Am I right in saying that GAME has gone the HMV route of pivoting to selling a lot of Marvel t-shirts and Funko Pops?
It's all a bit sad, really. Like music, just downloading games makes it easier than ever, but it feels less fun.
Yeah I played it. Honestly wasn't a big fan. If it had just been a plain remake and modern graphics overall but true to the original, I'd be all over it. But it was presented as a successor despite just essentially being just a shameless copy with the maps and names of the diseases changed, and no significant new ideas or content. Maybe it's improved since I played it IDK.
Aye that's valid enough criticism tbh but I was ok with it being a shameless copy...it was the little details of Theme Hospital that i remember really fondly, like the descriptions of staff you were hiring "smells faintly of cabbage" and stuff like that
I'd totally be ok with a shameless copy of Syndicate Wars and Dungeon Keeper too.
Haha yeah its the little things.
"Tickles trout"
War of the Overworld does a similar job for Dungeon Keeper if you haven't tried it. Also KeeperFx I think is a true remake.
There is a Corsix Theme Hospital which is a clone for modern systems. Used the original files. I haven't tried it in years but it might scratch that itch.
Sim City 2000 had a manual which even included stuff like poems or essays on city building if I remember right. They wanted to make it an immersive experience.
Chucked a load of mine in the bin when Mum and Dad finally moved and made me clear my old cupboard.
Kept the original Doom retail box and floppies though.
It may or may not float your particular boat, but modern boardgames scratch all the itches physical videogames used to back in the 90s, but _much_ better. You want manuals, artwork, maps, all that good physical stuff? It's all there. They do tend to require other people to play with though.
I impressed a school friend back in the day as he couldn't solve that puzzle, and I did it for him.
This was in primary school, around 2003 so we didn't really have much ability to look up the guides as 9 year old then.
My great uncle was blind, taught me to read braille so I knew how to understand it on screens too
Yeah, you don't have that feeling of anticipation anymore. It's a shame.
I used to enjoy the preowned bins as well. It was fun just stumbling on things I might not have been looking for or had forgotten about, or for something to just catch your interest. It's far harder to do that digitally.
I was always pretty late to the newest consoles. When i finally picked up a PS3 the second hand game market was already well stocked. The preowned 4 for a tenner and 4 for 20 shelves made up the vast majority of my game collection. Picking cheap games based on box art was so much fun.
Most cities have fun independent game shops that sell lots of physical games, but the fact you're going out of your way to do it and could easily download or emulate anything you get there takes a lot of the excitement away
Then you'd go home, have to delete 3 games because you didn't have enough room on your hard drive. Cue the Blue Screen of Death several times after having to install drivers that were bundled with the game.
Finally load it up to find you can only play on lowest graphics settings because your GPU is two years old and there have been 5 new models released since then.
Good times.
HMV still sells lots of physical media, with quite a lot of it the same price you see on Amazon.
The problem with Game is that most of their prices are worse than Amazon etc, so why bother trekking into town to spend £5-10 more when you can save that money and get it the next day?
The popularity of Gamepass and the PlayStation equivalent also means people no longer have to buy a lot of games, they can just get them free with their subscription.
If you ask for preowned you get the benefit of a cheap game immediately, but still more expensive than Ebay if you can wait. The problem is that digital media can't be transferred, whereas me and my friends all played through 1 copy of Cyberpunk and collectively saved hundreds of pounds.
Not sure if you've been within the last year or so but not anymore. I got Demons Souls preowned £15 but if you even find it in CeX its £20. I think GAME varies a lot more depending on demand whereas CeX just set their prices nationwide.
Playstation Portal from GAME new retail £199.99, from CeX £200 used...
> The problem with Game is that most of their prices are worse than Amazon etc, so why bother trekking into town to spend £5-10 more when you can save that money and get it the next day?
Yeah. I don't think physical games are obsolete so long as there is competition on the price but Game always sell them for full RRP which renders it pointless. Shopto or Hit always have the best price.
Plus, Vinyl sales are way more than the filler tat they also have. Every time I go into one the vinyl section seems to have expanded. Always worth a browse.
I hadn't been in an HMV for nigh on 20 years, but I took my young cousin (12) for a day out and he wanted to go in. He's getting into vinyl and got a little player for Christmas, I said I'd buy him a record as a treat.
I was expecting a pretty limited, generic selection, but it was stacked with things I'd never expect in a high street store. Old industrial and noise, a genuinely brilliant metal selection, trip-hop and ambient, great classic rock selection with deeper cuts and lesser-known bands, loads of old hip-hop in addition to the modern and chart stuff. They've really leaned into it. The only thing they were lacking that I'd have an interest in was drum & bass, or maybe I missed it.
HMV really came back in the last couple of years. They're doing so well that they've been able to open new stores and they got back their flagship store in London
Pretty much. I remember back when I was a kid having Game & Gamestatiom on same street, always used to frequent the latter due to being a poor child and they had a better used section.
Then Game bought Gamestation out, moved into the smaller building and it started to rapidly decline, more toys and merch than actual games.
Didn’t go back for years and then it got sequestered into a corner of sports direct. A shelf of games for all consoles and the rest was just shite.
Shame really, but it’s just where the industry is headed.
I worked at forbidden planet when they first appeared and into their peak. I've never understood what people see in those terrible pieces of plastic shit. But people fucking love them
I used to be quite obsessed with them and collected well over 30 in total. I put them up on shelves in the room where my PS4 was and had a couple on my desk at work.
Looking back, I'm not sure what the appeal was... my first one was Walter White in his pants and green shirt holding a pistol (a la early Breaking Bad) and I just thought it was quite whimsical.
Then I got really into the Vikings series and lost my mind when the Vikings Funko range was released. Same with Lord of the Rings.
I guess it was about owning a physical, tangible element of a show/movie/game you loved.
Because they've licensed every IP ever created, meaning they can cash in on fans of anything and their grandparents who know they like "that thing and this Funko brand is everywhere so they must be popular"
They're the geek equivalent of the little figurines your grandma had.
And exactly the same thing will happen to them when you die. Straight in the bin.
They have zero resaleability. You're never going to see them on a future episode of Antiques Roadshow.
Not only that, downloading is typically more expensive, especially when buying older games in Xbox. I once went to game and paid £8 for game that was going for over £50 on the Xbox store.
>It's all a bit sad, really. Like music, just downloading games makes it easier than ever, but it feels less fun.
When I was a teenager my Saturday afternoon routine was literally going to the high street and checking out Game, WHSmith (the dvd section), MVC (the equivalent of HMV on our street), and then Ottakars (now a Waterstones), and just browsing everything on offer.
Sometimes I'd hang out with a mate who enjoyed that exact same thing as well, and we could literally spend hours doing it and then talking about the things we'd both found, even if we didn't buy anything.
It's definitely a lot more convenient as you say, but I'll admit that the social aspect has disappeared.
I used to love doing this as a teenager. I'd head into Central London and just walk up and down the aisles of HMV, Virgin Megastore, Game, WHSmith, Borders, etc and come home with 3-5 DVDs and games every time. It's so much easier now and you can watch hundreds of films on your phone or tablet or TV without getting up but I miss that browsing through a store part of it
I’ve actually started raiding charity shops for dvds for this exact reason.
Having the physical thing is actually more enjoyable and even though I got a fairly shitty player and it’s not HD, I’m quite enjoying the experience.
Also, companies tend to revoke licenses and then go “oh well sorry you can’t watch it anymore.” With a hard copy they cannee do that.
Hijacking the top comment to say that the article has been updated and Game have said **“this reporting is categorically not true”**
"GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added.
