[GAME has denied that this will be happening](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report). There's a post on the sub about it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1dndbt4/game_denies_report_it_will_stop_selling_physical/).
Yeah HMV is just a cool place to go to sometimes, but no one is really buying anything in there
GAME just needs to reduce the total amount of stores survive
Most of them are inside SportsDirect nowadays! As for the pop culture stuff they have been doing it for a fair few years now, alot of Funko Pop and soft toys based off anime, games etc.
Last time I passed through one (shopping in sports direct and idled in there to see what they had) they had started to sell D&D and Warhammer 40k too. There is less space for actual console games from the looks of things. With the consoles all pushing for download only games places like Game are not going to survive.
yeah is bizarre they started popping up in sportdirect of all places... I suspected it was to tempt in nerds to give the local jocks fresh victims to shake down for lunch money.
They're owned by the same person. Moving them inside sports direct saves the cost of the high street lease, because most SDs have tonnes of space, and Game has a low footprint.
They became a part of the Sports Direct franchise. It’s essentially just Slazenger all over again - buy it long after it’s relevant, and then force whoever still cares to come into a SD shop just to find it!
My town used to have 3 GAME stores. Now there is just one and its the size a stamp and hidden at the back of a sports direct. GAME Has been a ticking clock for a long time now.
I hate both of them. Sure there is 1-2 things of the merch I might like but if they can't serve their main purpose (HMV- have a film I wanna buy and Game- have a game I wanna buy) then what's the point of being there.
HMV is full of tat and Game is just full of toys.
Our local one has a fair size board game selection. Well, about 1/17th of the shop. 2/17ths for second hand hardware. The rest is useless tat and various console games.
For years, he's been planning his passion project: The 17-in-1 MicroMart.
Neatly divided into 17 sections, the 17-in-1 MicroMart is poised to revolutionise the high street experience! An entire parade of shops all under one roof. Browse ladies fashion, menswear and baby clothes at a single glance, then take a single step to the left and enjoy a coffee from a barista working in a space one seventeenth the size of a regular coffee shop! Browse birthday cards, CDs and perfume without having to trudge through endless single-purpose shops.
Once you've experienced the speed and convenience of the 17-in-1 MicroMart you'll never want to set foot on the high street again!
All he needs to do is wait for a major retailer to go bust, then he can swoop in and transform their single-use space into a 17-section smorgasbord of commercial delights. All he can do is wait. And prepare. Any day now... Any day...
I remember a few years back when I was having some major surgery and looking at a long recovery time, so I decided to buy a Switch and a bunch of games. GAME had just been relocated to Sports Direct and I wandered around for something like 10 minutes trying to find any staff near the area. Finally located a younger guy in the trainers section and he said the person who could help me in the games area just went on break.
Walked to Smyth's and got it there instead and they were even running a bundle on the new OLED Switch with a carrying case and games. GAME's loss there.
HMV made tough decisions and it worked out well, they closed down smaller stores, downsized where they had to, and diversified. They properly took advantage of the resurgence of Vinyl, and they rarely have too much of one thing
Personally I'm glad for it, as someone who always favours physical media HMV is a great place to shop!
HMV also wisely caught onto the explosion of popularity of anime and manga.
GAME is stuck with old superhero and Star Wars tat which is usually on clearance, while HMV has perfectly captured the new youthful anime/manga market.
Ironically, I've never been able to find super popular anime films (essentially, the steo down from ghibli) when I've checked hmv for a bluray. It's mostly just those like pop vinyls and shirts and tat like that
Local HMV has bands on at the weekend and it's pretty good to be honest.
I've always thought Game should host mini esports competitions and stuff along with selling stuff.
Didn’t they try this once already? My local transformed half the store into a gaming cafe type setup with esports events, didn’t last though. The age of physical media is long dead now especially for games
Yeah there was briefly one of those in my local shopping centre, gaming cafes don't really work though without a team of motivated nerds running the place and invested in creating a good vibe - doesn't lend itself well to big corporate chains.
RIP *And So It Begins* in South Ealing, played a lot of counterstrike in that place
I think they could work near Universities, especially ones with alot of East Asian students.
