Viewing Thread:
"Game: Old Fashioned? Out of Business?"

When my brother first had his Super Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1996, there was really only one place you would think of for buying new games. The internet was relatively new and certainly wasn’t the standard household communications tool it is now. Amazon and Play were still in diapers, and most game-specific stores were by catalogue and advertised through gaming magazines, like the Special Reserve Gaming Network. GAME, better known as Electronics Boutique, had the biggest collection of games for all systems on the high street, and offered great deals as well as the chance to swap some played games for discount against new. But alas, as the credit crunch is moving on into yet another year, headlines are appearing suggesting that Game can’t afford to stock new releases due to their creditors not being able to lend. So is this the end to the troubles for GAME? Is the biggest high street gaming chain seeing the start of things to come?



I’ve always been fond of GAME. Building themselves up by using the Electronics Boutique name until they became big enough to stop paying for the American firm’s name and start running on their own steam. Back in the day if there was ever a game you wanted for PC, Playstation, N64 or the Game Boy Color, Game would always be your first choice. Their well laid out stores had the best selection beating competitors like WH Smith, Currys, Dixons, Comet, Woolworths and everyone else in choice, and pricing. They even had an enjoyment guarantee that would allow you to bring the games back for a full refund or swap for another title if you didn’t like the game, on the condition that the game was returned in a new-sellable condition. If the title you wanted wasn’t in stock they would be able to tell you when it would be coming into store, and even reserve it for you if you wanted to be sure you would get it on returning to them.

However, since around half way through the Xbox/PS2 gaming era, GAME have been showing little signs that uncertainties have been effecting the business. GAME have dropped their price-matching, and their enjoyment guarantee meaning the only way you can return a game (unless clearly faulty) is to trade it in for discount on other games. They started charging for their loyalty reward card, which, when they started doing so, meant you would have to spend £100 on games just to get your money back. Their Debenhams concession stores (of which I used to be a member) have closed. Prices have shot up on games, whether new or pre-owned. And to ensure (though seemingly not guarantee) that you will get a new release on release day, you now have to pay a deposit with your preorder. After the acquisition of their biggest competitor, Gamestation, they have also closed a number of stores and, despite claiming they would treat Gamestation as a seperate business for the customers that liked Gamestation’s way of operating, matched the prices to their GAME stores and introduced a similar loyalty reward scheme.

In my experience as a customer, and a part time staff member in the early noughties, GAME have been weakening through their way of conveyor-belt operating and their price-hikes. Obviously it is GAME’s intention to make money out of their customers. Unless they make a profit they wouldn’t be able to operate. However, they make their staff almost reek of desperation in a bid to secure sales. If you step into a GAME store, you’ll be targetted by atleast one employee almost imediately, or will hear a manager tell a staff member to approach you with what is seemingly a polite, “Are you looking for anything in particular?” As a customer, I immediately feel harassed and often made to feel stupid as either it is a case of ”Yes, I am looking for a particular game, but mainly to see if it is of similar price to gaming websites before I make a decision as to whether I want to buy it. And funnily enough, I know the 3DS section is where all the 3DS games are located…” or “No, I am just browsing”. Rarely when I walk into a GAME store am I going in with the sole intention of buying a product regardless of the price.

Would you like fries with that?

Every purchase is followed by, “Is there anything you want to pre-order?”. To be fair, if there is I would have probably done it via the GAME website, or another competitor’s, for convienience. Quite often if you explain you’re just after what you’ve gone into the store for, or money’s a bit tight, they’ll use what seems to me to be a desperate attempt to get more money into the till: “Well if money is tight, we’re accepting preorder deposits of £10 towards the PS Vita which will only cost you a further £220 at launch in less that a month’s time…” I said money is tight, not that I will suddenly have 5 numbers on the lottery this weekend and will suddenly be able to afford it…
“and if you change your mind you can reclaim your deposit!” Or I could keep my £10, use it to fuel my car, buy some food, pay towards some bills, etc, and then if, when I’m ready, there is a good deal on the PS Vita, I may consider purchasing one from you.

The trouble is, GAME staff are made to feel that they’re not providing a good customer service unless they read the laminated script that they must memorise and read back word for word to each customer. I would consider it more of a customer service is a common sense approach was given by staff to customers. If you see someone browsing the console offers, speak to them like humans. Ask them what their thoughts are and advise them if you can accomodate their needs through an offer. If they’re looking at the chart games, then ask them what they’re after and offer to check if in stock. If you speak to them like humans at the tillpoint, they will often have a chat back which will let you know if they’re after any new releases which you can then advise about preorders and the benefits. The management to staff approach on sales is like ringing through to a foreign call centre. The staff seemingly have to go through a detailed script in a specific order regardless of the responses by the customer before they move on, which proves more frustrating as a customer than helpful.

