Huge Closures for GAME
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Could be worse, you could have only one burger king.wooty said:
Seriously, why do town planners make ZERO consideration to monopolistic practices, they should NEVER allow three branches of the same company to serve the same area, where is the competition? Where is the choice? WHAT ABOUT THE CONSUMERS!!!?!?!?
I'm pretty sure McDonalds and GAME didn't buy all these high-street stores for any cost-effective increase in profits but just to squeeze out the competition, I'm quite sure they'd like to have bought the property just to have it demolished it would serve them just as well (though likely wouldn't get that approved, got to appear good on the surface).
Why was Burger king, KFC, or maybe even a local private fast food restaurant given preferential sale of the property?
People go on and on about consumerism and the entire premise is a LIE! It is the crazy idea that it is about the consumers whim when so often it is nothing but corporatism and virtual monopolies.
Local government has FAILED. They are the ones that grant trading licences only they are too busy down in Westminster looking out for nobody but their own arses.
I have given up on high street capitalism, the internet is the only real open market left where capitalism works in the favour of the masses rather than to manipulated by the powerful capital holders.
I believe so. Here in Brighton, the GAME on Western Road used to be an Electronics Boutique (I still have the EB loyalty card somewhere!), then one opened up in the Churchill Square shopping centre about twenty metres along the road, and a Gamestation opened up about ten metres the other way! There's also an HMV on Western Road, and another in the shopping centre, so they're competing on two fronts there too.Baron Khaine said:
So yes, we could stand to lose one of the GAMEs, particularly as there are at least three independent game shops in town, in addition to the chains.
Most of the time that's because Nintendo have paid for the space in store, to make their products seem like they're selling better, and if Nintendo pays for it, every other section has to shrink because they can't pull space out of their ass. Then it all swaps over when Microsoft want a turn. It's not a good recipe for good store layout and organisation.Wizzie said:
You make a lot of good points treblaine, but I've got a few counter points for you.Treblaine said:
Games are expensive because they're made expensive. The average profit made from buying in a new games is £2.50. The buying in of a game and shipping it to stores eats up most of the profits made by selling it. To try and make up for the lack of revenue they get from new stuff, Game majors in pre-owned, which is more expensive because they make basically nothing on the new stuff.
Speaking of said pre-owned, you mention that there isn't enough retro stuff in GAME/Gamestation. For my store at least, the reason for that is that there isn't enough room for it in the store. If they stocked even half of the previous generation as well as all the new stuff, there would be no room to move, not to mention the strain it would put on the staff, who have their hands full anyway trying to get everything done with no hours.
On another note, it's also not viable to stock the games past Playstation2 because there isn't a market for it. I'm a regular customer in the local independent game shop as well as the GAME I work at, and have looked at their stock. The older thing, gameboy, Gamecube, PS1, dreamcast and Original Xbox sells like ice to an eskimo, and definitely not enough to make it a realistic option. There's no profit in it.
As for the guidance thing, I'll admit, sometimes we can't give the best advice because we haven't played a certain game or console, but we do try. We're not assholes on purpose. Besides, all you've got to do is ask us not to bother you if you want to be left alone. We're people too, if you tell us to sod off, sod off we shall (just don't actually say 'Sod Off', you'll hurt my feelings).
This is irrelevant in my case. too bad also, because here game stores aren't cheap and they sell games like 2 times their original price...
Oh, I was referring to GAME, they are so defensive when I ask if they have things like Xbox/Gamecube games with the typical passive aggressive "Well those consoles are obsolete we don't stock them" and get really snippy if I mention how Xbox 360 and Wii are backwards compatible and it's not like every single Xbox and Gamecube has ceased to function. And my GameStation has an abysmal collection of games for "obsolete" consoles.ultimateownage said:
1. my big question on Specialist Stores vs Supermarkets is what do these specialist stores actually offer over the big stores? I have overheard so much bullshit advice from certain specialist games stores (that shall remain nameless) being given to the typical "non-gamer buying game for gamer" I have to bite my tongue to prevent myself interrupting.Batsamaritan said:
So many are HIDEOUSLY misinformed and don't seem to know any more than what is printed on the back of the game box. I had the entire staff of a certain "Specialised Game Retail Store" swear blind that every single PS3 game was rendered in native 1080p, I could tell the mood from the staff if I pressed the issue I would get kicked out of the store so I dropped it. 'Customer is always right' MY ARSE!