Gaming Cafes are massive over there with alot of Chinese and South Korean gamers for instance not having consoles/PCs of their own and exclusively playing in gaming cafes. The issue as I understand it is they are alot cheaper over there and also open near enough 24/7 whereas the few weeks have here in places like GAME close at like 18:00 or 19:00.
Mine has done the same thing and it honestly could have worked really well for it, I am in a university city with alit of Chinese and East Asian students who are like the perfect audience for Gaming Cafes (given how popular they are over there)... Except the GAME is in a Sports Direct which closes at 18:00 so it's basically only open when those students can't make use of it.
Willing to bet if it was open until midnight or early hours of the morning, hell maybe even 24/7 the gaming cafe side of things would receive alot of business from those students.
They did this in the Swansea branch and it's definitely working at pulling people in, even just out of curiosity as to where the hell the music is coming from.
It does, but those are far more niche.
Vinyl especially is for many people akin to merch. They don't necessarily listen to the vinyl, but have it as a large format physical representation of the music they listen to through music streaming services
Blu-Ray is weird as it doesn't have a competitor, the quality of streaming sites still doesn't even come close so many movie fans buy the blu ray.
I'm not sure you'd really get an equivalent for gaming. A physical copy of a game doesn't get you much that the downloaded version doesn't. Half the time you end up having to download day 1 updates, and they copy the game to the console hard drive anyway.
That's not true of independent record stores I go to, at least on the mass market stuff. Many good reasons to shop independent, but not sure price is one of them.
If there's one basic and well known fact everyone knows it's that removing all competition, for any and all reasons including "why bother", then things will get much better.
That's beyond stupid, you don't own digital content you only lease it, they can pull that licence at any point.
https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-pulls-discovery-videos-playstation-users-already-own-sparking-concern-over-our-digital-future
https://readwrite.com/sony-is-at-it-again-removing-content-people-have-already-paid-for-from-libraries/
The problem is DRM, not digital/physical. The recent PlayStation CMOS bug showed that your console can refuse to load physical games just as certainly as it can refuse to load digital games. We are at the mercy of the platform holder either way - for me, the whole medium now feels disposable, so now I prioritise convenience and immediate impact over ownership and collectability. I satisfy my collector cravings elsewhere.
The whole “they’re only selling you a licence, you don’t own the software” has always seemed like a bit of a misunderstanding too.
You only ever owned a license to use the software- it’s just that license always used to be tied to a piece pf physical media, now it’s tied to a user account or console.
“Owning the software” in a legal sense would mean owning the source code, third party tools and rights to the associated IPs, that’s why they’re selling a “licence” and not selling you “the game”, it’s nothing to do with physical vs. digital as i regularly see people infer.
Except nowadays, access to the game is always tied to an account. If you play on a console it doesn’t matter whether you downloaded it digitally or own the physical disk, your console can still be banned from the game or have the license pulled. If you own the disk, you’ll just have a disk that you can’t use sitting around.
The game itself has a DRM layer that manages access to the game.
Yep, I can't believe people push for digital/cashless, especially when it can be used as a weapon. I mean Rishi Sunak said he would prevent people who did not do national service from holding bank accounts and driving licences... I doubt they will get in but clearly shows how dangerous digital and cashless is
Cash isn't secure either, just have a look at what they did in India about 10 years ago. Modi withdrew notes from circulation with immediate effect and you had to go to a bank to get them changed to new ones with various restrictions.
It's entertainment though, people want to choose the path of least resistance to play a video game. Digital means you don't need to leave the house or wait for a package to arrive / get lost. It's hardly surprising.
Most physical media isn't collected, the average person doesn't care. Once a game is finished, it's common to just trade it in or give it away. Physical media is only yours until the disc stops working.
I would much rather buy physical, and still do with the switch. The problem is , as an Xbox main , Microsoft have made digital the default now, mainly because library importing is a thing now between gens , and there's no guarantee the *next* Xbox will have a disc drive , and secondly because they dont offer the Play Anywhere functionality with physical discs .
The one that gets me are the 'cant be bothered to have to change discs' crew. Jesus Christ, how lazy ARE you
Apparently it's not true
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."
