Today I saw for like the fifth or sixth time that they won't be stocking a new game. Seems pretty obvious they won't be in business for much longer. Why is this happening, at a time when it seems game stores should be making more money than ever before?
-- [NO BARKLEY NO PEACE] If you can't slam with the best, then jam with the rest.
A. They're business practices are terrible, and have been so for years. Government by diktat from head office, with no responsibility given to store managers. B. Renting too many stories close together. There's at least five GAME stores I know of in Glasgow, probably more, and Glasgow isn't even that big a city. C. Retail market in the UK has been utter crap the last couple of years. Call of Duty might be breaking records, but little else is doing well. What growth there is is confined mostly to the downloadable areas (DLC, downloadable games, iOS/Android games, Steam), which screws physical retailers further. D. Everyone hates them (publishers even hate them since they sell 80% pre-owned games).
-- We are living our lives Abound with so much information
Apparently they had a really rough Christmas, which they blamed on a lack of consumer spending. Then the banks changed the terms on what GAME was allowed to borrow, so to stock certain games would have required publishers to sell them to GAME at a discount. Hence the lack of big EA, Nintendo, Capcom etc. games being stocked.
D. Everyone hates them (publishers even hate them since they sell 80% pre-owned games).
This. Nobody I know likes GAME, apart from for trade-ins and such.
You can get better deals at the other high street entertainment stores very often (HMV and Supermarkets and obviously online). The pre-owned/trade-in market is the only thing it really has going for it.
But yeah they are headed into administration. I dove in there yesterday to spend the gift card I still had lying around before the one near me got sold.
Ubisoft when lol u, then EA heard about it and went lol u and then everyone just went lol u and then firesales happened and my handheld gaming collection expanded.