“Oh, by the way, did you know you can trade games in for discount?”

Whilst trading in games helps you to ‘save’ some money against newer titles, what you’ve got to realise is that for the average console game, you’ll have spent £40 on it if you bought it on release. If, like me, you value your purchases, you’ll have kept them until you’re absolutely sure you’re not going to play them again. By then, the original selling price of the game has gone down so you may get, if you’re lucky, about £8 for the game. So so far you’re down £32. You get your £8 discount off of a new £40 game which means you have to hand over £32 cash to GAME. Therefore your new game has cost you £64. Meanwhile, Game sell your game for atleast 40% more to someone who doesn’t realise, or even care, that the game was sold to GAME for less, and GAME make a nice profit – on both the tradein and the new game.

Whilst the morals of pre-owned gaming are another story, they’re a large part of GAME’s success, especially for the average gamer who plays through a game, gets bored and wants a new experience. Unfortunately, replayability, or lack of, whilst being another subject for discussion, is a reason for gamers to trade in their used games for titles they haven’t yet played, it just goes to show that gaming has evolved from the arcade style addiction gaming to the once-played never again style of gaming the we see in all but a few select titles these days. But it is the pre-owned business that seems to be keeping GAME alive at the moment.

This has been seen by other retailers who have also had to cope with the recent struggles. HMV have been trying to expand on their gaming business through trade-ins as have massive supermarket chain Tesco. However, it is GAME’s biggest competitors that seem to have recently changed their strategies to target GAME’s customers. Online retail is quickly becomming the best choice for customers who can merely google the item they want and be told where they can get it cheapest out of a wide selection of online retailers. Amazon, Play, and even GAME’s online store offer products at a much more reasonable price in comparison to the high street. With fewer staff to pay, the profits, to some degree, can be passed on to the customer. Due to loopholes in tax laws, most online retailers operate from places like Jersey which allow them to make even larger profits. And with online shopping becomming more and more accessible in the broadband age, you would be daft not to consider purchasing or preordering that latest game online. Some online retailers even offer trade-in incentives that make it even more beneficial to shop online.

The Legend of Stock Shortages…

What you should bare in mind is that back in the old days of gaming, stock shortages on new titles were not unusual. Nintendo 64′s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was hard to get hold of when it first came out. As were the original Pokémon titles. The importance of pre-ordering big releases seemed more prominent back then. And if you were lucky enough to get a preorder from an online retailer or a catalogue firm like Special Reserve, chances are you would get the game delivered to your door on release, or if you were even luckier, could brag to your mates that you had your copy a day or two before they did. However, these days preorders are normally to allow stores the chance to ensure they have enough stock to order from the suppliers which also ensured over-stocking a potential flop didn’t become an issue for the retailier.

Times have inevitably changed and at the moment I don’t feel that GAME are keeping up with them. They need to start thinking more of the customer, make the high street shop more of a pleasant, rather than an offputting experience. Reduce prices to be a little more competative and even consider re-introducing price-matching (against local retailers) – a policy that forms part of John Lewis’s ever growing success in their field of retail. Offer more value for trade-in, and try selling some stock they already have rather than just focussing on stock they haven’t even got yet.

Are GAME old fashioned? As a high street retailer yes. by reducing their retail incentives and almost forcing their regular customers online, they’re potentially hurting their own trade.

A glimpse through the time vortex…

The future of GAME is inevitably their online business. They already offer better deals through the GAME, Gamestation and Gameplay websites and tghis is obviously through then cost savings of not having to pay for premises, haulage, staff and the obvious bills surrounding them. They’re already making decisions regarding their european expansion and I wouldn’t be suprised if we see more store closures in the UK in the near future. I can’t see them going bust, but unless they consider defeat on the high street, they may be calling in the administrators to attempt to save them in the short term.

I know the subject has caused much controversy on here lately but felt this an appropriate formate to voice my own opinion in an objective manner

This may appear on a google search, but it is 100% my own work and will have originated from my own personal blog-site

*Edit: Title updated 21/3/2012 following recent events

Chasfh: Your are perfectly welcome to contribute because we are proving a point that game stores in general are not as great as they could be.I mean its not the shop itself that is bad its the people who work there and Chasfh you said you had experience in both stores so you out of all people should know that.

Although sometimes people may think that it is the staff that is the problem it is actually the customers who will go into a GAME shop and complain about things.I also picked up on that GAME stores do not just sell games they sell game guide books and Plushie Angry Birds toys which is good for younger children.