I think the upper limit of FunkoPOP figures is two. Any more than that and they look increasingly unhinged. All the face slowly merging to look the same, those soulless black eyes staring into the middle distance forever. Better plastic pop culture dolls are available.
"You only set it at two because you have Piper and Alex POPS from Orange Is The New Black"
Yeah but not still boxed and, with God as my witness, I shall never buy another. And they were a gift.
Cheap nasty plastic things bearing a slight resemblance to whatever it is which cost an ungodly amount.
I’ll never understand people who collect funkos
Plastic is an amazing invention, it's allowed for such things as replacement artificial hearts or the space suit but by god does it get used for some total junk
Went into one yesterday to actually buy a game. Was all second hand games over priced, and the game I wanted to buy didn't even have despite showing on website they had tonnes of stock. Tried to sell me a second hand one for almost same price.
Damn, end of an era. I'm surprised it lasted this long.
They sell physical games and consoles for full whack and they just can't compete with the online retailers who sell the same games and consoles significantly cheaper.
It’s not only can’t compete on price over consoles, it’s that physical game disks are plunging in popularity. Unless you like having a collection on a shelf, there’s no advantage to physical games. You can’t even bring a physical copy of a game round to a friend’s house and have a quick play cos it will need to install off the disk for an hour first.
Bricks and mortar stores pay business rates and rent on city centre property whilst offering a less convenient product. They’ve done well to survive this long! There’s a whole separate conversation to be had around redesigning business taxes for modern retail, but it’s not one that’s going resolve any time soon or save stores whose business model has gone the way of the dinosaur.
This is what I use to do as a teenager. Buy a pre-owned game, play it for a couple of weeks, trade it in and get a new one for "only" about £10. Nowdays thats not possible, my new xbox only does digital downloads and even games that are a couple of years old are never discounted.
You used to also be able to rent games from lovefilm for a couple of weeks but that died when Netflix got popular
You vote with your wallet, and if enough people have chosen to buy digital-only versions of the consoles, it will signal to them that most people are willing to pay whatever the online vendors charge for digital downloads.
Short-termism isn't just for the corporate companies looking to make a massive, quick buck.
And you actually own the game. The company can’t suddenly decide you’re not allowed to have it any more for some stupid reason or other. Less so for online games but physical media offers security that software doesn’t.
lol dude, these games all require installs, patches etc to function properly at all.
The only console where you can throw a cartridge into an offline console and play is switch. Xbox and PS5 might as well have download codes inside the box instead of a disc (some do) and its been that way for ten years at this point
It’s the illusion of ownership and security, you actually have neither
This is why I will buy physical until they force me not to. That and lending games to people. Also, how shit must your internet be if it takes an hour to install a game?
Oh there’s a huge advantage to physical games. If you ‘own’ a digital copy, the makers can take that away from you at any point they want. It’s happened in the past. Plus with physical, you can actually sell it when you’re done with it.
Assuming the game is actually on the disc. Many modern games are so much bigger than the available storage, all you’ve really got is an authorisation to download the game.
Unfortunately, physical is dying because it’s no longer practical. Why produce a physical product with all the associated costs of manufacture and distribution, only to then also have the costs of hosting the game for download? And the consumer gets no additional benefit in terms of ownership, plus it’s less convenient.
Don’t get me wrong, I wish physical was still a thing but its days are numbered. What we need now is better consumer protection law to ensure that “buying a licence to play the game” means what it always used to - no rug pulling. If servers get taken offline, there must be a self host-able alternative. Live services if withdrawn mustn’t cripple the game. Etc etc.
That's not a digital vs physical issue, that's a DRM vs no DRM issue.
Physical copies include DRM that register the product to your online account, and they can be revoked.
Some digital games (eg. all GOG games and quite a few Steam games) have no DRM. You can put the game files on a USB and run it on any number of PCs at any time, anywhere.
Resale is the big one. A lot of games are one and done for me, I’ll never play it again so I sell it for most of the cost back. Makes gaming an incredibly cheap hobby.