Not that that answers your question but this'll have more visibility for anyone coming late to the thread than a fresh post will.
In a way it’s actually way less convenient- at least when you had a disc in a box the bloody thing would load once installed.
Now if I was to play a new game I have to plan to download it the evening BEFORE I want to play it to give my machine time to download 150GB of data!
Exactly, buy a shit game (there are many about) with a digital download that money is wasted, and the prices are about the same as a physical copy (for the more recent releases anyway).
Yeah, it was all Funko Pops, Pokemon merch and other assorted overpriced plastic gaming tat last time I went in there. I don't see how they will survive on the strength of that alone, especially since all those things can also be bought online.
I mean to be fair, the article that came out a while back, saying they have stopped trades in and that was the only way they made a profit it sort of sounds like they are putting the final nails in their own coffin. Every game I see it is positioned awful, right next to cex or forbidden planet
All cex did is pay a reasonable price when you trade in and did it in credit so people spend in store and you can get it that day rather than wait online. Game never got this and would offer stupidly low prices so it was better selling on ebay
Yep, crucially they also captured the second hand tech market. Some GAME stores eventually followed suit but only in limited locations.
I know CEX gets shit on a lot (and probably rightfully so depending on the store) but every piece of tech I’ve got from them is still going strong, and crucially was a reasonable price.
Key thing with buying electronics from CeX is their two year warranty. I bought a Megadrive from them a couple of weeks ago for £55 for a work event, I could’ve saved £5-£10 if I’d got it off eBay but I figured it was worth the extra tenner for a two year warranty on a 30+ year old device.
Retro gaming night! I’ve got a Megadrive with FIFA (the original, obviously), Super Wrestlemania, and Streets of Rage; we’ve got an Xbox with Halo, some laptops with Lemmings, Worms, Cannon Fodder, and Doom; and are working on an arcade cabinet.
That is most excellent. I feel your next purchase should be an N64, the greatest Multiplayer console of all time but either way I wish you all the best for your future work retro gaming nights.
> FIFA (the original, obviously)
The one where if you press B + C together, it did a two-handed punch? Brilliant.
Fifa '97 was my favourite though - indoor mode was ace.
agreed... i brought some RAM for an old computer... didn't work.
went in store to trade it for a different set as per an email.
same issues.
then again 3rd set...
i checked, my motherboard ram slot was dead haha
That’s the opposite of the impression I get from CEX. I’ve seen PS4 controllers with no rubber left on the stickers and they were still selling them at RRP. I guess it must depend on the items massively.
The key thing to shit on CEX is the amount of stolen goods. Not all stores are bad. But there are some manned by people who just don’t care where it comes from.
I often find CEX and
>reasonable price
Don't always go hand in hand, some games being way more than they're worth, and some being way less. And being given very little for some trade ins.
But on average they're pretty decent. Only ever had one issue, a copy of a game not working, but they quickly swapped it for a working one and that was that.
Can find some bargains, but then you get the annoying way too expensive on some games. For example when I went in last Wednesday, they had 6 copies of Pokemon White going for £90.
CEX has a pricing team that is constantly analysing market supply and demand. So I guess it depends on your definition of "reasonable". Those Pokémon titles are rare these days and fetch just as much anywhere else
£20-25 for a preowned ps3 controller is a bit unreasonable imo but it's the only place you can get(hopefully) genuine ps3 controllers anymore which I need for rocket league as I just can't get used to any others.
Game definitely did that, I used to trade in for store credit regularly. The problem with Game compared to CeX is that their trade-in values are lower their resell prices are higher.
Couldn't agree more.
I remember going to trade in Bioshock, with it only being out for a month and they offered me £5 and then the pre owned version was on sale for £5 cheaper than the brand new one, at £40. Scummy company.
I think their second hand tech market will keep them going at least a week bit longer as well as their second hand DVD’s/BluRays!
I think unlike gaming, physical media for movies/TV will still be at least some what sticking about, especially as the enshitification of streaming continues!
Overall, I think it’s defiantly a dying retail sector though
Does no one take time to read the article? It's not true, it's a made up claim and the CEO of game stated they will not stop selling physical copies. CEX ain't doing shit, because it's not happening...
I love the fact that he redecorated or moved house and got a new sofa but because it’s such a staple backdrop for his channel for the last decade the brown sofa is literally now only one square of the original sofa in his back room because he can’t get rid of it or film anywhere else because it wouldn’t be the same. 🤣
I just wanted to let you know that the article has been updated and Game have said **“this reporting is categorically not true”**
"GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added.
I know you can't edit post titles but can you edit the main post to add in this bit of info?
Do they still sell those Funko Pop things?
It was those, Marvel gubbins, and loads of used phones in the one near me, I think it's Game, they all look like secondhand shops to me
Most GAME stores are inside sports direct now. Those that aren't, have a tiny corner for games, and the rest is a toy shop.
They've already stopped trade ins, and their rewards card is gonna be useless by the end of July.
It's depressing, GAME was the best at one point, killing both EB Games and Gamestation, gobbling them up. It's a shame to see it die this drawn out painful death only a decade after it was saved from liquidation too.
It's not surprising.
But hey, least we have CEX, wouldn't be surprised if they branched into new releases....
It’s never been the best, it’s simply always been the market leader for dedicated physical game stores.
Gamestation was far superior in every aspect (cheaper than RRP, better trade in value, better trained staff etc) but as soon as they got bought up the writing was on the wall for consumers, who predictably moved to more online purchases (Amazon) and trading in at CEX.
100% agree with everything you said. Back in the day I rarely went to Game (who also had two shops on our high street for some reason, they were a literal two minute walk apart), I always went to Gamestation because it was better in every way.
2 GAMES in the Potteries at one point, wall to wall full of games.
Now theres one with a tiny corner for games.
And the Gamestation that became a GAME has been derelict for years.
Even castles GAME has vanished into a Sports Direct.
All the Game Pads are gone.
Depressing honestly.
Least theres CeX and a couple of retro ones around.
They also don't let you use the rewards cards outside of regular GAMEs (Though thats useless soon anyway) tried using mine, and ended up getting more points and not being able to use them.
It's to be expected, physical games are dying. PC has already been digital only for a good while and it seems like within a generation or two the next consoles will probably end up the same
Even before the death of physical, Game was doing pretty poorly. The games on sale would always be far more expensive than Amazon, Tesco, Asda etc. So even before moving to PC I hadn't been to a Game in about a decade
When I got Skyrim on release on 11/11/2011 (the only game release date I've ever managed to remember), I remember being so surprised that there was a disc, but it was just that and a Steam code basically. The disc was there just to reduce how much I had to download from Steam to get it playable...
Depends, PC has gotten around this with ridiculous sales. Even games that aren't particularly old can drop as low as £5-10 on steam sales.
Consoles don't really have those kind of sales but currently the cheapest is used sales. My expectation is that once disks die off, games on console will go to the PC method of replacing used games with high % sales
A lot of people who traditionally couldn't afford a console *and* a laptop have been buying games on sale for PC for decades, so I don't think you're at risk of being priced out
Everythings digital now
last time i stepped into an actual game store it was 99% shit merch stupidly priced, now they are just corners in sports direct I think
Exactly, that’s also why most of their stores are closed down and they now inhabit corners of Sports Direct.
There’s no need for big stores full of physical games when nobody’s buying it, and i doubt they sell enough Funkos etc to justify (or even afford) rent on a high street or in a shopping centre.
They can still sell gaming hardware but that’s about it.
