Game Grafton St Closing!

superfly

i got a letter from Game, saying that its Grafton st branch closed on Monday
and they never had a closing down sale the bar stewards!

Blub2k4

I think they have enough branches to just move the stock to another.

Dogg Thang

Bah, that probably means the Dawson street branch will get packed. I always liked that it was a quiet safe haven from, well, kids and stuff. Y'know...

I wonder what we'll get there instead *prays for another Sock Store or Tie Rack*

Dogg.

Retr0gamer

I thought they would have a sale and sell off a load of retro stuff from the back.

Corben Dallas

Drats saw that yesterday, Feck hope the Dawson st one keeps my GT4 Preorder* includes GT4 keyring!!!!!!

dont know why its closing, have u ever been in there from Oct onwards? Always queue goin half way down the back of the shop with ppl buyin games/consoles.

Either the owner wants another rent hike from Game" .......but its like so on grooofton street opposite BT like"(Blackrock accent) or would have made more sense to close the Dawson St one?

We need Games Retailers on our main shopping streets.

Winters

Yes. but little to no places on Grafton Street actually make a profit due to the stupidly high rents that are charged on it. Having a store on Grafton street isint really economicaly sound.

It wont really bother me that much. I buy nearly all my games online anyway. The only ones I dont buy online are the ones I want to have on the day of release, I'll pay extra for those

*waits for battlefield 2 on June 20th*

Gummy Panda

Won't they just move the stock to Dawson st and the new Dundrum store. All Grafton st prebooks are now available from dawson st according to the letter

flogen

Winters wrote:

Yes. but little to no places on Grafton Street actually make a profit due to the stupidly high rents that are charged on it. Having a store on Grafton street isint really economicaly sound.

It wont really bother me that much. I buy nearly all my games online anyway. The only ones I dont buy online are the ones I want to have on the day of release, I'll pay extra for those

*waits for battlefield 2 on June 20th*

Yup, that's the reason, the rent for the place went up by some rediculous amount again and it wasn't viable for them to stay. Oh, and the company seemed to do what they could to have incompetent manager after incompetent manager in the place.

I wonder if Gamestop will make a move to Grafton St, I know they're not moving into the GAME shop, but there are a few empty properties there atm.

flogen

okidoki987

Must be the rent.
Makes no sense for them to have 2 shops so close to each other and one is probably paying about 10 times the rent of the other. They are probably getting a large premium from some yuppie clothes shop for the lease.

Dermo

wasn't this announced last year when they heard the rent was going up??
I heard this a long time ago

dearg_doom

that'll learn em for hiring staff who haven't a clue about games/ overcharging/ pushing the ****est selection of games over some true classics!!!

Chalk

dearg_doom wrote:

that'll learn em for hiring staff who haven't a clue about games/ overcharging/ pushing the ****est selection of games over some true classics!!!

in general, running a business?

The Brigadier

Dermo wrote:

wasn't this announced last year when they heard the rent was going up??
I heard this a long time ago

Yes they are looking to find another site off grafton st.

The landlord has been hiking the rents up to an unprofitable level

Ardent

That place was such a waste of space, no loss. Only game I bought in there was Doom 3 because I HAD TO play it on the day of release, everything else I've bought much cheaper online. Why do people pay the prices they pay for games in places like that?

flogen

Dermo wrote:

wasn't this announced last year when they heard the rent was going up??
I heard this a long time ago

yeah, it was but they only just got a buyer recently (and I think it is a yuppie clothes or shoe shop too )

I don't think they are looking for other Grafton St. properties, they're probably going to focus more on Dawson st (which is getting a refit) and Henry St. they also have 2 new stores (Dundrum and Mahon Point) to deal with.

flogen

whiskeyman

Dogg Thang wrote:

Bah, that probably means the Dawson street branch will get packed. I always liked that it was a quiet safe haven from, well, kids and stuff. Y'know...

I wonder what we'll get there instead *prays for another Sock Store or Tie Rack*

Dogg.

My sentiments exactly.
You can even always get a game on the test/promo machines there.
THe grafton st store was way too small and pooly laid out anyway.
At least the new one in Dundrum is 5 mins down the road from me.... bet that'll be masseeeeve!

dearg_doom

Ardent -> agreed:)

Chalk wrote:

in general, running a business?

ah come on, they have been a black-hole of gaming knowledge for over ten years, they don't reccomend alternatives to the usual ****e to people who wouldn't know what truly worthwhile games are also out, they almost KILLED NINTENDO!!!,

so yeah, running a business is one thing, ruining that business is quite another though!!

the corpo

principal problem with the property on grafton st is that game never utilised all 4 floors, on which they were obviously paying a huge amount of rent.
there are currently 3 floors of potential office/retail space being unused above the first floor of that building.

it always puzzled me why they never sublet the upper floors for offices or something.


i expect that whoever does move in will

Chalk

i wont buy my games there tbh but,
as i said its a business,
theyre in it to make money, much like the majority of businesses,
gamezone closed due to incompetence, gamesworld sold to gamestop.

there arent many games stores left these days and theyre staying open arent they?

dearg_doom

I remember when GAME grafton st. had an upstairs!! many a Saturday afternoon was wastedplaying Primal Rage/ AvP on the 50" screen!! huge GB/PC space too