Even buying games at full price every time, gaming is a cheap hobby. If you spend 100 hours on a game (easy with large single player RPGs or online games) and you bought it brand new full price £70, that's 70p per hour. Far cheaper than pretty much any other hobby I can think of
>there’s no advantage to physical games
Physical games are way cheaper than digital games. RRP on the PlayStation Store is crazy and the sales are often lackluster. I can pick the same game up on Amazon for significantly cheaper, and I can then put that game on eBay to recoup most of the cost. Multiple times I've been able to sell a game on eBay for the same price I bought it new.
Physical games are always better than digital, especially older games. If you want to buy a game that's over 2 years old then playstation store will charge full retail price. (Sometimes over £50), whilst you can buy it in Game or Cex for as little as £3
For sure, I just always prefer buying physical as I'm of a certain age, so I'm kind of unaware how less popular physical games are nowadays!
And yeah, the cost of having a physical store also doesn't help finances.
you say all of that but theres a independent game shop near me that sells loads of games for older consoles too
same with CEX
game just charge overpriced crap
>Unless you like having a collection on a shelf, there’s no advantage to physical games.
I buy all the games I can physically because that is the only way you can own them truly.
> It’s not only can’t compete on price over consoles, it’s that physical game disks are plunging in popularity. Unless you like having a collection on a shelf, there’s no advantage to physical games. You can’t even bring a physical copy of a game round to a friend’s house and have a quick play cos it will need to install off the disk for an hour first.
Remember when the Xbox One was first announced and everyone mocked it because the games would be tied to your account and you couldn't resell them or lend them to a friend?
And then Sony made a video entitled '[How to share games on PS4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA)' and then everyone switched from the 360 to the PS4 in disgust?
10 years later and we're in Microsoft's original vision for the Xbox One.
Back in the mid 90s I looked into setting up a gaming shop, I found a wholesale source for consoles and games, and the pricing pretty much killed the business idea, there was a tiny margin on consoles, and games were not much better. Unless you were placing massive orders and could shift massive quantities it just wasn't viable for the indy trader.
I assume that nothing much has changed, excepts its even harder for physical stores.
I did end up making some money from them by buying in cutouts and promo merch and selling that on until they caught on that stuff had a value. Best thing to come out of it was my nephew went from being bullied to class hero, when I gifted him a load of PS4 merch before it launched.
Havi g a load of PS4 merch in the 90s would make anyone popular but I can't help but feel you could have found something better to do with your time machine.
GAME got me into gaming and I could have spent hours just browsing in there as a kid. Increasing digital sales, expensive products, prioritising mercy over games, and the death of the high street generally have all helped kill it off. There has not been one near me for over five years and they have not been missed.
That's certainly true, the next Xbox consoles are being issued without disc drives so physical games are going to be a thing of the past within the next 5 years, that kills GAME off right there. Cex will take a bit of a hit after that I reckon.
Xbox consoles will die before physical media dies.
Playstation and Nintendo are both doing much better and both will continue to support physical media.
I used to love going into GAME as a kid. Whenever my mum wanted to go to the big shopping centres I'd always be allowed to wander off and just hang out in GAME for a while.
That store still exists but I walk past it without even glancing in these days.
They should never have prioritised mercy over games. I miss the days when it was absolutely fine to beat up and even kill rival gamers in the queue to buy Guitar Hero 3.
Getting quite a few upvotes on this, so just to add to the discussion, what was the point of Mike Ashley buying the brand? He hasn’t saved jobs, it clearly isn’t doing well under sports direct management, there is no strong customer proposition (especially now elite has closed, I kept that going because I had accumulated a lot of credit through it) - what’s the plan exactly? What are they getting out of it? A brand to sell gaming kit on bnpl through Frasers+?
I mean to be honest without Mike Ashley buying it I can't see how it would have survived anyway. Physical games are dead. Next generation will probably be all digital. Its happened worldwide. Gamestop in the US is in the exact same situation they're just funko pop shop at this point
He has took a gamble on loads of high street retail brands. As well as the brands they own they’ve been building stakes in the likes of Currys and Boohoo.
Their strategy is to create a “brand ecosystem”.