Other "facts":
-every single Xbox 360 game has full anti-aliasing
-the Xbox 360 can't output High Definition via VGA
-Bayonetta plays better on PS3 than 360 after a recent patch (always the "recent patch" excuse)
-The "720p and 1080p" written on the back of a game box are the Native Resolutions, not merely supported resolutions
-"you got to pre-order this game, it'll DEFINITELY be sold out for weeks" (when has that EVER happened for a game? Discs are so easy/cheap to print)
-"this DLC is ONLY available if you Pre-Order it before release"
Not to mention all the cases of Truth-but-not-the-whole-truth and generally bad advice all around. Other unprofessional things like getting into fanboy arguments with customers. All of this is bad for the consumer and makes it harder to make a well informed decision. But anything to get a sale.
To be honest, a Specialised Games store is the LAST place you want to go for advice. You might as well ask a Barber if you need a hair cut.
I'll tell you what large stores like Tescos and also HMV and Virgin can offer is economy of scale, competitive prices and with games going from £40 to £45 that is a LOT of money for the consumer, that is a major purchase.
I'm sorry but the bottom line IS the customers, the quality is assured by the Publishers, the price is the main issue. I mean is a copy of Uncharted 2 bought in GAME any different from one bought in HMV? The thing is the Larger and broader store has specialised and high streamlined wholesale purchasing and distribution network, high capital:labour efficiencies to keep costs to the consumer as low as possible.
Hell, as gamers we should be glad that big stores are subsidising the cost of games from the sales of music and movies.
And there are added benefits of games, video and music all being in the same store... because they ARE all very related. Games consoles are multimedia machines now, and games are big name entertainment products, they deserve to be sold side by side with the DVD boxsets and Blockbuster blu-rays. There is also security for the industry, gaming make take a hit (generation cycles) but you will still have film and music to back a store up. Gaming should not need specialist stores any more because it isn't really a specialist interest.
2. Digital Downloads
This has a problem here in the UK, broadband download limitations. Consider PS3's 50GB Blu-ray is often used to capacity download is not going to be replacing retail, the Apple style "all controlling" virtual store is fundamentally limited. It has to be an open market to sell the games and hard copies in retail stores is going to be the way to go.
It is the publishers that are killing PC gaming, delayed release dates, poor ports, console-ization. But to be honest I don't think it is PC gaming dying, it was never that large a percentage of gaming compared to consoles and no high street store can compete with the online marketplace and PC gamers are far more likely to go to the internet for a good deal.
3. Piracy
No refund policy = problem solved.
Consumer rights can still be accommodated for, they can only demand a refund if the product is faulty, not merely because of how they FEEL about the product or their own shortcomings (low hardware) in using the product.
In Cambridge town centre there are 3, 2 GAMEs and one Gamestation. It's retarded, the only business they're competing with is their own.
They could shut down 75% of their stores and make the exact same number of sales, I'd just have to walk 100 meters further.
They could shut down 75% of their stores and make the exact same number of sales, I'd just have to walk 100 meters further.
I was driven away from GAME ages ago, for two main reason.
1. As the honorable gentleman has suggested in the below guote mostly. I still actively play my "obsolete" consoles.
1. As the honorable gentleman has suggested in the below guote mostly. I still actively play my "obsolete" consoles.
and 2. GAME seems to of trained their staff different now, its really annoying. I know people are complaining about the lack of service, but I HATE being approached in the store asking if I need any help CONSTANTLY. I have, no joke, stopped going into GAME stores when i'd be the only one there because they all pounce on you without fail....Treblaine said:
Well I love the fact that I can buy 2 or 3 games from amazon/zavvi/hut or whatever for about £10 less than the high street and then trade them in at Game to get my next game free. It's what I've done for years. I hope Cameron Toll shopping centre Game doesn't close. There's like 5 Game stores in Edinburgh, let me keep my one!!!
In my town (swindon) there's 3 games within a space thats not even quarter of a mile. Ones down the road and round the corner from the first you see and the other is in the 3rd floor of a Debenhams building.
So yeah, it really does not bother me too much. Plus I go to Gamestation.
So yeah, it really does not bother me too much. Plus I go to Gamestation.
