Not surprised really, I buy all by physical copies of music and games off amazon or play because they offer better value for money. It seems Game is becoming the latest high street name that has failed to adapt to a changed market.
Susurrus said:Incorrect, they did use it. I used to get all my games from Amazon via the retailer "Indigo Starfish", and that was based on Jeresy. The tax dodge was recently closed.albino boo said:SNIP
HMV are going bust for much the same reason. It amazes me that they're still in business. I walked in with a gift voucher I got for Christmas for HMV recently. I couldn't find anything at all in the boxed set section (often they had season 3 or season 6 of something, but hardly ever did they have season 1).
So I went to look for old stuff - I looked for Futurama. Again, they only had 1 season, and it was season 4. Fine, whatever. Looked at the price tag. £45. For a single season of futurama. A show that ended in 2003. I mean, I know amazon can do it cheaper, and they have no bricks and mortar to finance, and the staffing is much lower, I know all of that. But I hate waiting for deliveries, especially when I might not be in to take it, and have to trek for miles to get to nearest post office. So I'm prepared to pay a little over the odds. But for the same price, on amazon, I can get seasons 1-4 of futurama (£29.99) AND season 5 of futurama (that's the new one, with all the episodic movies) (£15.99) for the same price as HMV want to charge me for 1/5 of that.
I mean, why would I pay that?
And given that BOTH sellers MUST know that the majority of their audiences are younger people, and therefore more likely to be au fait with technology, and thus REALISE what a rip-off everything is, how can they HOPE to stay in business in the long term? It's ridiculous.
Ok, they need to make say a 28% mark-up. Bearing in mind that season 4 is £11.49 on amazon, that should mean they need to charge something like: £14:80. So lets say £15:00. I would have paid that for a season of Futurama. The actual percentage increase they were trying to charge was a massive 400%.
TLDR:
Season 4 Futurama at HMV - £45.
Seasons 1-5 Futurama at AMazon - £45.
(Season 4 individually on Amazon: £11.49 - 400% increase if buy at HMV).
Does EB Games operate in the UK yet? If not, you can bet once Game start screwing themselves enough with the '75p on' sales, and alike, they'd move in toward the end, to shove them out.Seraj said:Courtesy of Squall5005 from HUKD for the picture.
Recently I read [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115952-UK-Retailer-Wont-Sell-Ubisoft-Titles-For-Vita-Launch] on the escapist that "Game" considered itself as "the only specialist store in the UK".
No. no. no. no. "Game" is where old people go to buy their grandchildren games and get ripped off. It is cheaper to get games from pretty much *ANYWHERE* else in England (not including the other shops GAME owns, such as Gamestation).
Black Ops was still going for about £40 when MW3 was released at £45. Is it really a surprise they're going out of business?LJF21 said:Was in game and I saw an old duffer with what I assume was his grandson buy Jumper: Griffins Story on the 360 for £44.99 a while back (was about 5 quid every where else) couldn't believe my eyes as the shyster Sales assistant basically conned him by saying it was a highly rated BRAND new game.
Here's another awesome deal from GAME (although I suspect this one was just bad maths on the managers part)
You make a GRAND amazing saving of -£0.75.
Yes, that is minus £0.75. You pay an extra 75p to buy 5 games. Well done "Game", deal of the century!
Seriously though, if the manager can't do simple maths, how on earth did he get that job?
/Rant.
Personally, I can't wait for "Game" to go bust and we see the independent game stores that "Game" elbowed out of business ~8 years ago come back.
And I hope they have more imaginative names than "Game"...
I have all those nearby too and my attitude is about the same really. Except my refusal to use CEX is due to their lack of familiarity with alphabetical order.wooty said:I'm lucky enough to have a GAME, Gamestation, HMV and a CEX in my town...yet I mostly only go to GS.
Game is too expensive as is HMV and I refuse to go to CEX anymore after the way I was treated when I worked there. I do shop at Gameplay.co.uk too, but I hear thats getting shut down too.
My usual retailer isn't bad either, the prices are admitedely high - but there's a girl who works there who can sell snow to Eskimos and is a massive gamer and all around geek. (And she's as cute as a teddy bear to look at.)Elementary - Dear Watson said:The only redeeming factor for GAME I have is I had an awesome conversation with an incredibly beautiful girl in the Lincoln store when I bought my 3DS! We chatted quite a bit!
But that is it's only redeeming factor... a single stunning employee... other than that I am not impressed! Independant retailers are 1000 times better! The Games Exchange near to my home is the best I know! They are incredibly helpfull, and a lot cheaper than GAME!
I agree with that entirely! My local is the same! I have been going there for years, and I know them quite well! They always give me good reccomendations, and they are a great source for rumours! Not only do they read all the reviews, but they get stuff off of other customers too!Gunner 51 said:My usual retailer isn't bad either, the prices are admitedely high - but there's a girl who works there who can sell snow to Eskimos and is a massive gamer and all around geek. (And she's as cute as a teddy bear to look at.)