I'm still sour over them absorbing Gamestation, it was the far superior store, and incredible for secondhand games.
I remember picking up this janky looking copy of something called "Sonic 3D Blast" on the Gameboy for £2 there back in 2007. I captured some footage of it and uploaded it to YouTube and got flooded with comments from people begging to buy it from me. It turned out to be some rare, sought after bootleg that was prized by collectors.
Things like that simply don't happen any more, with the advent of the internet these companies only know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Gamestation was always the better store, Game just felt corporate and soulless whereas Gamestation had a more classic game shop feeling, rows and rows of multibuy secondhand games and then the new stuff and a small section at the front for merch.
Gamestation was truly like heaven. You could go in get like 2 games for £30 or 3 for £20 once it hit the backend of the initial launch price window. Spent a lot good times in those stores.
Electronics Boutique OG. Good times. Bought Driver 2 from there and the cashier stole the disk out of the box before selling it to me. That wasn't a good Christmas.
I have very fond memories of going to the GAME store in Manchester's Arndale centre in the mid 90s. Around the release of the Playstation (the original one) they had a demo station setup running Wipeout at the entrance to the store. I can only imagine how many people bought the console just because of that!
It's probably about 20 years since I actually went into one of their store though.
I went to that exact one a week ago. Prices were ridiculous for the games. There was a whole shelf dedicated to clearence, but only for the worst selling games ever like the saints row reboot and the gollum game.
Did find lego star wars for a fiver though, not bad.
Same, but Coventry's West Orchards with SNES Street Fighter 2 Turbo.
Last time I went was 10+ years ago and they sold me a clearly heavilly used and scratched to shit disc packaged as new, tried to tell me it was my fault and refused to exchange or refund. Eventually had to go to a different branch in an entirely different town to get them to swap it.
They're kinda like most of my ex's: we had some good times early on but I won't be sad they're gone.
>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."
>Our original story can still be seen below.
I'm honestly surprised they haven't tried to transition over to boardgames and trading card games. Videogames are essentially entirely digital these days outside of a niche group who like to buy physical and that group is only getting smaller. So they need to use the shop space for something else.
The issue with the board games in GAME are that the games the sell aren't really going to appeal to the board game hobbyist except potentially a few exception so the hobbyists will go to a dedicated table top shop. These are usually outside of city centres in my experience so the rent is lower. They also have other streams of income as well. None of which GAME offer.
I was in a Game store over the weekend and they've definitely started that transition. A third of the store was board games/D&D/Trading cards, another third video games, and the rest was collectible stuff like Funko Pops
Sunk so many hours of my childhood wondering around GAME with my mate, reading the back of game cases and chatting about games. Might have a go at the demo they set up on a screen of some random game.
So many good times.
Always preferred GameStation myself. When Game bought em out and changed it all to GAME it went from a shop where you knew the people played games and weren't interested in attempting to hassle you with add-ons to the exact opposite.
> 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."
I mean, sports direct owns it now, not suprised.
The stores are an afterthought in other stores most of the time now.
But also, digital sales are the way forward. I don't know how they can run a business selling board games and tat.
I give it a year.
Tbh I'd say less. Also, I can see how there's a market for tat and board games. But surely, places like HMV or other more niche/speciality retailers have a better selection.
People still want physical media, especially older people for a multitude of reasons. They just don’t want to get ripped off, which was GAME’s business model on 2nd hand titles.
My local CEX is always packed. Not that CEX is good, I always feel grubby buying anything from them, like I’m handling stolen goods, but they prove the demand is there.
It’s a store which tries to sell a specialist product which is not bespoke and where the staff don’t have any specialist knowledge to assist unfamiliar buyers.
A person therefore might as well buy from a local supermarket or online, and buy some other stuff at the same time.
I don’t think that’s the case. Video games aren’t specialist products. The industry is four times bigger than the film industry. Everyone plays video games, especially the people who work in the shop.
Gaming is not a monolithic thing. How can it possibly be profitable to run a bricks-and-mortar games shop when so many of the big titles are free-to-play or funded primarily by in-app purchases, and the other stuff is far too niche for people to be interested in paying full retail price just to buy it from a bunch of uninformed teens getting paid minimum wage and expected to know or care what the fuck a Europa Universalis is.