Is this true? How can Nintendo possibly get away with such practices? Is the games retail industry not regulated AT ALL?!? To be honest I am not surprised, the politicians mostly have no clue about games and treat them with utter contempt. I mean is Sony Music started buying up shelf space for their music in HMV, do you think the industry would tolerate it? I'm no lawyer but I'm sure there are trade laws/regulations preventing practices like that in other entertainment industries.Erja_Perttu said:
Erja_Perttu said:
But why are games made expensive? Consider this counter-counter-point (or is it just a point now?) that the Publishers, the guys who actually paid for the game (and paid the developers) only get about $16-25 per game sold. There are just too many damn middle men, inefficiencies in distribution.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/ps3-xbox360-costs-tech-cx_rr_game06_1219expensivegames_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=undefined
There are many different ways to cut this pie but the way I see it as soon as the disc comes off the production line in box with newly printed manual, ready to be shipped off each game costs about $30 or £20. OK maybe more like $40 or £25 but it varies with 1st/3rd party games.
But there are so many middle men in between that and the game getting onto the shelves for sale that add to that cost, one of them is running a specialised store with a quite a few staff each trying to make sales. Distribution is not gong to be very efficient for many small stores.
However, big stores like HMV have the muscle to get the best deals, cut out as many middle men as possible and get it as close to the base price as possible,
I mean you know what is the most expensive thing in almost every single industry in the Western World? Personnel, the staff, the guys in the GAME store trying to convince a mother to buy Wii fit for their kids. And all the distribution networks that stand between the people that actually made the game and had it printed and actually ending up on a store shelf. I'd much rather these stores run on a "skeleton crew" just keeping the shelves stocked and telling me where to find things, not trying to sell me things.
Big stores keep the personnel numbers down (relative to size), draw in as many customers as possible with not JUST games but movies and all the stuff they can use with their game console, the pay-till in pretty much constant use. Every time I've been into HMV it seems like there is always a queue of people to pay, in GAME there just seem to be loads of people milling about looking for a Pre-owned game that is more than £10 cheaper than what it costs new.
The ideal model is Amazon or Play.com, it's cheaper for them to mail each game to each person's home that have to staff a store. Running a small high street store can be hugely expensive, it is the place that traditionally been for REAL luxury good like designer clothes, tailors, Jewellers, shoe sellers.
I say good-riddens to the High Street game store, the sooner that happens, the sooner prices will get better for the consumer. Why is it even
I mean have you heard of a small high street video store? No. That's why DVDs are selling for £3-£10 to spite movies costing 5 to 10 times as much as games.
You want my opinion of the future of small retail game stores?
I think, or hope they will come to completely specialise in pre-owned, retro and otherwise re-sale of games, the video store model, and give up the big sale of new titles. they just don't go well together.
I am reminded of how Quentin Tarantino apparently spent his formative years working in a used video store wasting his life away watching hundreds if not thousands of films but to give him a really unique perspective on cinema. How can this happen with video games when all the pre-owned/resale is dominated by companies that are in the cut-throat business of buying AAA titles new and sell them as quickly as possible? Maybe I'm having romantic ideas but the video game retail industry just seems to be unable to naturally enjoy games and their culture.
Pre-owned/retro games should NOT be a corporate enterprise but a small business model. That's my idea of a dream video game store, endless bargain bins and just time to chat with employees who aren't desperate to make a sale, because they haven't bought a 2'000 copies of "Gears of Killzone 4" at £39 each and need to sell them at £40-£45 before the next game comes out and are forced to sell those games at a loss... as many of these GAME and GameStation stores do.
This hypothetical store amass video games because they love them, they'll take whatever you've got. Like an antique store for all the NES, Mega-drives and tips of how to play them. I mean imagine if you completely ignored every film that came out before 2005? Music stores can manage records dating all the way back to the early 90's in CDs, even longer with other formats. Talk about games from some obscure 1980's cartridge which just had some really unique gameplay ideas.
But maybe a store like that can never exist with ebay and the internet with forums to discuss things like this. And this void is being filled by PSN, XBLA and GOG to give the masses their old games not to mention that piracy and emulation seem to be doing a far better job of bringing obscure games to wider audiences.
Who knows.
Yes, this is true. If Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony pays for the space, you've got to advertise them, which means giving them the majority of the room. It's a big yay for fairness.Treblaine said:
Some good points there. To the counter argument!Treblaine said:Erja_Perttu said:Yay! We're debating lol
But why are games made expensive? Consider this counter-counter-point (or is it just a point now?) that the Publishers, the guys who actually paid for the game (and paid the developers) only get about $16-25 per game sold. There are just too many damn middle men, inefficiencies in distribution.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/ps3-xbox360-costs-tech-cx_rr_game06_1219expensivegames_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=undefined
There are many different ways to cut this pie but the way I see it as soon as the disc comes off the production line in box with newly printed manual, ready to be shipped off each game costs about $30 or £20. OK maybe more like $40 or £25 but it varies with 1st/3rd party games.