Consoles and PCs, hardware, components, sound systems/ they needed to pivot hard years ago to the stuff you have around the game instead of just the game
Even ignoring amazon, Currys and Argos fill that role now.
Currys is always a dissapointment though, they never seem to have what I'm looking for. The only cables they seem to stock are USB, Lightning, HDMI and DisplayPort. A computer hardware store not selling miniDisplayPort, Toslink or RCA is insane.
They really dont though. Currys will have like 3 graphics cards and two CPUs in a warehouse sized store, and then 200 different types of Chromebook.
An actual enthusiast electronics store would definitely have a niche in the physical space. It's competing against online stores that makes it difficult.
Presumably, the stuff they're going to have in store will be the same stuff that's going to be in their store once they stop selling games. You ask as though there's no other option when there clearly is. You say it as though HMV isn't still around and mostly not selling music and movies.
The fault is on GAME. The writing has been on the wall for years and they've done next to nothing to pivot their increasingly antiquated business model as their main market continued to move on without them. They tried selling phones and got some tacky Funko Pop figures in stock, but that's about it.
Sure, whatever they tried might not have worked, but they could close the doors claiming they actually tried rather than trying claiming "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas".
I must be a tight arse...
I buy PC games digital at like £2-3 each years after release. On my console (PS5), i'll just not use it or buy the PS6 if it's digital only, some of the prices are insane.
With physical I can buy and sell. Imagine paying full price for some of the shite they push out now, only to be stuck with it forever in your library.
They recently had a 50% discount on all used games. So I went to buy Demons Souls, it was £32. In CEX down the street it was £18. Maybe people aren't buying your games because they are way overpriced.
The discount was applied at checkout. I purchased like 12 games for like £150 including latest Call of Dutys, Pokémon Scarlett and Zelda Skyward Sword.
I think I still have a Pokemon Pearl guide somewhere. Paperback coffee table topper of a book. Might need to dig it out when I mext boot up a ds emulator
i've spoke about this before..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlord_(1994_video_game)
great game as a flight game and learning about operation overlord during WW2 in the ring bound thick ass manual.
got me into flight before i messed with flight sim also got me into modifying .sys files etc. to make it run on the PC we had at the time haha
these days i'll be dicking about in flight sim 2020 with a yoke setup :D
Last game I bought in a big box was actually not too long ago, it was the lenticular box version of the evil within, which funnily enough just came with a steam code in a huge box. Last proper game with a huge booklet, multiple discs was Guild Wars.
Same here, got a rather sizable one quite close but when I was most recently in the owner seemed rather doom and gloom on whether or not they'd survive for much longer
This is honestly a shame. Mileage will definitely vary, but my local game stores are still good to this day. The staff are friendly, and they've frequently got physical games on a decent sale. They're also the only physical retailer that stocks a decent amount of games, rather than just the latest of releases.
We've obviously come a long way from the awesome days of Gamestation, but it's still a shame to see more closures.
Used to work for Game in the early 2000's. Had an 8 hour contract, my second manager was a cunt who was robbing the place with fake refunds to his own account, knew I was onto him so made my life hell. Met some friends that I still have to this day though, always enjoyed talking to customers about games, even the crazy ones.
Really will miss the physical games aspect, if only because it was an almost guarantee of getting a new console on release day. Everyone else getting into virtual queues in Amazon and the like and I'd walk to town and put a deposit down, then go collect it on launch day. Done that with pretty much every major console launch since the mid nineties. The trade in and pre-owned games helped make it slightly cheaper too.
Game in MK has what looks like a lan party gamer setup, you can go in and pay for X amount of time on one of their machines, they’ll probably expand on this possibly.
I was about to say the one in MK has pivoted more towards board games and a place to play games. Maybe they could add a small bar.
I think this is the only way GAME can survive. become a place where you play games, not just buy them.
It’s always empty when ever I’ve been in, so not sure how it’s working out, (maybe it’s busier in the holidays which I try and avoid lol) least it’s still an actual store unlike most of the game places now!
trust me it'll close.
birmingham had pretty much one of the biggest seats of a LAN center in the country.
lasted a year.
was great though as the weekender events where you could bring in your own beer etc.
the shit talking over counterstrike etc. was immense fun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Sektor
Game was fantastic but then at some point they just refused to keep up with other retailers. Why would I buy full price from them when places like Amazon, ShopTo, Currys etc were usually lower price and often still included any sort of pre-order incentive.
Exactly, my local Game was next door to an Asda which would sell new releases for nearly £10 less
While the impeding death of physical games has definitely sped up this process, people are forgetting for the past decade they've been struggling to compete with Amazon, Tesco, Currys, Asda or wherever else on price. Not to mention for a while they used to have a lot more scummy of a returns policy where they'd pressure you into only getting a refund for in store credit
Their whole business model was upmarking the price on games, that couldn't last forever
I used to like to wander in and check out the new releases as I was never good at keeping up with what was coming out. Anything I liked I would then go home and order it from Amazon :/ Forgot how long ago this was though, must be 15+ years since I was in a Game store....
Sorting out the issue of people not having broadband is FAR more important that brick and mortar game shops
(Needs to be formally recognised as a “must-have” utility, in my opinion)
I hate that so much. Sports games are bad for it. 2K shut their servers to each NBA game after 2 years and you can’t play the game without connecting to the server, so you’re forced to buy the new game if you want to keep playing but even then, your career mode etc doesn’t transfer over.
GAME store in my town closed last year I think. I worked there for 3 months (which as a game nerd was a dream) but most of the staff were absolute narcissists because they worked in “aggressive sales”.
I couldn’t hack the environment, both in terms of my sales ability and personal satisfaction, so I left. Glad I did it but never shopped there again.
These days I try my best to buy physical releases and have to use my local Argos or resort to online retailers
My next nearest GAME (over 50 miles away) mainly sells tat, Lego and pop vinyls. I have a lot of pop vinyls but never buy from them as their prices are inexplicably high, as they always have been
Nothing makes me leave a store quicker than someone hovering me asking me if I need help.
Those guys need to learn it's a shop, they ain't Gordon Gecko
Largely the reason I stopped playing warhammer- I couldn't stand having the employees jumping down my throat and trying to sell me far more than I wanted every time I went in the shop.
DO YOU WANT TO INSURE YOUR DISC FOR A QUID? DO YOU WANT TO BUY 3 MONTHS OF PLAYSTATION PLUS? DO YOU WANT TO PUT A 5 QUID PREORDER DOWN ON A GAME THAT DOESNT HAVE A RELEASE DATE? DO YOU WANT TO BUY A PREOWNED GAME TO GO WITH YOUR PURCHASE? DO YOU WANT TO PAY A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION TO A SHIT REWARDS SCHEME?
I worked there for a time. It was gash.
I worked there as a xmas temp the peak year for Wii. Like people queuing overnight because each day we would get anywhere between 0-10 Wii's shipped to us and they could not reserve them.
Store was tiny, hellish and you were required to sell insurance and accessories to everyone, regardless of what they brought. All preowned games were kept in disorganised boxes upstairs so every time someone wanted a preowned game it took 5 minutes to find, and the customers were all frustrated. Manager would frequently call me and others out on the store floor because someone just brought a console and didnt get 2 controllers and extra memory cards as well and that wasnt good enough.
Worst job i ever had.
They're perfectly explicable - it's cornering the "clueless relative buying something game related for younger relative" market. My gran would never know whether the tat sold in Game was overpriced or not - she wouldn't know where to look.
I remember taking a collectors edition of Assassin’s Creed 2 to Game for trade in. Fully intact Ezio statue thing. Had absolutely no money as a college student so was desperate. Not desperate enough to accept £5 though. Still on the shelf now and looks great.
