too) but Game feels like the one supposed Game centric shop there is, and they just don’t double down on that aspect and just sell (what I deem as) rubbish instead.

Obviously this is keeping them going though?

Yeah, Game bought out Gamestation, closed them down after a while, then found themselves trying to figure out how to survive in a world where being focused on games just wasn't good enough. Slowly but surely, they've found that branching out to other things besides games has helped, to the point about a third of the stores now contain gaming related merchandise or even things not related to games at all.

Will never forgive GAME for purchasing Gameplay.com either, which was my go-to mail order company from 1996-2000. Their interactive TV service also felt cutting edge, alongside ordering a Domino’s through the TV. THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED. Were still competitive with the likes of Amazon in the first half of the 2000s as well, as everything shifted fully online.

They had one physical store in Leeds from what I remember, but I never had the opportunity to visit.

It was a shame what happened with Grainger Games, they were always cheaper than Game, usually at least a fiver cheaper on new releases.
As I recall it was mismanagement that caused them to collapse. The management kept trying to chase sales of tat and bring in stuff like mobile phone repairs, trying to compete more with places like CeX than Game.

Even with Game, dedicated gaming stores have pretty much zero high street presence anymore due to Game increasingly merging into Sports Direct. The closest now is indie game stores but even those are getting few and far between, and the one I do like going into is often quite expensive for new titles (sometimes even more expensive than Game, nevermind online) so it makes it difficult to support them, especially in the current economic climate.

Robbo-92 wrote:I just find it’s a shame about what Game could be to what it actually is. I’ve no idea if GameStation was taken over by Game or just went out of business themselves (I don’t recall having seen a Grainger Games in years too, guess these are gone too) but Game feels like the one supposed Game centric shop there is, and they just don’t double down on that aspect and just sell (what I deem as) rubbish instead.

Obviously this is keeping them going though?

Grainger games went into administration and then apparently a lot of there stock was purchased by Music Magpie..

DarkRula wrote:Yeah, Game bought out Gamestation, closed them down after a while, then found themselves trying to figure out how to survive in a world where being focused on games just wasn't good enough. Slowly but surely, they've found that branching out to other things besides games has helped, to the point about a third of the stores now contain gaming related merchandise or even things not related to games at all.

I’d have little problem if they stocked a load of decent strictly gaming related merchandise alongside games, but what they do sell is normally rubbish, then they sell more rubbish on top.

KK wrote:Will never forgive GAME for purchasing Gameplay.com either, which was my go-to mail order company from 1996-2000. Their interactive TV service also felt cutting edge, alongside ordering a Domino’s through the TV. THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED. Were still competitive with the likes of Amazon in the first half of the 2000s as well, as everything shifted fully online.

They had one physical store in Leeds from what I remember, but I never had the opportunity to visit.

Gameplay was absolutely spot on from what I remember, sure I even bought my Wii through there (well my parents did on my behalf with money I’d saved up) back in late 2008.

Lagamorph wrote:It was a shame what happened with Grainger Games, they were always cheaper than Game, usually at least a fiver cheaper on new releases.
As I recall it was mismanagement that caused them to collapse. The management kept trying to chase sales of tat and bring in stuff like mobile phone repairs, trying to compete more with places like CeX than Game.

Even with Game, dedicated gaming stores have pretty much zero high street presence anymore due to Game increasingly merging into Sports Direct. The closest now is indie game stores but even those are getting few and far between, and the one I do like going into is often quite expensive for new titles (sometimes even more expensive than Game, nevermind online) so it makes it difficult to support them, especially in the current economic climate.

I actually found Grainger Games decent to step into as well, the atmosphere just feels off in Game, as you said trying to expand into different areas such as phone repairs was an odd move in hindsight too.

I genuinely wouldn’t know where the closed independent game shop was to me.

Lagamorph wrote:It was a shame what happened with Grainger Games, they were always cheaper than Game, usually at least a fiver cheaper on new releases.
As I recall it was mismanagement that caused them to collapse. The management kept trying to chase sales of tat and bring in stuff like mobile phone repairs, trying to compete more with places like CeX than Game.

Since I was there until the very last day, I can fill in a few blanks.

But yeah, trying to do mobile phone repairs and selling phone cases killed us financially.

They bought about 500,000 phone cases/accessories expecting to make about £1.2million in sales. Turns out they made £86,000 in sales, it was a MASSIVE money loser, so they went and trained us in phone repairs (or as in the red smartfix shirts said "repriars". I flat out refused to do them because I was given 4 hours training and was "demoted" to the warehouse, which I loved doing and was very happy there. I remember them panicking throwing anything at the wall hoping it would stick, doing buybacks, having a merchandise wall of gift card and trying to re-introduce credit buying. Anything except selling games because games just were not making any money any more.

By the end of it, we were £3 Million in the red, and the only thing making any profit was the Pop Vinyls (which one of the head office guys formed Be More Geek as his own buisness, fair play to him, never had a bad word against him, good luck to him)

And ultimately, what killed it for us was EA (for A Way Out), Ubisoft (Far Cry 5) and Sony (Ni No Kuni 2) withholding sending games until they were paid what they were owed.

There was talks of closing all the stores and just operating online, just it meant having to keep on all the staff. So they just filed for adminstation.

Grainger games went into administration and then apparently a lot of there stock was purchased by Music Magpie..

Pretty much yeah, there was 2 bids, one was Game offering £500,000 plus keeping 12 of the stores opening to be rebranded, the other was Music Magpie paying £1 million for all the stock, which was £3 million less than what the stock was worth. Music Magpie won in the end.

I miss the staff, but strawberry float the management.

Were they the dwarf throwing ones?

Noticed at the weekend that the GAME most local to me has closed, apparently due to lease disagreements. That leaves CeX as the sole videogame shop in the town.

Ours have gone inside Sports Direct. To be honest they must sell the tat figures/pop figures enough to stay open. It stopped being a Game shop long ago and always seems empty.

Quite sad that supermarkets are all dumping their gaming stock (think Tesco has got rid all together now, Sainsburys back into Argos). Used to get some great deals on new releases or random sales. Now it’s pretty much online only for games.

The fact Game charge is it £4.99 for delivery is an absolute rip off on their website.

My local Game has a load of toys in store now. Not just Lego and funkos, actual small children's toys. It's at least 50% toys and it feels like it won't be around much longer. There are two other toy stores near by and cex around the corner for games and second hand mobiles.