Chalk

i remember the upstairs selling discount pc typing tutorials

RuggieBear

very few shops on Grafton st make any money. They are there as advertising. But the rents are getting so ridiculous that even usingf the shop for brand awarness is no incentive to stay....

flogen

dearg_doom wrote:

Ardent -> agreed:)


ah come on, they have been a black-hole of gaming knowledge for over ten years, they don't reccomend alternatives to the usual ****e to people who wouldn't know what truly worthwhile games are also out, they almost KILLED NINTENDO!!!,

so yeah, running a business is one thing, ruining that business is quite another though!!

how do you figure that GAME almost killed nintendo?
I'm not a fan of the way GAME operates, and I know first hand how retarded they can be (I work for the bastards!) but I don't see how anyone but nintendo is to blame for their recent lacklustre performances (let's not get into details there, that's another argument). If you try to say GAME keep on cutting back GC stock and so on, then of course they are, but they're only doing it in response to demand. xbox, pc and ps2 outsell GC and have more customers so they're given more space on the shop floor. If GC sold really well and xbox didn't things would be the other way around because GAME will sell whatever makes profit.

As for sales assistance, I know there are plenty of tools working for that company at many levels, but I'd like to think I do whatever I can. If I don't know about a game I'll be honest with the customer, I won't blag it just to make a sale (I'm not on commission so I don't care).

The fact is GAME are only just realising that gamestop, hmv and smyths all mean business, but as long as people shop at GAME and buy games at high prices, they wont see the need to drop them. Grafton St. closing may well be fallout from gamestop on liffey st or other stores but it's mainly a rent thing and I can't see it having a huge effect on the way they operate.

flogen

CatInABox

It was something like 4 million a year to rent that place, which was actually fairly cheap for grafton st. A lot of those buildings are a million a month, but the rent on that place was going up.

All the stock is moving to the new dundrum store. And guess whats moving in there? A Shoe Shop... I mean, what else?

Q_Ball

CatInABox wrote:

It was something like 4 million a year to rent that place, which was actually fairly cheap for grafton st. A lot of those buildings are a million a month, but the rent on that place was going up.

All the stock is moving to the new dundrum store. And guess whats moving in there? A Shoe Shop... I mean, what else?

Nah the rent was a fraction of that. I reckon somehwere like dunnes of one of the BT stores would be paying that. It went up last year and GAME weren't making enough to sustain it, especially since the eb take over and they had dawson street and grafton street practically beside eachother. But they have three (i think, but i've only been on two) floors and only one was used to actually sell stuf. I reckon they should have made it a super store like HMV on oxford street in london. It could have been the central hub for anything gaming with events sponsored by sony/m$/ninty etc.

It'd want to be a hefty upmarket shoebox in order to survive on grafton street tho! then again it is practically opposite brown thomas, which will suit the d4 (and wannabe d4) heads...sorry, ladies...;)

dearg_doom

flogen wrote:

GAME keep on cutting back GC stock and so on, then of course they are, but they're only doing it in response to demand. flogen

firstly I didnt know you worked there, I didn't mean anything personally!

but I feel that GAME decided a long time ago that Nintendo/SEGA can **** off and die.

I just never liked that!

flogen

dearg_doom wrote:

firstly I didnt know you worked there, I didn't mean anything personally!

but I feel that GAME decided a long time ago that Nintendo/SEGA can **** off and die.

I just never liked that!

oh I know, and I don't take it personally, I know GAME is a sh1t company

I wouldn't have thought they made the decision to drop sega and nintendo, I think they made the decision to sell whatever makes the most money. They're giving the DS a big launch because they see it (and the psp) as the only real money spinner between now and the next generation of consoles. GBA has always had a decent display in the stores because it sells, if the PSP outsells the ds and gba by miles, then that will become the main handheld display in the shop.

flogen

Thorbar

Can't see how this should bother anyone, as has been said several times buy your games online or go around to corner to Dawson's st to pick up something special on release day.

the corpo

gamecube never stood a chance in game though, from the get go it was relegated space to the back of all stores, bar maybe one FDU down the front with a new release title.
they simply never gave it the chance to compete, and in a market were a high street retailer can be seen to dictate public opinion on something, i imagine that handicap knocked on to other retailers...

Dogg Thang

After the slow and painful death of the N64, I'm not sure they had earned that chance. The lack of games for the N64 would have made me very nervous of the GC if I were a retailer.

Dogg.

dearg_doom

the N64 was what I was on about,

Game had a great couple of years with the first Playstation, it completely re-juvenised the public's interest in games, as opposed to the relatively small amount of people who had a Megadrive/SNES

the Saturn didn't meet expectations, so it was basically the current 'gen' circa '95/'96 was a SONY monopoly, with some new SNES titles. a status quo that was very profitable

then when Mario64+ the N64 came out with arguably better hardware, this upset the status quo.

None of the games retailers(not just GAME ) liked this so the N64 was 'hidden' in the back, and the same has happened to the DC an GC since!

There were loads of rumours about GAME et al taking bribes/incentives off sony but I don't know if any of that is true or false.

Re: the lack of games for the N64: I have waaay more games for my N64 than I have for my Playstation! the N64 versions of ISS, RidgeRacer and F1 weren't bettered for years IMO

I reckon the N64 has this percieved lack of games because it never had yearly updates :rolleyes: