GAME in serious trouble

Sarn

Shame to see them go, and my sympathies to the former employees, but it is hard to compete with online prices.

doovdela wrote: »

Silly really, its better to buy these kind of things in shops than online though if anything was wrong with a product like. Different for CD's and DVD's though and downloading music from itunes.

In fairness I don't see any difference between downloading music and getting games online. As a predominantly PC user, most of my games can be downloaded. It has been years since I've picked up anything in a retail store, especially when new copies of console games can be purchased for less than second hand copies in store. In the case of hardware I'd agree.

starlit

Sarn wrote: »

Shame to see them go, and my sympathies to the former employees, but it is hard to compete with online prices.



In fairness I don't see any difference between downloading music and getting games online. As a predominantly PC user, most of my games can be downloaded. It has been years since I've picked up anything in a retail store, especially when new copies of console games can be purchased for less than second hand copies in store. In the case of hardware I'd agree.

From a price point of view that is true harder for them to compete with online prices.

Ya I see what you mean probably games are ok but the likes of consoles and the DS, xbox and so on, you have little comeback if the hardware and software is faulty. Or if you need customer service advice on something from those points of view getting them from a shop is better as you have a better guarantee than buying online but from a games points of view I suppose no different to downloading music.

clemyeats

It was going to happen I guess.. but I feel really sad now.

I've been shopping at GAME Athlone for a couple of years now and the guys there have always been really nice. I'd always come by that shop whenever I was in town, to have a look, grab a few games and have a little chat.

They weren't always the best at having the best deals but they were by far my favorite shop in town. I don't know if all GAME shops were like that, that's the only one I know.. but they did a really good job.

I'm gonna miss going there.. I hope they'll bounce back and quickly find jobs.

jaxdasher

Ahh damn, just got extra credit from trading in a game to them.

Pacing Mule

nix wrote: »

I havent bought a new release from game in years because they do just that, so dont tell i dont know what im talking about, perhaps they stopped doing it recently? I havent bought a new release from game in years, as a result of them doing just that, ive SEEN them boosting prices and then dropping them a week later so go shit in your hat.

I went from spending hundreds in game yearly to spending nothing because they did just that, maybe they changed it recently within the last few years, who cares? HMV have been my go to shop as game have always sucked for prices. And i check with every game release i purchase, its like a ritual and i always hit game first and HMV last and HMV always win.

If game were getting undercut by hmv they should atleast make the effort to counter it, match the price. They didnt, EVER. So its their own fault, please dont defend them as if they tried everything they could to be a good shop.

They were the shittest for new releases and their preowned prices are a disgrace, now that may not include all game shops, just every single one in Dublin.

I wish i was wrong, but its the sad truth, i used to always shop in game, then one day they just got greedy as **** and never looked back..

You don't know what you're talking about at all. I have watched prices in Game, Gamestop and HMV for the last few years.

I have seen Games prices fluctuate a lot more than the other stores but they have always been within the RRP set by the publishers.

HMV on the other hand have been consistently selling games at heavy discounts to the RRP and at times below the cost price from the publishers own distributors. Any retailer trying to follow suit would be digging their own grave and that is why Game haven't as you put it "made the effort"

This has of course had a few effects:

It has bought the loyalty (all be it temporary) of customers like yourself.
It has taken away business from the likes of Game - one of the contributing factors to Games demise.
It has led HMV to the same financial trouble that Game ran into.

HMV's sale prices over the last couple of years in particular are frankly unsustainable and will have to rise or else you will see them go down just like Game. Bear in mind that all of this was played out for the benefit of the UK market - here in Ireland we're just a comic aside. Game in the UK are / were the only main specialist high street player in the gaming market. This was the business HMV targeted. Now that they have eliminated the competition I think you will see their prices starting to creep up.

Downlinz

Great chain, friendly staff and always found them very reasonable on price. Generally find Gamestop to be slightly higher on everything and HMV tend to price off the charts outside of advertised discount deals and their staff are generally clueless about games.