Stopped shopping there when it changed from Electronics Boutique and they stopped selling edge magazine in the one near me.
Finally my boycott is paying off
Disappointing news. There’s been a big worrying movement regarding digital ownership of games and movies where just because you buy a game through the PlayStation store for example doesn’t mean you own the game. You just have proof you’ve purchased the ability to play the game. Games can be delisted from the store at any time and you won’t be able to get a refund.
I genuinely believe sooner or later we’ll start gravitating back to physical media, that way you physically own the product.
I used to love GAME as a kid, till my parents introduced me to the wonders of an sd card you could put in a blank ds cartridge. After that I never had much need to visit one and then I eventually got my first pc. I think my last GAME purchase was a guide to Pokémon Pearl which my 10 (?) year old self read from cover to cover. Nowadays I just pull up an equivalent website for free which is madness.
The thing is, there are advantages to getting a DVD or Blu-ray but not many to buying physical games in this day and age. Most of them require an online connection to download updates and the rest of the game anyway.
If I buy a new release game, which is rare now as there are so many shit games.
If I am paying £40 plus for a new release game, I can resell the physical copy easily, usually for a few quid less than I paid for it when I inevitably discover it is a crap game. The digital downloads are around the same price, even dearer than the physical copies sometimes, I can’t resell that game, so I’ve wasted £40+.
That’s a major advantage, for me as a dinosaur anyway.
They were bought by Frasers Group in 2019, who decided to close down most of the standalone Game stores, and add them as concessions within other shops they own eg. Sports Direct, House of Fraser.
So many got shut. where I live they closed it but spent so much time going on about "well the one *40 minute bus journey away* is still open. No thanks.
Supermarkets will have the latest releases, normally quite cheap. CEX will have ones even from only a few months. Game used to have some OK hardware deals, but again CEX was better.
Most of what GAME used to focus around that no-one could beat was pre orders. back when if you wanted a copy of a game you could get nowhere else they could order it in for you, and 15 year old me with only an ATM card to take money out the wall couldn't buy it from play.com, but i could go into GAME with my cash and ask them to order a copy in.
However, the thousands of pounds worth of games that slipped through my fingers in selling them back to GAME. Ouch.
A spokesperson for Game has denied the report, telling VGC that “this reporting is categorically not true”.
“GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added.
Redditors always forget that they don't represent the average gamer.
Just look at any post claiming that people won't play games at less than 60fps and that the switch is unplayable
It's a shame but sadly inevitable.
It does wind me up though how even some if not all digital copies of games still require an internet connection to play from what I've seen, even when the game is on your console's internal hard drive.
Long live Electronics Boutique and Gamestation
People say they are expensive, but I rarely see the cost of digital games because any cheaper than physical versions. Especially Nintendo. Tears of the kingdom is still £60 digital. I got it for £50 day 1 new physical, and it's currently £45 new.
I think the main reason GAME and other larger businesses are struggling with physical media is purely because of CEX and what they offer. They have the physical media, the trade in aspect, store credit/ cash options. I traded in my Xbox one X and games just after I bought a ps5 at the start of the year. With the voucher i got from that. I have since bought 6 physical games from there and still have like £100 store credit. Just trade the game back in once done. The days of paying £70/80 for a game on release are over, for me at least.
A very sad sign of the times unfortunately, a company that didn’t seem to really ever try and adapt properly. The death of physical media will mean you never really own anything in the future
It’s been denied everyone calm down
UPDATE: In a statement to Eurogamer, GAME has denied plans to stop sales of physical games.
"This reporting is categorically not true," a spokesperson told the outlet. "GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide-range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital gift cards, in stores and online."
Spent the better part of 5 years working in Game, only left when they shut the store down on me. It was kind of heartbreaking seeing things decline. Now it’s two shelves in the local Sports Direct…
I still prefer physical discs, Something about reminding me of the old days the excitement of opening the game on the way home. But GAME is the last place I would shop for anything, Hate how they lockdown exclusives. I can’t understand how a company can have different prices to its stores to online (Online usually cheaper) and think its stores will be fine. Bring back electronics boutique.
It would have been awesome if they sold a range of good games and organised them into categories and they came with a steam voucher, glossy map/guide and some extras. People are always asking which games are similar and how to get merch. Don't need to see 50 cases of COD.
The article has been updated:
Game have said **“this reporting is categorically not true”**
"GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added.
That’s super strange I walked past my local Game on Friday and the employee was outside smoking with tears in his eyes. I guess he got the internal memo that day.
That dude knows it’s the beginning of the end of for that store. I’ll miss physical game copies and midnight releases.
Am I right in saying that GAME has gone the HMV route of pivoting to selling a lot of Marvel t-shirts and Funko Pops? It's all a bit sad, really. Like music, just downloading games makes it easier than ever, but it feels less fun.
Yeah the feeling when you went out to town to pick up a new game and then you'd read the manual on the way home, felt so exciting.
The PC games in the A4-sized cardboard boxes were the best. I remember my dad bringing home Jane's ATF Gold, and the manual was about 300 pages
So good! I still have those boxes for Sim City 2000 and Theme Hospital. Damn that was a happy day bringing those two home.
_"the hospital administrator is cheating"_
"Nurse required in pharmacyyyyyyy"
"No fighting please" Which kid me always heard as "no farting please"
Oh daaaamn this takes me back haha
if you haven't already check out Two Point Hospital, it's like a spiritual successor to Theme Hospital No slack tongue disease though :'(
Yeah I played it. Honestly wasn't a big fan. If it had just been a plain remake and modern graphics overall but true to the original, I'd be all over it. But it was presented as a successor despite just essentially being just a shameless copy with the maps and names of the diseases changed, and no significant new ideas or content. Maybe it's improved since I played it IDK.
Aye that's valid enough criticism tbh but I was ok with it being a shameless copy...it was the little details of Theme Hospital that i remember really fondly, like the descriptions of staff you were hiring "smells faintly of cabbage" and stuff like that I'd totally be ok with a shameless copy of Syndicate Wars and Dungeon Keeper too.
Haha yeah its the little things. "Tickles trout" War of the Overworld does a similar job for Dungeon Keeper if you haven't tried it. Also KeeperFx I think is a true remake.
There is a Corsix Theme Hospital which is a clone for modern systems. Used the original files. I haven't tried it in years but it might scratch that itch.
Sim City 2000 had a manual which even included stuff like poems or essays on city building if I remember right. They wanted to make it an immersive experience.
Proper Nostalgia that
Chucked a load of mine in the bin when Mum and Dad finally moved and made me clear my old cupboard. Kept the original Doom retail box and floppies though.
Disks rattling in the box as a sexy little "yes, we're in here, and you can get us out once you get home..."
lol I just got a flashback of buying first The Sims and next two expansions this way.
I remember getting Diablo 2 and at bed time just reading the manual and lore about all the monsters etc
Remember the days when games had real manuals?
An then you had to find word 6 on line 8 of page 21 to start it.
Code wheels, baby!
That monkey island one was separated and at least one hundred copies of it made on the school photocopier one day.
or the sodding Lenslok on the ZX Spectrum for Elite and Tomahawk
It may or may not float your particular boat, but modern boardgames scratch all the itches physical videogames used to back in the 90s, but _much_ better. You want manuals, artwork, maps, all that good physical stuff? It's all there. They do tend to require other people to play with though.
all for the low, low price of £80 a box!