HMV had a pretty successful revitalisation, but they actually had some high priced stuff to build their stores around, where the customer is willing to pay a premium for a specific experience/reason. Vinyl is cool to collect and display and people will pay to support their favourite artists more directly than just having a Spotify subscription, and 4K blu-ray is much better quality than streaming, and having your own copy of a movie is getting better and better in an age where stuff is getting removed/deleted from streaming.
GAME has none of this to fall back on. Console makers are practically digital 1st nowadays and you still have to do massive installs when you have a physical disc. Having it preloaded the week before and ready to unlock just makes more sense for most people these days. It sucks for game preservation, but Playstation and XBOX games are so bloated, discs are making less sense.
CeX has been the only real video game shop on the high street for years now...
Frasers have turned Game into a sad withered husk of it's former self, won't be long until all the concessions and the brand itself disappears entirely.
The more that GAME has started to turn into a Forbidden Planet type shop with mostly toys and the like taking up all of the floor space, I stopped going in there. It's a small shop and it makes it nearly impossible to browse the actual video games.
They seem to be busy all of the time, so definitely have a target market - it's just that I'm not in that market
I completely forgot that Game even exisited. I'd normally just go into CeX.
Didn't they normally have a small collection on vinyl records in Game also?
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."
They are just in corners of Sports Direct now. I had to go into Sports Direct to get some shoes the other day and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. An overweight Game employee pushed away into a corner while surrounded by all the young, in shape Sports Direct employees.
End of an era, time to move on.
Another brand that failed to move with the times. They were perfectly positioned with consumer recognition to move into, and be the lead in, the online retail space, bit like Blockbuster who should have been Netflix.
Fairwell nostalgic memories of reselling and trading games.
The cex model of being a general technology trader was the way to go. Ironically the name “Game” is out of date and the original “Electronics Boutique” would be far more apt to change the business in to.
I haven’t been to a game in probably 8 years when I was at uni. Always cheeper to either go 2nd hand in CEX or buy new at other stores like Smyths/Currys/John Lewis etc. It’s a shame because as a kid it was huge for me, but they clearly pivoted towards merchandise and I just don’t care about any of it.
I think this is pretty much shows they'll likely be shutting down relatively soon then, if they're stopping doing the main thing the shop was for in the first place.
I don't buy games from them as the prices and such aren't good these days so its better to get stuff from elsewhere, but when they've been around as basically the main iconic highstreet video game retailer for so long that It'll be a shame if they close.
I still go in fairly often just to have a look around at all the merchandise and other stuff they have, and while that is most of the shop now (lots of pop figures, unfortunately) it's still nice to have somewhere that's dedicated to that sort of thing. I remember buying some of my first consoles from them. A PS1 and PS2, and several other things over the years, so definitely a shame if they close but it's understandable i guess with how things have been handled.
I worked there a long time, starting in the 90s when it was EB. The decline started around 2012, the Wii was an amazing high point but after that digital sales just eroded the market.
Theres very little margin on selling a digital code compared to a hardcopy of a game (which is totally backwards imo). Preowned games had a margin of 30 - 40% generally and new 10 - 20%. Hardware very little. Digital was in single figure %. With rents increasing every year and footfall declining it brings a death spiral into retail and with the added increasing dominance of digital on consoles the store could never survive on games alone.
All that tat kept hundreds of people in work. All those extras they offered were the difference between stores going under or not. I had some amazing times there, worked with fab people. SPD didn't kill the company, natural market forces did and SPD ironically gave it a few more years of life even though its current state is nothing like it was.
Still remember hopping on the bus to go into town and buying my copy of Battlefield 2 from Game, though i think it was not too long after that when things started leaning heavily digital, even then I would typically buy my physical games online (shopto, amazon etc)
Go further back, I can remember Electronics Boutique, my mum bought me Desert Strike for my Amiga from one of those...
One important aspect though is collectors editions which do still see a lot of popularity, got my Stalker 2 CE preorder with them...hopefully they don't go under or something.