Any liklihood of there being a closing down sale or somewhere where their stock will sell off cheaply? I noticed last time I was in the GAME in Limerick they were selling official bradygames guides for 2.99, they rrp for about 30 so figured something was up. :pac:

RobbingBandit

RTE are saying only 13 stores are closed in Ireland,has one store escaped or are RTE just stupid?

hotshots85

RobbingBandit wrote: »

RTE are saying only 13 stores are closed in Ireland,has one store escaped or are RTE just stupid?

Just heard staff are staging sit ins as the compnay have told them that they cannot afford to pay redundancy and to try claim from the government.

Heard they were told via email about job losses. Seriously bad form from GAme

valleyoftheunos

I'll miss dropping into the Dawson Street to chat with the staff there, they were friendly and always up for a chat about games or other various nerdy interests.

Having worked in various forms of retail including a Music/DVD/game Shop, its the responsibility of the management to make sure its staff are kept informed about releases, formats, big sellers etc. That goes for any form of retail, if you find misinformed staff somewhere you'll usually find a manager who isn't bothered in the same place.

nix

Unlucky for you, as i know what i seen so i know its true. Again maybe not of recent years but ive seen it happen..

And i was a game only customer since they started until around the playstation 2 era and then it became more affordable to go to HMV, so i did

Ive spent thousands in game over the years and was sad to see them fail on keeping up with competitive prices, both for new releases and preowned.

Their preowned prices are a disgrace, your paying full whack for a preowned game or near enough to it, unless the box was in bits and missing the booklet, then your paying still over half the price and they probably paid 5-10 quid for it.

And your logic is flawed, they had to overcharge their competitors for the good of the business? since when is losing customers to another company good for business?

They could have easily competed with hmv's prices by matching them and sold preowned games for reasonable prices. Instead of over charging in both categories :rolleyes:

cloud493

Just saw the interview on RTE, they looked pretty pissed(the Game employees)

Procrastastudy

nix wrote: »

Unlucky for you, as i know what i seen so i know its true. Again maybe not of recent years but ive seen it happen..

And i was a game only customer since they started until around the playstation 2 era and then it became more affordable to go to HMV, so i did

Ive spent thousands in game over the years and was sad to see them fail on keeping up with competitive prices, both for new releases and preowned.

Their preowned prices are a disgrace, your paying full whack for a preowned game or near enough to it, unless the box was in bits and missing the booklet, then your paying still over half the price and they probably paid 5-10 quid for it.

And your logic is flawed, they had to overcharge their competitors for the good of the business? since when is losing customers to another company good for business?

They could have easily competed with hmv's prices by matching them and sold preowned games for reasonable prices. Instead of over charging in both categories :rolleyes:

LOL Just watch HMV's prices now they've managed to kill one of the competition. One of three things will happen. They'll keep going and go bust trying to kill GameStop, they'll start increasing prices or they'll keep going and kill GameStop.

What exactly do you think will happen then? They'll keep running at a loss? Yeah I'm sure we wont see new release games at 74.99 like EA want to charge if there is a monopoly.

valleyoftheunos

doovdela wrote: »

I thought they keep the City ones open at least in particular the Dublin, Limerick and Cork ones. Shame really in this technology era! You think they be doing well despite HMV having faced a similar faith. Though competing with online stores and dunnes/tesco as well.

So are all the GAME shops going to be closed in Ireland though? Makes no sense if they are just decentralising it between Ireland and the UK.

Silly really, its better to buy these kind of things in shops than online though if anything was wrong with a product like. Different for CD's and DVD's though and downloading music from itunes. Its no different to buying a phone, would you buy a phone online? You'd buy it in a shop like!? You have more of a come back as a customer I think. Though great to shop online but there are only so many products that are better options to buy online than in the shop if it means value is the main factor though quality should over-ride value in this case. If you have a problem with a product, at least you get better customer care in a shop than from a phone call.

When are they closing the shops or have they all closed the ones they intend to shut down? Bad form though for the Irish Economy though.