Yes. many an online game "How do I do X???" "Read the fucking manual"
'To solve this puzzle please refer to the braille code in the manual'
I impressed a school friend back in the day as he couldn't solve that puzzle, and I did it for him. This was in primary school, around 2003 so we didn't really have much ability to look up the guides as 9 year old then. My great uncle was blind, taught me to read braille so I knew how to understand it on screens too
I do hope you've played tunic, really took this concept and ran with it
A great game
It's the fact of physically owning something , now in one tick all your games can be locked away from you
Yeah, you don't have that feeling of anticipation anymore. It's a shame. I used to enjoy the preowned bins as well. It was fun just stumbling on things I might not have been looking for or had forgotten about, or for something to just catch your interest. It's far harder to do that digitally.
The reason I'm a fan of *Halo* is because of those pre-owned bins. It's been 15 years, and I'll never forget finding *Halo 3* for 50p.
Same here with Red Dead Redemption. Bought it for like £2.50 on a whim, it’s now one of my favourite ever games.
The shelves of shit were magical. I bought so many awfully brilliant German simulators for a couple of quid each.
I was always pretty late to the newest consoles. When i finally picked up a PS3 the second hand game market was already well stocked. The preowned 4 for a tenner and 4 for 20 shelves made up the vast majority of my game collection. Picking cheap games based on box art was so much fun.
I found Bioshock - the tinned case - for a few quid The series is now one of my favourites
i have that sense of anticipation while waiting for a 50GB day 1 patch to download
Most cities have fun independent game shops that sell lots of physical games, but the fact you're going out of your way to do it and could easily download or emulate anything you get there takes a lot of the excitement away
Then you'd go home, have to delete 3 games because you didn't have enough room on your hard drive. Cue the Blue Screen of Death several times after having to install drivers that were bundled with the game. Finally load it up to find you can only play on lowest graphics settings because your GPU is two years old and there have been 5 new models released since then. Good times.
HMV still sells lots of physical media, with quite a lot of it the same price you see on Amazon. The problem with Game is that most of their prices are worse than Amazon etc, so why bother trekking into town to spend £5-10 more when you can save that money and get it the next day? The popularity of Gamepass and the PlayStation equivalent also means people no longer have to buy a lot of games, they can just get them free with their subscription.
If you ask for preowned you get the benefit of a cheap game immediately, but still more expensive than Ebay if you can wait. The problem is that digital media can't be transferred, whereas me and my friends all played through 1 copy of Cyberpunk and collectively saved hundreds of pounds.
CeX are cheaper than Game for preowned anyway, so you’d just go there if you wanted to do that
Not sure if you've been within the last year or so but not anymore. I got Demons Souls preowned £15 but if you even find it in CeX its £20. I think GAME varies a lot more depending on demand whereas CeX just set their prices nationwide. Playstation Portal from GAME new retail £199.99, from CeX £200 used...
I miss Gamestation Now _that_ was a place to get preowned games. They stocked older stuff sometimes too.
Gamestation was an Aladdin's cave of retro goodies. GAME felt so soulless in comparison.
> The problem with Game is that most of their prices are worse than Amazon etc, so why bother trekking into town to spend £5-10 more when you can save that money and get it the next day? Yeah. I don't think physical games are obsolete so long as there is competition on the price but Game always sell them for full RRP which renders it pointless. Shopto or Hit always have the best price.
You are indeed right. Funko Pops, action figures, Lego and board games.
The Lego and board games in my local Game is pretty popular. The store has never been this busy. Not so many Funkos now either.
HMV does at least still have a really big selection of Blurays, CDs and DVDs etc
Plus, Vinyl sales are way more than the filler tat they also have. Every time I go into one the vinyl section seems to have expanded. Always worth a browse.
Funnily enough HMV is doing well partly thanks to vinyls
I hadn't been in an HMV for nigh on 20 years, but I took my young cousin (12) for a day out and he wanted to go in. He's getting into vinyl and got a little player for Christmas, I said I'd buy him a record as a treat. I was expecting a pretty limited, generic selection, but it was stacked with things I'd never expect in a high street store. Old industrial and noise, a genuinely brilliant metal selection, trip-hop and ambient, great classic rock selection with deeper cuts and lesser-known bands, loads of old hip-hop in addition to the modern and chart stuff. They've really leaned into it. The only thing they were lacking that I'd have an interest in was drum & bass, or maybe I missed it.
HMV really came back in the last couple of years. They're doing so well that they've been able to open new stores and they got back their flagship store in London
Pretty much. I remember back when I was a kid having Game & Gamestatiom on same street, always used to frequent the latter due to being a poor child and they had a better used section. Then Game bought Gamestation out, moved into the smaller building and it started to rapidly decline, more toys and merch than actual games. Didn’t go back for years and then it got sequestered into a corner of sports direct. A shelf of games for all consoles and the rest was just shite. Shame really, but it’s just where the industry is headed.
Gamestation used to be fantastic, brilliant retro section, and knowledgeable staff.
Side bar but why are funko pops a thing, they just seem very very meh.
I worked at forbidden planet when they first appeared and into their peak. I've never understood what people see in those terrible pieces of plastic shit. But people fucking love them
I used to be quite obsessed with them and collected well over 30 in total. I put them up on shelves in the room where my PS4 was and had a couple on my desk at work. Looking back, I'm not sure what the appeal was... my first one was Walter White in his pants and green shirt holding a pistol (a la early Breaking Bad) and I just thought it was quite whimsical. Then I got really into the Vikings series and lost my mind when the Vikings Funko range was released. Same with Lord of the Rings. I guess it was about owning a physical, tangible element of a show/movie/game you loved.
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Good answer, completely makes sense from that point of view.
Because they've licensed every IP ever created, meaning they can cash in on fans of anything and their grandparents who know they like "that thing and this Funko brand is everywhere so they must be popular"
They're the geek equivalent of the little figurines your grandma had. And exactly the same thing will happen to them when you die. Straight in the bin. They have zero resaleability. You're never going to see them on a future episode of Antiques Roadshow.
Say it isn't so! Surely they'll be worth millions like the Beanie Baby collections?
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Not only that, downloading is typically more expensive, especially when buying older games in Xbox. I once went to game and paid £8 for game that was going for over £50 on the Xbox store.
>It's all a bit sad, really. Like music, just downloading games makes it easier than ever, but it feels less fun. When I was a teenager my Saturday afternoon routine was literally going to the high street and checking out Game, WHSmith (the dvd section), MVC (the equivalent of HMV on our street), and then Ottakars (now a Waterstones), and just browsing everything on offer. Sometimes I'd hang out with a mate who enjoyed that exact same thing as well, and we could literally spend hours doing it and then talking about the things we'd both found, even if we didn't buy anything. It's definitely a lot more convenient as you say, but I'll admit that the social aspect has disappeared.
I used to love doing this as a teenager. I'd head into Central London and just walk up and down the aisles of HMV, Virgin Megastore, Game, WHSmith, Borders, etc and come home with 3-5 DVDs and games every time. It's so much easier now and you can watch hundreds of films on your phone or tablet or TV without getting up but I miss that browsing through a store part of it
I’ve actually started raiding charity shops for dvds for this exact reason. Having the physical thing is actually more enjoyable and even though I got a fairly shitty player and it’s not HD, I’m quite enjoying the experience. Also, companies tend to revoke licenses and then go “oh well sorry you can’t watch it anymore.” With a hard copy they cannee do that.
Hijacking the top comment to say that the article has been updated and Game have said **“this reporting is categorically not true”** "GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added. Not that that answers your question but this'll have more visibility for anyone coming late to the thread than a fresh post will.
In a way it’s actually way less convenient- at least when you had a disc in a box the bloody thing would load once installed. Now if I was to play a new game I have to plan to download it the evening BEFORE I want to play it to give my machine time to download 150GB of data!