But the nice thing about my usual retailer is that once they come to know you, they're completely honest with you - and even avoid charging you for use of their CD repair machine. Once you get chatting with 'em, you know that they're enthusiastic and knowledgeable about their craft.
Folks like them is why I prefer retailers - you just cannot get that kind of service with an online source. Bless 'em all I say.
i used to go to a similar shop when i was at college they had a few xboxes linked together and would let us play at lunch time for a few quid, also they had a ps3 set up so you could try a game out on the xboxes or PS3 before you bought it. they also had good advice and sold games a few days before general release (basically when they got the delivery)Elementary - Dear Watson said:I agree with that entirely! My local is the same! I have been going there for years, and I know them quite well! They always give me good reccomendations, and they are a great source for rumours! Not only do they read all the reviews, but they get stuff off of other customers too!Gunner 51 said:My usual retailer isn't bad either, the prices are admitedely high - but there's a girl who works there who can sell snow to Eskimos and is a massive gamer and all around geek. (And she's as cute as a teddy bear to look at.)
But the nice thing about my usual retailer is that once they come to know you, they're completely honest with you - and even avoid charging you for use of their CD repair machine. Once you get chatting with 'em, you know that they're enthusiastic and knowledgeable about their craft.
Folks like them is why I prefer retailers - you just cannot get that kind of service with an online source. Bless 'em all I say.
They are so much more enthusiastic than the GAME staff, and you can tell that they love to play games as well as sell them. And they are allways honest... they won't let me buy something that is crap, well not without warning, and a reccomendation of something better!
HMV has been terribad on pricing for at least 7 years, though I believe even longer than that.albino boo said:SNIP
The only problem with amazon I found was the delivery, they can fuck it up big-time on many occasions. I found Game are alright for consoles as they're about the same price as other competitors, but truly fuck you over when it comes to game prices.spartandude said:i remember only a few years ago i could walk in and get really good deals, really good prices but not i almost never go there.Seraj said:Game was once a decent game store you know... Another company, "Electronic Boutique" bought Game, and decided to change all its store names to Game (EB sounded so much better).
At first prices were still reasonable and they were putting small stores out of business, once they pretty much owned the brick and mortar game store business I guess they decided scamming the ignorant was a much better marketing move than trying to attract gamers.
thankfully if their website is cheaper (a little) if you're buying new games, but used? pfft amazon is the best bet
I have heard some people having problems with Amazon sodding up the deliveries, but personally ive never had any problems with at all, so atm il still swear by themTerribleAssassin said:The only problem with amazon I found was the delivery, they can fuck it up big-time on many occasions. I found Game are alright for consoles as they're about the same price as other competitors, but truly fuck you over when it comes to game prices.spartandude said:i remember only a few years ago i could walk in and get really good deals, really good prices but not i almost never go there.Seraj said:Game was once a decent game store you know... Another company, "Electronic Boutique" bought Game, and decided to change all its store names to Game (EB sounded so much better).
At first prices were still reasonable and they were putting small stores out of business, once they pretty much owned the brick and mortar game store business I guess they decided scamming the ignorant was a much better marketing move than trying to attract gamers.
thankfully if their website is cheaper (a little) if you're buying new games, but used? pfft amazon is the best bet
I prefer Game online pre-orders. Got Arkham City 2 days earlier with the Robin expansion pack cheaper than Amazon.spartandude said:I have heard some people having problems with Amazon sodding up the deliveries, but personally ive never had any problems with at all, so atm il still swear by themTerribleAssassin said:The only problem with amazon I found was the delivery, they can fuck it up big-time on many occasions. I found Game are alright for consoles as they're about the same price as other competitors, but truly fuck you over when it comes to game prices.spartandude said:i remember only a few years ago i could walk in and get really good deals, really good prices but not i almost never go there.Seraj said:Game was once a decent game store you know... Another company, "Electronic Boutique" bought Game, and decided to change all its store names to Game (EB sounded so much better).
At first prices were still reasonable and they were putting small stores out of business, once they pretty much owned the brick and mortar game store business I guess they decided scamming the ignorant was a much better marketing move than trying to attract gamers.
thankfully if their website is cheaper (a little) if you're buying new games, but used? pfft amazon is the best bet
however i will say Game is best for pre-orders
All the EB's in the UK turned into Game many, many years ago.Conza said:Does EB Games operate in the UK yet? If not, you can bet once Game start screwing themselves enough with the '75p on' sales, and alike, they'd move in toward the end, to shove them out.
Funnily enough, I ust to go to a GAME store for a while, and when I stopped going there it closed down (this is in Australia btw), they aren't doing too well over here either, so yeah, considering some of the rip off stuff I've heard here, I'm glad they could be forced to change their ways and/or go broke.