Its like le senza and navi all over again. What's it coming to if HMV has gone down the same path is there any hope for those in a similar industry as HMV and GAMES!?

nix wrote: »

Unlucky for you, as i know what i seen so i know its true. Again maybe not of recent years but ive seen it happen..

And i was a game only customer since they started until around the playstation 2 era and then it became more affordable to go to HMV, so i did

Ive spent thousands in game over the years and was sad to see them fail on keeping up with competitive prices, both for new releases and preowned.

Their preowned prices are a disgrace, your paying full whack for a preowned game or near enough to it, unless the box was in bits and missing the booklet, then your paying still over half the price and they probably paid 5-10 quid for it.

And your logic is flawed, they had to overcharge their competitors for the good of the business? since when is losing customers to another company good for business?

They could have easily competed with hmv's prices by matching them and sold preowned games for reasonable prices. Instead of over charging in both categories :rolleyes:

thats a pretty simplistic analysis of GAME's business you have there. Any retailer will always sell a product for either the highest price a customer will pay or the lowest price the store can sustain, that's simple economics, if game could have lowered their prices they would have. HMV's business currently is based on loss leader prices, DVD's for €3 and CD's for €5 and games for €15 just to get people in the door spending money and clear some stock in the process. its a difficult model to make work and it requires
Tesco style economies of scale. HMV are struggling, fingers crossed they don't suffer the same fate as GAME.

Pacing Mule

nix wrote: »

And your logic is flawed, they had to overcharge their competitors for the good of the business? since when is losing customers to another company good for business?

They could have easily competed with hmv's prices by matching them and sold preowned games for reasonable prices. Instead of over charging in both categories :rolleyes:

No your logic is flawed. Just because you don't match a competitor undercharging customers does not mean you are overcharging them.

Losing customers is of course bad for business but serving customers and losing money by not covering your costs is worse. They could not have easily competed with hmvs prices. They aren't sustainable.

DARK-KNIGHT

ok am i right in thinking game have now closed all irish stores and told irish staff to piss off basically with redundancies etc??

BASTARDS

sorry but im sick of employers walking on the little guys :mad:

jill_valentine

DARK-KNIGHT wrote: »

ok am i right in thinking game have now closed all irish stores and told irish staff to piss off basically with redundancies etc??

BASTARDS

sorry but im sick of employers walking on the little guys :mad:

Yup. Some of their employees found out from forums and news outlets.

One of the managers on the news said he'd been working there for 17 years, and they treated him like this. Bear in mind this is a company that's still trading in other territories. As far as I know, all or most branches are staging sit ins.

nix

valleyoftheunos wrote: »

thats a pretty simplistic analysis of GAME's business you have there. Any retailer will always sell a product for either the highest price a customer will pay or the lowest price the store can sustain, that's simple economics, if game could have lowered their prices they would have. HMV's business currently is based on loss leader prices, DVD's for €3 and CD's for €5 and games for €15 just to get people in the door spending money and clear some stock in the process. its a difficult model to make work and it requires
Tesco style economies of scale. HMV are struggling, fingers crossed they don't suffer the same fate as GAME.

oh im not saying that wont happen, but to say game did everything they could have done to retain customers, is a complete joke.

valleyoftheunos

nix wrote: »

oh im not saying that wont happen, but to say game did everything they could have done to retain customers, is a complete joke.

How on earth do you know what they could have done to retain customers? do you think the management spent the last 6 months sitting on piles of cash determined not to cut prices?

Beefy78

Don't we already know that GAME were essentially making a loss on new titles anyway and only making any margin on the pre-owned market? It seems grossly simplistic to suggest that their way out of financial trouble would have been to take an even greater loss on new games by cutting their price still further and take a dent out of their margin on pre-owned.

nix

valleyoftheunos wrote: »

How on earth do you know what they could have done to retain customers? do you think the management spent the last 6 months sitting on piles of cash determined not to cut prices?