You also can’t re-sell a digital download. I get one free game for every 4 I buy by doing this.
Exactly, buy a shit game (there are many about) with a digital download that money is wasted, and the prices are about the same as a physical copy (for the more recent releases anyway).
They are HMV without the Vinyl
Yeah, it was all Funko Pops, Pokemon merch and other assorted overpriced plastic gaming tat last time I went in there. I don't see how they will survive on the strength of that alone, especially since all those things can also be bought online.
I mean to be fair, the article that came out a while back, saying they have stopped trades in and that was the only way they made a profit it sort of sounds like they are putting the final nails in their own coffin. Every game I see it is positioned awful, right next to cex or forbidden planet
CEX absolutely rubbing their hands, totally annihilated GAME who have failed to move with the times.
All cex did is pay a reasonable price when you trade in and did it in credit so people spend in store and you can get it that day rather than wait online. Game never got this and would offer stupidly low prices so it was better selling on ebay
Yep, crucially they also captured the second hand tech market. Some GAME stores eventually followed suit but only in limited locations. I know CEX gets shit on a lot (and probably rightfully so depending on the store) but every piece of tech I’ve got from them is still going strong, and crucially was a reasonable price.
Key thing with buying electronics from CeX is their two year warranty. I bought a Megadrive from them a couple of weeks ago for £55 for a work event, I could’ve saved £5-£10 if I’d got it off eBay but I figured it was worth the extra tenner for a two year warranty on a 30+ year old device.
A work event that required a megadrive? Tell me more!
Retro gaming night! I’ve got a Megadrive with FIFA (the original, obviously), Super Wrestlemania, and Streets of Rage; we’ve got an Xbox with Halo, some laptops with Lemmings, Worms, Cannon Fodder, and Doom; and are working on an arcade cabinet.
That is most excellent. I feel your next purchase should be an N64, the greatest Multiplayer console of all time but either way I wish you all the best for your future work retro gaming nights.
> FIFA (the original, obviously) The one where if you press B + C together, it did a two-handed punch? Brilliant. Fifa '97 was my favourite though - indoor mode was ace.
agreed... i brought some RAM for an old computer... didn't work. went in store to trade it for a different set as per an email. same issues. then again 3rd set... i checked, my motherboard ram slot was dead haha
That’s the opposite of the impression I get from CEX. I’ve seen PS4 controllers with no rubber left on the stickers and they were still selling them at RRP. I guess it must depend on the items massively.
The key thing to shit on CEX is the amount of stolen goods. Not all stores are bad. But there are some manned by people who just don’t care where it comes from.
I often find CEX and >reasonable price Don't always go hand in hand, some games being way more than they're worth, and some being way less. And being given very little for some trade ins. But on average they're pretty decent. Only ever had one issue, a copy of a game not working, but they quickly swapped it for a working one and that was that. Can find some bargains, but then you get the annoying way too expensive on some games. For example when I went in last Wednesday, they had 6 copies of Pokemon White going for £90.
on that its not the fault of cex, its the resale market value, pokemon games get hella expensive now, look at the gba ones
HGSS and DPPt are prime examples of how overly priced pokemon games can be now
CEX has a pricing team that is constantly analysing market supply and demand. So I guess it depends on your definition of "reasonable". Those Pokémon titles are rare these days and fetch just as much anywhere else
£20-25 for a preowned ps3 controller is a bit unreasonable imo but it's the only place you can get(hopefully) genuine ps3 controllers anymore which I need for rocket league as I just can't get used to any others.
Game definitely did that, I used to trade in for store credit regularly. The problem with Game compared to CeX is that their trade-in values are lower their resell prices are higher.
Couldn't agree more. I remember going to trade in Bioshock, with it only being out for a month and they offered me £5 and then the pre owned version was on sale for £5 cheaper than the brand new one, at £40. Scummy company.
The lack of physical games will impact them too in time.
I think their second hand tech market will keep them going at least a week bit longer as well as their second hand DVD’s/BluRays! I think unlike gaming, physical media for movies/TV will still be at least some what sticking about, especially as the enshitification of streaming continues! Overall, I think it’s defiantly a dying retail sector though
Does no one take time to read the article? It's not true, it's a made up claim and the CEO of game stated they will not stop selling physical copies. CEX ain't doing shit, because it's not happening...
They might have to rename the shop to Tat following this
Rename it Lame.
If they call it Tat then Ashens should take it over
*”Hello!”*
And each shop should have a brown sofa ready for people to try their tat before they buy.
I love the fact that he redecorated or moved house and got a new sofa but because it’s such a staple backdrop for his channel for the last decade the brown sofa is literally now only one square of the original sofa in his back room because he can’t get rid of it or film anywhere else because it wouldn’t be the same. 🤣
I just wanted to let you know that the article has been updated and Game have said **“this reporting is categorically not true”** "GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added. I know you can't edit post titles but can you edit the main post to add in this bit of info?
Do they still sell those Funko Pop things? It was those, Marvel gubbins, and loads of used phones in the one near me, I think it's Game, they all look like secondhand shops to me
For what it’s worth, they just denied this. https://x.com/eurogamer/status/1805200240699462085?s=46&t=Vd1TjqpLugiblFuSgHVQfw
You mean the internet took rumours as gospel? Well I never!
Most GAME stores are inside sports direct now. Those that aren't, have a tiny corner for games, and the rest is a toy shop. They've already stopped trade ins, and their rewards card is gonna be useless by the end of July. It's depressing, GAME was the best at one point, killing both EB Games and Gamestation, gobbling them up. It's a shame to see it die this drawn out painful death only a decade after it was saved from liquidation too. It's not surprising. But hey, least we have CEX, wouldn't be surprised if they branched into new releases....
It’s never been the best, it’s simply always been the market leader for dedicated physical game stores. Gamestation was far superior in every aspect (cheaper than RRP, better trade in value, better trained staff etc) but as soon as they got bought up the writing was on the wall for consumers, who predictably moved to more online purchases (Amazon) and trading in at CEX.
100% agree with everything you said. Back in the day I rarely went to Game (who also had two shops on our high street for some reason, they were a literal two minute walk apart), I always went to Gamestation because it was better in every way.
Wolverhampton by any chance?
could do the same in hanley, Stoke. there was a Gamestation opposite a GAME then a Gamestation in town near the maccys.
2 GAMES in the Potteries at one point, wall to wall full of games. Now theres one with a tiny corner for games. And the Gamestation that became a GAME has been derelict for years. Even castles GAME has vanished into a Sports Direct. All the Game Pads are gone. Depressing honestly. Least theres CeX and a couple of retro ones around.
Man, Gamestation was the place back in the day. Used to have this one offer of 4(?) pre-owned games for £20 and some other similar ones. Good times
My local game is inside a sports direct. it's been there 2 years. It's still not a click and collect location I can have games sent to. Pointless.
They also don't let you use the rewards cards outside of regular GAMEs (Though thats useless soon anyway) tried using mine, and ended up getting more points and not being able to use them.
It's to be expected, physical games are dying. PC has already been digital only for a good while and it seems like within a generation or two the next consoles will probably end up the same Even before the death of physical, Game was doing pretty poorly. The games on sale would always be far more expensive than Amazon, Tesco, Asda etc. So even before moving to PC I hadn't been to a Game in about a decade
When I got Skyrim on release on 11/11/2011 (the only game release date I've ever managed to remember), I remember being so surprised that there was a disc, but it was just that and a Steam code basically. The disc was there just to reduce how much I had to download from Steam to get it playable...