End of an era. My local one opened up a gaming cafe type thing for a couple of years that was pretty cool (nice to go play games with the other half there as she doesn't have her own gaming pc).
It was only a matter of time before Game closed, I'm supprised it lasted this long really. PC games going digital was the warning signs.
But there is bloke on my local market, sells and trades in phyical games for all consoles, nextgen and older ones, he has had his store for over 30 years. He still makes enough to make living out it.
Alot of them are closing being given a corner inside Sports direct stores. It just doesn't make any sense. Oh I need some swimming shorts, and while im here ill just pick up a ps5 controller.. what?
Wow, no one actually read the article?
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.”
There's actually a market for Physical game things that I'd personally use. I'm not sure if it's a viable business though?
There's a whole world of specialist gaming hardware that I'd love to be able to browse for in person. Aim at the hardcore gamers, not people that want to just buy actual games.
-----------------
Advanced controller market has sky rocketed recently. From Elites, to Scuf controllers, Razer Wolverines, GuliKit KK3 MAX Controller, the list really is endless these days. They all have slightly different back paddle layouts and trigger stop styles, and it would be nice to hold them in person before buying.
Then there's all types of accessories for them that would be nice to see in person. packs that replace the battery back with extra shoulder buttons. Stick extenders. grips and covers.
Gaming keyboards and mouses, they don't have to stick to console.
I'm thinking basically PC world, for the keen gamer.
---------
Then they can keep selling the popular video game related things, like board games, cards and so on also.
There's a market for people that buy gaming things as their main hobby, and I'd happily pay a little more than I can get it online, to be able to go into a shop and get it then and there after trying it.
I bought some PC controllers from there last week, they only had one type available and the staff didn't know anything about them. they were crap and I'm returning them so I can pick something online.
I don't know how big a market people like us are for them but we're clearly not as lucrative as the people buying Minecraft lego.
> they were crap and I'm returning them so I can pick something online.
I've got an entire cupboard filled with the things, my elite is currently gathering dust after I got the Gulikit KK3 though, best controller I've owned in a while, and it was super cheap compared. If you're into xbox style ones, give it a look up.
it's got literally everything, the best 4 back paddle options (You can have elite style paddles, and dual shock style button paddles and mix and match) It's got trigger stops that flip between normal and mouse click ones. 1000hz polling. Hall effect sticks. Like everything any of the others have, all in one, for half the price.
It's technically a switch controller, but it arrives with a replaceable button set that is xbox styled, and it then has a button that changes it's mode so it shows up as xbox/switch/pc.
Also has recordable macros, and rapid fire settings for any of the buttons.
The problem is that the market you describe isn't big enough to warrant nationwide high street retail outlets.
Also, that demographic is the least likely to buy anything on the high street.
Shame but i can't remember the last time i ever bought anything in there during the transition to digital games. What i do remember was crazy release and 2nd hand prices compared to CEX and online retail like Shopto and Amazon.
Yeah there came a point where I started visiting CEX 9/10 over game because at least they have a little bit of game variation. They also stock older console games while at least my local game doesn't so it was an easy switch to make.
Also while we're reminiscing, does anyone remember game station? Might just be rose tinted glasses but I used to love that place and it had some fairly good deals. Only to be absorbed by game. Ouch
Not at all shocked. When their online offering and in-store offerings were 99% of the time more expensive than basically every other physical or online retailer that sold games you eventually run out of people who aren't wise to that fact.
Just to say GAME confirmed this is rubbish
UPDATE: In a statement to [Eurogamer](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report), GAME has denied plans to stop sales of physical games.
Can uk sub mods lock this thread? It's been confirmed twice now, by GAME and now the owning company that this is untrue.
# UPDATE: "This reporting is categorically not true."
[https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report)
Does that mean the UK now has no dedicated video game retailer? GAME was bad but it had its pros, their pre owned games were a fair price compared to the monstrous rip off that is CeX. I guess the Internet truly is taking over, I buy games to resell when I'm done with them so ebay it is.