Yes Chasfh about the trade ins they do not give an awful lot of money for games but if you have enough of them then you can get a nice bit of money to spend on games you want.And also yes I noticed that Supermarkets like Morrisons sell Wii's and Xbox 360 consoles for LESS than games stores which is surprising you would expect that games stores would be giving a discount or just generally selling it for less but no.

People now a days want to walk into a store pick up a game buy it and leave but thee is loads of muddles in stores now there is the whole gift card thing or do you want a GAME savers card or and HMV savings card.Pretty much everyone does not want one they just want a cheap game which means they have wasted a lot of money on making the cards.

Last time I was in a GAME store it was packed you could hardly move because there was so many people and then there is the cues but the thing is with shops being so busy you do not have the chance to look for the game you want.In some GAME stores and Gamestation stores (not all) their games are not arranged so that you can find them easily.

I mean their games can be put in alphabetical order or ordered into which Genre they are but I suppose other people would come in and mix them up which causes Hell for other people but I do agree with both of you.

Obviously I could only comment on my experience with one particular manager in my local Gamestation branch. Definitely did not want to tar them all with the same brush as this particular one could barely be considered human with his disgusting attitude. He took a risk in taking a job with a smaller firm called The Software Store before they went bust and he lost his job. If karma is real...

With the trade ins, I remember the target profit when I was virtually running a Debenhams concession of GAME was a 40% profit (at the time) and we initially had control over how much we would give for the games. Then GAME updated their till systems which did it all for us. With Gamestation I remember the till systems again doing it for us but the manager instructed us to override it with a lower figure. Whether this was part of his own flexibility in budget management I don't know, but what I do know is I felt customers at the time were getting a rotten deal as I could see what we should have been offering and I am not an intentionally dishonest person.

With games companies getting clever with their drm they seem I be accepting that preowned is here to stay for the mean time. As the drm mainly relates to things such as online play or special content the publishers allow the preowned gamer to pay to unlock the content. Quite right that they should because the servers that run the online games aren't free an unless the games make a profit then they're not going to be able to continue.

I do remember certain games being more profitable than others. The Hulk on PS2 was heavily pushed in sales with consoles and to parents buying them around Christmas time. Game could afford to give what appeared to be a large discount on them as well as continuing to make a decent profit. You could tell which ones these were as they would be not so popular titles that head office insisted we pushed with the major titles in console deals.

As for the developers, there are a lot struggling and have done for a while now even before the economic depression. Acclaim were one of the biggest to fall at the start of the GameCube era. I can understand they need the games to make a certain level of profit. Some of the bigger games have budgets bigger than the huge bidet movies and when you consider how games have grown over the years, it's no surprise. Atleast with big budget movies they get a cinema release and then a DVD/rental/download release which enables them a few chances to gain profit. Whereas games are left with a short window to earn their crust. So I do feel that the developers and publishers have the right to charge what they currently charge but I also feel that if GAME better targeted their stores, rather than their previous spreading like a rash as they have done in opening stores, they could save on some money and use that saving to their advantage, as well as the customer.

I managed both Game stores and Gamestation for a number of years, and always had myself and my staff treat customers with the same respect. The "casual" front of Gamestation actually hid a much slicker operation than Game on the whole, and although that may have changed somewhat as the two grew closer, the customer base for each store type was actually poles apart.

Game, with its shirt and tie approach appealed more to parents and those shopping FOR gamers, whereas Gamestation appealed predominantly to the hardcore gaming fan. It's an image thing...

With regard to closures, as each brand has its own budget and restraints, it is more likely that stores from both chains will close. There probably won't be a lot of apparent sense to it all, but I'm sure the company will make a judgement call as to which one suits which town more. For example, I would expect to see Basildon Gamestation stay in preference to Game due to the general populace and their buying habits.

In terms of the whole pricing thing, as I stated in a previous post, I can remember more than one occasion where Game were selling a brand new AAA title at £5 less than the unit buy- in price just to compete. (I also remember taking a large quantity of petty cash out to buy Wii and 360 consoles from a local supermarket because they were selling them for less than the company could buy them!) Point being that the wiggle room on the price of most of the games is not that great when it comes to high street sales, so perhaps the blame lies with EA et al.

With regard to earlier comments related to trade ins, most of those are sold at a minimum of 30% profit, so perhaps that's where they COULD have saved some pain for themselves...

To explain why games producers think trade ins are damaging to their business, here's a little bit of background...

As a Game/station employee, you are targetted on preowned sales. Only one in eight customers who walk in pick up preowned games off the bat, so staff are trained to offer the preowned alternative (it's the same but cheaper, you still get a guarantee, yada yada yada, you've all heard it). Out of those seven that pick up new, your staff might convert five. Game/station profits soar.
BUT,,,
The games producers make NOTHING out of those preowned sales. So, bottom line, high street trade ins are responsible for REMOVING the profit of six out of every eight sales. Admittedly, they still make a killing on release, as all sales will be new and at full price, but it's the CONTINUED sales they want. Its all about the numbers, pure and simple.

