UK game retailer goes into administration (out of business)

[Opa Opa]

Many people have bashed game for how the business was run, we are talking stuff like having 3 Game stores on one street, I know this happens, I've been to places like wolverhamption, in the space of a 5 minute walk you have 2 GAME stoes as well as a gamestation store.
Also game tell the staff to be very pushy with sales, in other words staff will always walk up to you to either ask if you are after anything or in the worse case try and make you buy/pre-order something.
Game also got a lot of stick for their prices and trade ins. We are talking brand new games coming out at £40 RRP, having a trade value of £23 and being sold second hand for £37.99. There are many more things people dislike GAME for but at the end of the day the business died because it was ran by people who did't know that they are doing or just didn't care.

Well GameStop kind of operates the exact same way over here but it is still in business.
I guess the only thing that would kill GameStop is a form of digital distribution for future consoles but if everything stays the same it will probably be fine.

But what really killed Game? Surely it wasn't just poor customer service and bad trade values. How's the economy over there?

[Reprise]

GAME was always busy as hell, it looked popular.

There must have been some internal screw ups.

[GigaPepsiMan]

But what really killed Game? Surely it wasn't just poor customer service and bad trade values. How's the economy over there?

I already told you Game killed game because they were so bad at what they were doing, there were some outside factors but even with them game shouldn't be dying the way it is.
Like I said there are like 600 game stores in the UK, in some places you have 2/3 stores on one street, not just are those stores on the same street but they are small, have little stock and what stock they do have are the same games. There are some good games stores but they are few and far, the game where I live is fairly big and has the biggest PC game selection of any video game store I have ever been in.

The internet and super markets like Asda (which is part of the Walmart family) are also taking a lot of sales away because their prices are so much cheaper, we are talking new games being £40 at GAME and £25/30 at the super market (the place where you buy food).

People are voting with their wallets really, game and gamestation stores often tend to look busy on weekends and holidays but I can see it being the case where a lot of people were leaving the stores empty handed, go to those store on a weekday and they are almost always dead.

As for the economy over here, it doesn't look bad from where I am but looking on the net a lot of reports are say it is bad, like 1980's Thatcher era bad.

[Reprise]

The internet and super markets like Asda (which is part of the Walmart family) are also taking a lot of sales away because their prices are so much cheaper, we are talking new games being £40 at GAME and £25/30 at the super market (the place where you buy food).

People are voting with their wallets really, game and gamestation stores often tend to look busy on weekends and holidays but I can see it being the case where a lot of people were leaving the stores empty handed, go to those store on a weekday and they are almost always dead.

Yeah, the first part is somewhat true. When I bought my PS3, I went to Morrisons and bought a batch of games there. They were quite a bit cheaper than GAME/Gamestation.

As for the second part, I work 9-5 during the week, so I guess my experience is mostly at the weekend. However, when I said 'busy', I was talking about the size of the queues to buy/trade in too. That said, they're not as busy as they used to be.

[Reprise]

I was just reading some of the news, and one site had a comment from an "expert" that I agree with. They said GAME came across as completely soulless - and I've always said the same. If you walk into many HMV stores, for example, their game sections are far more diverse and comprehensive than an entire GAME store. It's just ridiculous. GAME always just concentrated on the latest releases, the latest blockbusters and bombarding customers with pre-orders for upcoming games. Whilst HMV often stock slightly older games and have deals on, as well as the chart games. Personally I like being able to browse. But just walking into my local GAME store and seeing the chart games and little else other than a slightly over-priced pre-owned section was depressing.

GAME was always really expensive too... I couldn't quite work it out, but a lot of the time Gamestation was cheaper on pre-owned games, despite being owned by GAME.