Oh they made the change to rip off customers years ago.. Lost alot of customers (any gamer with a brain), only income id say they made over the last few years was off clueless parents buying for their children..

valleyoftheunos

nix wrote: »

Oh they made the change to rip off customers years ago.. Lost alot of customers (any gamer with a brain), only income id say they made over the last few years was off clueless parents buying for their children..

not sure exactly what you man there, perhaps you can explain.

I've never felt ripped off there, and I'm a gamer with a brain.

cherryghost

Have a friend who took this photo. Tis in Monaghan

nix

valleyoftheunos wrote: »

not sure exactly what you man there, perhaps you can explain.

I've never felt ripped off there, and I'm a gamer with a brain.

By over charging on new releases and pre owned games, they were the most expensive shop to shop in.... :rolleyes:

Its why they fail and are closing down..They dont bring in the business..

Y'know, what most people have been saying in this thread, brains eh?

valleyoftheunos

nix wrote: »

By over charging on new releases and pre owned games, they were the most expensive shop to shop in.... :rolleyes:

Its why they fail and are closing down..They dont bring in the business..

Y'know, what most people have been saying in this thread, brains eh?

Again thats pretty simplistic:rolleyes:, prices that were higher than you wanted to pay or that weren't the cheapest isn't overcharging, it isn't even overpricing necessarily. What it is is an inability to compete with the other stores and that's down to an inability to cut costs.

I've a very limited gaming budget and as a result I've been comparing prices between GAME, Gamestop and HMV for a number of years and have always bought wherever was cheapest. my experience is that it has tended to go in cycles, Gamestop was cheapest for a while but for the last year or two GAME has been cheaper then the others except for the tittles HMV have overstocked on and are desperate to get rid of.

yammycat

cherryghost wrote: »

Have a friend who took this photo. Tis in Monaghan

lol just help yourself to the stock

Sierra Oscar

Disappointing to see it come to this, sad to see.

yammycat

I'm a PC gamer myself, I always bought from the local shops because A) i had the impression it helped out and i like collecting stuff I can bounce off my head, real things so to speak, if publishers are intent on killing off a legitimate business to fuel their profits and expect their customers to pay full whack for bits when they can get the same meaningless bits for free they are in for a surprise, moves like this will drive people into piracy, me for starters, I won't be paying for any more PC games, i'll get my 1's and 0's at a better price elsewhere thanks all the same

gubbie

cherryghost wrote: »

Have a friend who took this photo. Tis in Monaghan

Are they sitting in or did they just leave the lights on?

MR FIXIE

As an EX-employee I wold like to address some of the people misconceptions about the company. GAME consistantly were cheaper than GAMESTOP for pre-owned titles and new releses. In light of the GAME situation of no new releases in the past Im sure people have noticed a five euro increase in gamestops new releases, HMV undercut GAME for five euro in the first week of a new releases launched.... then increases its price by 10euro. HMV announced at christmas 15% losses and are looking at cutting the GAMING part of the the stores before they also go under altogether.

In terms of people saying GAME did not suit serve the GAMER and only catered for Mothers. It is true that GAME had an excellent reputation as being a welcoming store and not polluting the un-familiar mind with gaming jargon this is why they had such are large consumer base. For GAMERS, the company spent massive money ensuring it could have exclusives like recently the GOW3 epic edition and limited edition GOW3 console.

All in all people who like and dislike GAME for their own opinions there are much more important things to think of. Hundreds of employees out of a job and offered no redundancy. Some staff are there over 10 and 20 years with morgages and familys. It is the case the company has not fully gone as some stores in the UK and NI are still trading so to refuse redundncy to so many people is criminal in my opinion

JoJoK

My heart goes out to the girl on the news tonight who won't be able to pay her mortgage. I've been going into the Blanchardstown shop for a good few years and she was always so helpful and pleasant. She was the only female there for ages and I used to wait till she was free to serve me because yes, I am one of those clueless ones who buys games for nieces/nephews but she always remembered me and was patient, very helpful, and spot on about what the kids/teens like. I sincerely hope she and her colleagues get jobs, any employer would be lucky to get them.