But there are so many middle men in between that and the game getting onto the shelves for sale that add to that cost, one of them is running a specialised store with a quite a few staff each trying to make sales. Distribution is not gong to be very efficient for many small stores.
However, big stores like HMV have the muscle to get the best deals, cut out as many middle men as possible and get it as close to the base price as possible,
I mean you know what is the most expensive thing in almost every single industry in the Western World? Personnel, the staff, the guys in the GAME store trying to convince a mother to buy Wii fit for their kids. And all the distribution networks that stand between the people that actually made the game and had it printed and actually ending up on a store shelf. I'd much rather these stores run on a "skeleton crew" just keeping the shelves stocked and telling me where to find things, not trying to sell me things.
Big stores keep the personnel numbers down (relative to size), draw in as many customers as possible with not JUST games but movies and all the stuff they can use with their game console, the pay-till in pretty much constant use. Every time I've been into HMV it seems like there is always a queue of people to pay, in GAME there just seem to be loads of people milling about looking for a Pre-owned game that is more than £10 cheaper than what it costs new.
The ideal model is Amazon or Play.com, it's cheaper for them to mail each game to each person's home that have to staff a store. Running a small high street store can be hugely expensive, it is the place that traditionally been for REAL luxury good like designer clothes, tailors, Jewellers, shoe sellers.
I say good-riddens to the High Street game store, the sooner that happens, the sooner prices will get better for the consumer. Why is it even
I mean have you heard of a small high street video store? No. That's why DVDs are selling for £3-£10 to spite movies costing 5 to 10 times as much as games.
You want my opinion of the future of small retail game stores?
I think, or hope they will come to completely specialise in pre-owned, retro and otherwise re-sale of games, the video store model, and give up the big sale of new titles. they just don't go well together.
I am reminded of how Quentin Tarantino apparently spent his formative years working in a used video store wasting his life away watching hundreds if not thousands of films but to give him a really unique perspective on cinema. How can this happen with video games when all the pre-owned/resale is dominated by companies that are in the cut-throat business of buying AAA titles new and sell them as quickly as possible? Maybe I'm having romantic ideas but the video game retail industry just seems to be unable to naturally enjoy games and their culture.
Pre-owned/retro games should NOT be a corporate enterprise but a small business model. That's my idea of a dream video game store, endless bargain bins and just time to chat with employees who aren't desperate to make a sale, because they haven't bought a 2'000 copies of "Gears of Killzone 4" at £39 each and need to sell them at £40-£45 before the next game comes out and are forced to sell those games at a loss... as many of these GAME and GameStation stores do.
This hypothetical store amass video games because they love them, they'll take whatever you've got. Like an antique store for all the NES, Mega-drives and tips of how to play them. I mean imagine if you completely ignored every film that came out before 2005? Music stores can manage records dating all the way back to the early 90's in CDs, even longer with other formats. Talk about games from some obscure 1980's cartridge which just had some really unique gameplay ideas.
But maybe a store like that can never exist with ebay and the internet with forums to discuss things like this. And this void is being filled by PSN, XBLA and GOG to give the masses their old games not to mention that piracy and emulation seem to be doing a far better job of bringing obscure games to wider audiences.
Who knows.
You're quite right, a lot of the reason why games are so expensive is to do with the way they're distributed, especially when you're dealing with a chain that has a lot of smaller stores. However, sometimes there isn't a way around that. Whilst places like HMV can offer games at lower prices, that comes with the downside that a lot of places don't have a HMV.
My example of this is my hometown, a small seaside resort. Over the years they've tried putting Tower records here, Virgin, HMV, all sorts of larger media stores, but they never stick, leaving our town without any larger shops stocking purely DVDs and music. Instead, all we have are two independents, four supermarkets and a stupidly overpriced WH Smiths. Some people do like to shop in a physical store, and without a Game around they wouldn't be able to do that, and most likely the revenue from those sales would be lost, due to their reluctance to, for various reasons, use the internet. To summarise, yes HMV might get it cheaper due to their buying power, but smaller towns and villages can't always rely on shops they don't have.
As for your point about personnel being the greatest drain on company resources, you do again have a point. However where this falls flat is that most Game stores, certainly in my region, are already being run on skeleton crews. Seriously, there is literally no way that my shop could function with less staff then we've got.