This doesn't make it right, agreed, but it is unfortunately the way its seen especially by the big boys. Example: At one point, as a knee- jerk reaction EA refused to sell a particular new title at discount to Game for many of the reasons above. The result was us putting the game out at £stupid- price +++ and not promoting it in any way just to try and force EA to break. Needless to say, they didn't care.

High street sales are dying because;
a) the people who make the money (the game companies like EA) don't really give a damn where the money comes from, just so long as it keeps coming (which, a little sadly, it will regardless)
b) the people who sell the products on the high street make next to nothing on it all, sometimes less! ( a new PS3 nets less than £5, a 360 less than £8)

Now, I don't say all this because it is what I was told by the company. I was actually responsible for my own budget in Gamestation. I balanced the profit and loss for the store, adjusted my stock levels with pricing and popularity in mind, even set my own staffing budget just to make the store work efficiently. So, the numbers I mention are accurate, not hearsay.

Just thought I'd throw this in for discussion:-)

Exactly I mean Game stores in general put their prices extremely high and then when they see their sales are low they wonder why?.Its common sense the higher your prices the less customers you receive because people just cant afford it.You see I am Thirteen I do not have a job that brings in money I receive money for doing small jobs like wash the car or cut the grass I do not work in somewhere like Morrisons or Tesco's Which I do not have money to spare and well neither do people that have jobs that do not pay much because they need it for things such as bills or food for the week and I only get small amounts of money for doing the small jobs.
This means I cant just walk into a games store and pick up a game that I would like and it end up being from £30-£40 I just cant that is why games shops do not have many customers.

A LOT of games are aimed at say 12-18 year old people fair enough if you are 18 you may have a job that pays a good amount and still live with your parents and not have to worry about paying bills.Shops need to think about the younger children who do not have enough money and lower there prices or their shop is going to receive less and less customers and eventually shut down.

I have also seen that games that have been out for a while are still £40 I would have to save for a while if I wanted to buy it and that would mean for every game I have to wait another say 3-4 weeks to have enough money. Edgy you have started a whole debate over your post which is a good thing. :)

Jakfan12: if yuu've been sold a pre owned game that's faulty I would reccomend taking it back for refund or replacement. I don't think it's down to preowned that is causing store
Closures though. Preowned games normally make a larger profit so long as the store are able to sell them. But with DRM being applied to more and more Xbox and PS3 games I'm not willing to save £2 to get only 66% of what I'm after...

Anyway, it's down to overheads, costs of stocking, low levels of profit on new games, and the fact that it is often cheaper to buy products online these days that are hitting both trading names of GAME at the moment. If creditors are struggling to pay money to GAME which they rely on to obtain more stock then that causes major issues (like the recent crisis that has hit GAME. I would like to see a continuing high street presence, but with cloud gaming on the horizon and products so far being significantly cheaper online I still think Game are going to have to do more to modernise than selling Zynga Facebook game credits in store...

I agree, they may be better sorting out their strategies to make both stores more profitable. Such as one Game and one GamestatiOn per town centre with enough space between them to warrant the 2 stores. Otherwise they become like a certain golden arched fast food chain...but without the 99p chicken mayo...

As for the channel island tax havens...presumably that's something that will effect a large number of big chains that operate online (GAME, Gameplay, HMV, Play, cd-wow, etc) as well as Amazon? If so then our wallets may be in for a further pounding and GAME may yet weather the storm...

Edgy I have realised that in Edinburgh which is a big place does not have any Gamestation shops not that I have seen anyway and there are more GAME Stores There is one at Fort Kinnaird And I bought a game from there NO PRE-OWNED! and when I got home and tested it on my Xbox 360 It would not work no matter how many times it told me to clean the disc and restart Xbox it still did not work so I may take it back there which why GAME stores are closing also not just Gamestation

Definitely but it's still quite pointless and I cannot understand the logic on paying rental for 2 properties selling the same product. Common sense say you'd close the less profitable store in each town.
Things may get interesting later this year. Amazon are about to lose their tax haven status and that should make things fairer across the board.

The only Gamestation store in Cardiff was closed last year.

There have been 3 GAME stores in Cardiff for years - 2 within a minute or 2's walk from each other.

I think there will still be more GAME stores than Gamestation when this round of store culling is over

Edgy wrote:
Unfortunately I think it would be Gamestation that go even though they appear to be the high street choice for gamers.

You'd think so but it's been the GAME stores being closed. By next year they will have shut about 150