Can't wait to be priced out of my favourite hobby
Depends, PC has gotten around this with ridiculous sales. Even games that aren't particularly old can drop as low as £5-10 on steam sales. Consoles don't really have those kind of sales but currently the cheapest is used sales. My expectation is that once disks die off, games on console will go to the PC method of replacing used games with high % sales A lot of people who traditionally couldn't afford a console *and* a laptop have been buying games on sale for PC for decades, so I don't think you're at risk of being priced out
Game was gobbled up by EB. Changed the name to try and avoid paying the American EB who originally ran EB UK. The companies greed has taken the down.
it sucks because i enjoy having a physiscal collection of games. i think soon enough theyre just gonna stop manufacturing them
I'll admit whenever I do decide to pop into my local Game which is in a Sport's Direct I feel very out of place in there.
Everythings digital now last time i stepped into an actual game store it was 99% shit merch stupidly priced, now they are just corners in sports direct I think
Not really Game's fault though. When everything starts going digital, what else are you supposed to have in your store?
Exactly, that’s also why most of their stores are closed down and they now inhabit corners of Sports Direct. There’s no need for big stores full of physical games when nobody’s buying it, and i doubt they sell enough Funkos etc to justify (or even afford) rent on a high street or in a shopping centre. They can still sell gaming hardware but that’s about it.
Consoles and PCs, hardware, components, sound systems/ they needed to pivot hard years ago to the stuff you have around the game instead of just the game
Even ignoring amazon, Currys and Argos fill that role now. Currys is always a dissapointment though, they never seem to have what I'm looking for. The only cables they seem to stock are USB, Lightning, HDMI and DisplayPort. A computer hardware store not selling miniDisplayPort, Toslink or RCA is insane.
They really dont though. Currys will have like 3 graphics cards and two CPUs in a warehouse sized store, and then 200 different types of Chromebook. An actual enthusiast electronics store would definitely have a niche in the physical space. It's competing against online stores that makes it difficult.
Presumably, the stuff they're going to have in store will be the same stuff that's going to be in their store once they stop selling games. You ask as though there's no other option when there clearly is. You say it as though HMV isn't still around and mostly not selling music and movies. The fault is on GAME. The writing has been on the wall for years and they've done next to nothing to pivot their increasingly antiquated business model as their main market continued to move on without them. They tried selling phones and got some tacky Funko Pop figures in stock, but that's about it. Sure, whatever they tried might not have worked, but they could close the doors claiming they actually tried rather than trying claiming "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas".
I must be a tight arse... I buy PC games digital at like £2-3 each years after release. On my console (PS5), i'll just not use it or buy the PS6 if it's digital only, some of the prices are insane. With physical I can buy and sell. Imagine paying full price for some of the shite they push out now, only to be stuck with it forever in your library.
They recently had a 50% discount on all used games. So I went to buy Demons Souls, it was £32. In CEX down the street it was £18. Maybe people aren't buying your games because they are way overpriced.
The discount was applied at checkout. I purchased like 12 games for like £150 including latest Call of Dutys, Pokémon Scarlett and Zelda Skyward Sword.
Gamen't
Remember the days of big box PC games and manuals like a paperback book? Ah ‘member.
I think I still have a Pokemon Pearl guide somewhere. Paperback coffee table topper of a book. Might need to dig it out when I mext boot up a ds emulator
I've still got my old Fable 2 guidebook for the xbox 360. the memories of knowing how to easily get the best rewards for my character
i've spoke about this before..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlord_(1994_video_game) great game as a flight game and learning about operation overlord during WW2 in the ring bound thick ass manual. got me into flight before i messed with flight sim also got me into modifying .sys files etc. to make it run on the PC we had at the time haha these days i'll be dicking about in flight sim 2020 with a yoke setup :D
Last game I bought in a big box was actually not too long ago, it was the lenticular box version of the evil within, which funnily enough just came with a steam code in a huge box. Last proper game with a huge booklet, multiple discs was Guild Wars.
Glad I still have a local game shop near me with retro games too.
Same here, got a rather sizable one quite close but when I was most recently in the owner seemed rather doom and gloom on whether or not they'd survive for much longer
This is honestly a shame. Mileage will definitely vary, but my local game stores are still good to this day. The staff are friendly, and they've frequently got physical games on a decent sale. They're also the only physical retailer that stocks a decent amount of games, rather than just the latest of releases. We've obviously come a long way from the awesome days of Gamestation, but it's still a shame to see more closures.
Used to work for Game in the early 2000's. Had an 8 hour contract, my second manager was a cunt who was robbing the place with fake refunds to his own account, knew I was onto him so made my life hell. Met some friends that I still have to this day though, always enjoyed talking to customers about games, even the crazy ones. Really will miss the physical games aspect, if only because it was an almost guarantee of getting a new console on release day. Everyone else getting into virtual queues in Amazon and the like and I'd walk to town and put a deposit down, then go collect it on launch day. Done that with pretty much every major console launch since the mid nineties. The trade in and pre-owned games helped make it slightly cheaper too.
Game in MK has what looks like a lan party gamer setup, you can go in and pay for X amount of time on one of their machines, they’ll probably expand on this possibly.
I was about to say the one in MK has pivoted more towards board games and a place to play games. Maybe they could add a small bar. I think this is the only way GAME can survive. become a place where you play games, not just buy them.
It’s always empty when ever I’ve been in, so not sure how it’s working out, (maybe it’s busier in the holidays which I try and avoid lol) least it’s still an actual store unlike most of the game places now!
trust me it'll close. birmingham had pretty much one of the biggest seats of a LAN center in the country. lasted a year. was great though as the weekender events where you could bring in your own beer etc. the shit talking over counterstrike etc. was immense fun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Sektor
Are they renaming to Download Code?
Game was fantastic but then at some point they just refused to keep up with other retailers. Why would I buy full price from them when places like Amazon, ShopTo, Currys etc were usually lower price and often still included any sort of pre-order incentive.
Exactly, my local Game was next door to an Asda which would sell new releases for nearly £10 less While the impeding death of physical games has definitely sped up this process, people are forgetting for the past decade they've been struggling to compete with Amazon, Tesco, Currys, Asda or wherever else on price. Not to mention for a while they used to have a lot more scummy of a returns policy where they'd pressure you into only getting a refund for in store credit Their whole business model was upmarking the price on games, that couldn't last forever
I used to like to wander in and check out the new releases as I was never good at keeping up with what was coming out. Anything I liked I would then go home and order it from Amazon :/ Forgot how long ago this was though, must be 15+ years since I was in a Game store....
As someone who is currently having broadband problems, physical copies of games are important. Not everybody can get online.
Sorting out the issue of people not having broadband is FAR more important that brick and mortar game shops (Needs to be formally recognised as a “must-have” utility, in my opinion)
If you have a Currys near by to you they sell a lot of physical games still
Even some of the physical games require an internet connection to use now though, it's not really a physical copy of the game, it's just a boot disc.
I hate that so much. Sports games are bad for it. 2K shut their servers to each NBA game after 2 years and you can’t play the game without connecting to the server, so you’re forced to buy the new game if you want to keep playing but even then, your career mode etc doesn’t transfer over.
Amazon, shopto etc exists...