The reason we bug customers when we're perilously close to not being able to function as a shop is because we're told to. If you don't hit a certain customer conversion rate, there consequences. If you don't hit all your targets, there's consequences, if you don't sell enough warranties, there's serious consequences. None of the aforementioned consequences are good. Also, we're a business. We need to make money. The reason we want that mother to buy a Wii for her kids is that 1) they might actually enjoy it, because Wii's are kinda fun, but more importantly 2) we need the money. The thread is called 'Huge Closures for GAME'. It's not like we're not sweating the sales here.
You say 'good riddance to the high street game store', mentioning that prices will get better for customers when they go. I think this is an immensely flawed thought. High Street retails may not be the cheapest, but without a high street chain of 'specialist game stores' (or not so specialist if you've had a bad experience) there would be a lack of competition for supermarkets, aka a physical monopoly, which you've said you're against. I said in my first point that many people in my hometown don't like to buy off the internet, seeing it as untrustworthy or having had a bad experience, or even just because they like having someone to talk to when they come in to shop. For people like them, it would be a disastrous move, as
without any reason to price games cheaper than a specialist, the supermarkets would increase the prices, having no need to stay competitive.
Also, with supermarkets being the only option for people buying games, most of the choice would be gone, as they don't stock preowned and only really push the latest titles. There would be a lot of disgruntled former gamers wandering around.
Now, interestingly enough, your idea for fully pre-owned stocked shops has already been trialed by GAME in several locations, and over those trials has been found not to be a viable business model. Those shops simply couldn't draw in customers without having the big new titles to push. You say they don't go well together, the sale of new and pre-owned, but that's the only way they can go together. Either of them on their own simply doesn't cut it. New doesn't offer enough profit and pre-owned can't get in the people.
As someone who's worked in a game shop for a number of years now, and become sufficiently jaded, your idea of the perfect game shop is incredibly idealistic, and completely inviable. You don't seem to recognize that the some people working in GAME stores, such as myself, do so because they love games, however the environment of work is not the place to amass gaming experience, funnily enough. We're not paid to play games, we're paid to process them, price them and sell them.
To get the amount of gaming knowledge you suggest would be appreciated by a customer, the clerk would have to spend every hour not working playing games, because there are so many games out there that to have knowledge of even a tiny proportion of them would require a serious lack of social life. Also, you'd be appealing to a very select cliental, who are in my personal experience, broke most of the time, making profits a distant dream.
The difference between a game sales assistant and Quentin Tarantino is that games are interactive and so require more attention (meaning playing on the job is out of the question), and take many hours to complete. Even a short game at 6 hours is three times longer than most movies, let alone say the 50 hour latest Final Fantasy.
I think Ebay is probably the closest you're going to get to your bargain bins of wonderment, because in a physical shop as you suggest, it wouldn't work without other things to draw the customer in. My local independent game store sells new games to bolster sales, as well as airsofting equipment on the side, swords, knives and various deadly weaponry. As funky as the shop is, they don't know much actually about games themselves though.
Seeing as Game owns Gamestation I think it's a good move to cut down on unessecary costs seeing as some places down't need a Game & Gamestation seeing as all money now funnels into one company and is a very good strategic management move.
There are three GAME stores in my city centre alone; not that I'm complaining - means wherever I am I'm always pretty close to a store- just like Greggs
I think what you have to look at with retro gaming is that in the eyes of the big companies like GAME such consoles are considered obsolete when no new games are being made for them.Lopunny said:
This is a company struggling to make money (See the title of the thread for the consequences of this) and there are a lot of issues when you talk about being annoyed that retro games aren't stocked.
The main thing of it is profit. Retro games would make the same amount of profit as any other pre-owned game, and would be traded in low and priced high for their 'rarity', leading to inflated prices for older games. I can only see that causing complaints myself. In the end, games for consoles like the NES, SNES, Xbox and PS1 wouldn't make any more profit than say a PS2 or 360 game, but would appeal to a niche market, therefore making them less likely to sell, meaning no profit.
Another issue is space. my local hairdresser is bigger than the shop I work at, so space is a huge issue. There would be simply no room to stock and display these games, and the backlog of extra pre-owned would put a great strain on the staff.
In short, it's not viable at all the stock anything past the current generation in the eyes of a large company.
As for your second point, Game doesn't train it's staff any differently than before. If you want to be left alone, just tell us you want to be left alone. We won't take it personally, I promise. (Although if it really is constant badgering, I can't really say I blame you for getting the hell out of dodge).