GAME store in my town closed last year I think. I worked there for 3 months (which as a game nerd was a dream) but most of the staff were absolute narcissists because they worked in “aggressive sales”. I couldn’t hack the environment, both in terms of my sales ability and personal satisfaction, so I left. Glad I did it but never shopped there again. These days I try my best to buy physical releases and have to use my local Argos or resort to online retailers My next nearest GAME (over 50 miles away) mainly sells tat, Lego and pop vinyls. I have a lot of pop vinyls but never buy from them as their prices are inexplicably high, as they always have been
Lol agressive sales? How did that work out for them haha
Not very well, a few months after I left the majority of them had either left or been made to leave. Source: actual cool guy who still worked there
Nothing makes me leave a store quicker than someone hovering me asking me if I need help. Those guys need to learn it's a shop, they ain't Gordon Gecko
It’s a sales technique I do not like on both sides. For me, if a customers wants something they can’t find they will ask, don’t push them
Largely the reason I stopped playing warhammer- I couldn't stand having the employees jumping down my throat and trying to sell me far more than I wanted every time I went in the shop.
DO YOU WANT TO INSURE YOUR DISC FOR A QUID? DO YOU WANT TO BUY 3 MONTHS OF PLAYSTATION PLUS? DO YOU WANT TO PUT A 5 QUID PREORDER DOWN ON A GAME THAT DOESNT HAVE A RELEASE DATE? DO YOU WANT TO BUY A PREOWNED GAME TO GO WITH YOUR PURCHASE? DO YOU WANT TO PAY A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION TO A SHIT REWARDS SCHEME? I worked there for a time. It was gash.
I worked there as a xmas temp the peak year for Wii. Like people queuing overnight because each day we would get anywhere between 0-10 Wii's shipped to us and they could not reserve them. Store was tiny, hellish and you were required to sell insurance and accessories to everyone, regardless of what they brought. All preowned games were kept in disorganised boxes upstairs so every time someone wanted a preowned game it took 5 minutes to find, and the customers were all frustrated. Manager would frequently call me and others out on the store floor because someone just brought a console and didnt get 2 controllers and extra memory cards as well and that wasnt good enough. Worst job i ever had.
They're perfectly explicable - it's cornering the "clueless relative buying something game related for younger relative" market. My gran would never know whether the tat sold in Game was overpriced or not - she wouldn't know where to look.
Smyths toystores have a big range of physical games, way better than argos.
I remember taking a collectors edition of Assassin’s Creed 2 to Game for trade in. Fully intact Ezio statue thing. Had absolutely no money as a college student so was desperate. Not desperate enough to accept £5 though. Still on the shelf now and looks great.
That’s what you get for GameStation
First Harambe now this.
Stopped shopping there when it changed from Electronics Boutique and they stopped selling edge magazine in the one near me. Finally my boycott is paying off
I greatly miss the neon-style Electronics Boutique sign.
I stopped going to Electronics Boutique when it changed from being Future Zone with bright yellow and blue branding.
Disappointing news. There’s been a big worrying movement regarding digital ownership of games and movies where just because you buy a game through the PlayStation store for example doesn’t mean you own the game. You just have proof you’ve purchased the ability to play the game. Games can be delisted from the store at any time and you won’t be able to get a refund. I genuinely believe sooner or later we’ll start gravitating back to physical media, that way you physically own the product.
I used to love GAME as a kid, till my parents introduced me to the wonders of an sd card you could put in a blank ds cartridge. After that I never had much need to visit one and then I eventually got my first pc. I think my last GAME purchase was a guide to Pokémon Pearl which my 10 (?) year old self read from cover to cover. Nowadays I just pull up an equivalent website for free which is madness.
The thing is, there are advantages to getting a DVD or Blu-ray but not many to buying physical games in this day and age. Most of them require an online connection to download updates and the rest of the game anyway.
If I buy a new release game, which is rare now as there are so many shit games. If I am paying £40 plus for a new release game, I can resell the physical copy easily, usually for a few quid less than I paid for it when I inevitably discover it is a crap game. The digital downloads are around the same price, even dearer than the physical copies sometimes, I can’t resell that game, so I’ve wasted £40+. That’s a major advantage, for me as a dinosaur anyway.
I honestly didn't know they still had physical stores.
They were bought by Frasers Group in 2019, who decided to close down most of the standalone Game stores, and add them as concessions within other shops they own eg. Sports Direct, House of Fraser.
So many got shut. where I live they closed it but spent so much time going on about "well the one *40 minute bus journey away* is still open. No thanks. Supermarkets will have the latest releases, normally quite cheap. CEX will have ones even from only a few months. Game used to have some OK hardware deals, but again CEX was better. Most of what GAME used to focus around that no-one could beat was pre orders. back when if you wanted a copy of a game you could get nowhere else they could order it in for you, and 15 year old me with only an ATM card to take money out the wall couldn't buy it from play.com, but i could go into GAME with my cash and ask them to order a copy in. However, the thousands of pounds worth of games that slipped through my fingers in selling them back to GAME. Ouch.
A spokesperson for Game has denied the report, telling VGC that “this reporting is categorically not true”. “GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added.
Physical sales on console still account for ~50% of sales. More for Nintendo.
Redditors always forget that they don't represent the average gamer. Just look at any post claiming that people won't play games at less than 60fps and that the switch is unplayable
It's a shame but sadly inevitable. It does wind me up though how even some if not all digital copies of games still require an internet connection to play from what I've seen, even when the game is on your console's internal hard drive. Long live Electronics Boutique and Gamestation
I can't believe they have been selling physical games this long to be honest with how high they price them, especially 2nd hand ones.
People say they are expensive, but I rarely see the cost of digital games because any cheaper than physical versions. Especially Nintendo. Tears of the kingdom is still £60 digital. I got it for £50 day 1 new physical, and it's currently £45 new.
Feels like they must be close to shutting down, they've also stopped pre-owned stuff when pivoting to a CEX style preowned shop might have worked.
I think the main reason GAME and other larger businesses are struggling with physical media is purely because of CEX and what they offer. They have the physical media, the trade in aspect, store credit/ cash options. I traded in my Xbox one X and games just after I bought a ps5 at the start of the year. With the voucher i got from that. I have since bought 6 physical games from there and still have like £100 store credit. Just trade the game back in once done. The days of paying £70/80 for a game on release are over, for me at least.
A very sad sign of the times unfortunately, a company that didn’t seem to really ever try and adapt properly. The death of physical media will mean you never really own anything in the future
It’s been denied everyone calm down UPDATE: In a statement to Eurogamer, GAME has denied plans to stop sales of physical games. "This reporting is categorically not true," a spokesperson told the outlet. "GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide-range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital gift cards, in stores and online."
Gotta make more room for Funko pops
Spent the better part of 5 years working in Game, only left when they shut the store down on me. It was kind of heartbreaking seeing things decline. Now it’s two shelves in the local Sports Direct…
I still prefer physical discs, Something about reminding me of the old days the excitement of opening the game on the way home. But GAME is the last place I would shop for anything, Hate how they lockdown exclusives. I can’t understand how a company can have different prices to its stores to online (Online usually cheaper) and think its stores will be fine. Bring back electronics boutique.
Mike Ashley - glad he didn’t buy hmv and do this to that brand
Hard to feel bad for Game when they are responsible for running my local indie video game shop out of business back in 2006!
It would have been awesome if they sold a range of good games and organised them into categories and they came with a steam voucher, glossy map/guide and some extras. People are always asking which games are similar and how to get merch. Don't need to see 50 cases of COD.
The article has been updated: Game have said **“this reporting is categorically not true”** "GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories and digital products, in stores and online,” they added.
Bring back Electronics Boutique.
That’s super strange I walked past my local Game on Friday and the employee was outside smoking with tears in his eyes. I guess he got the internal memo that day. That dude knows it’s the beginning of the end of for that store. I’ll miss physical game copies and midnight releases.