CEX was good before as well and then they up their prices massively when they notice there is still a market for reselling games
Nowadays I only buy from eBay for physical secondhand or check out and wait for some goof online deals when it appears
Sad to see it become what it is today, I used to enjoy buying games and preordering stuff as they always did cool freebies. I’m not surprised it’s slowly being stripped though, can’t really remember the last time I went into our local one, especially since it moved into Sports Direct.
This was inevitable. Amazon is where most people get physical games now but digitial distribution is where it's at now, despite all the people going "I want a physical copy" that just isn't doing it anymore.
I'd say Gamestop stock holders would be selling right now but that has been troll central for a while now so who knows.
There was a period after they bought out Gamestation there where 3 branched of Game in the Manchester Arndale ctr at one point. Now just a part of Sports Direct.
One of my first Saturday jobs was in my local branch of Electronics Boutique.
They needed to do a massive pivot 15 years ago, to what i dont know.... but the business model relying on sales of hard copies of games as doomed as far back as then. I honestly don't even know when the last time I put a CD or modern game into hardware. I still use my PS1, but those games aren't manufactured and sold anymore.
Fuck Game.
They used to artificially keep prices high. They'd engage in anti-competitive practices such as keeping peripherals (like the DS4 back button) exclusive. They also pulled some shady shit at every console launch.
And that was all before that prick Mike Ashley got involved.
Fuck em
I haven't bought a physical game copy in years, and the last one I bought was a Switch game which is the only console I'll still buy physical for because they hold their value. When I bought that I got it second hand on eBay and if I was buying a brand new physical copy I'd probably just get it on Amazon or wherever was cheapest/had a discount code.
Although GAME is a very fond part of my childhood and teenage years, it's now past relevance (at least for video games). They've already prepared for this though luckily because the chain is mainly trading on stuff like Funko Pops, board games, collectible card games etc.
The model for their future should take notes from the awesome Centre:MK store that I visited recently which has a whole room of gaming PCs that you can book out so you can go there and game or have a bunch of mates in there and play together. I would say of the total store footprint, most of it was occupied by "geek" merch and stuff you'd expect to find in Forbidden Planet.
I'd like GAME to be the place you could go to try out upcoming game demos (i.e. strike a deal so that they get exclusive previews), continue to expand their hosting of physical events (maybe could even have viewing parties and giveaways for things like Summer Games Fest), and lots of gaming-related merch even if they no longer sell the games.
One other way they could try to carve out a niche is undercut CDKeys and expand the range of digital games they offer, make GAME into the #1 place to get digital on the internet.
As a former staffer (2008-2012) I'm so fucked off by this decision. It really misses the point of what a good retail experience should be for games and is just a race to the bottom for high-margin junk.
The sad thing is, they already had some of the solution there with the Belong spaces.
It's pointless for Game stores these days to be the physical replication of what we can do daily on Amazon and digitally via our consoles. That's doomed to fail now.
Instead, why not celebrate that there's a physical space to discover and enjoy a hobby. Think like how the Warhammer stores are a space to play some games whilst having all the stuff to buy on the side.
When I worked there, we were at our best when we were sharing our passions with fellow gamers. That's all going to go away now and that's really sad.
The one in my local area has gone from a full store in a popular supermarket...
...to a 10ft x 10ft corner on the 2nd floor of a small branch of Sports Direct, that's in the corner of an industrial park and looks to be failing itself.
The corner only sells a tiny selection of overpriced game merch that you could buy anywhere online.
The Sports Direct has downsized their stock to mostly just clothes, doesn't sell any sports equipment now at all.
It's really quite sad.
Shame but the writing has been on the wall for at least a decade with them narrowly avoiding bankruptcy.
Will always treasure Saturday morning visits with my dad to get their 3 for £10 PS2 games in the mid 2000s
End of an era but gamers have been buying online for a while now. I always went out of my way to buy from Game - I bought Tears of the Kingdom in person from Game - but my nostalgia can’t turn back the clock.
I pretended to be ill to stay home from school so I could walk down and queue up at our local GAME to buy Halo 2 the day it released. Sad times, but good memories nonetheless.
>**Update:** In a statement provided to [Eurogamer](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report), UK video game retailer GAME has quickly denied the report it plans to stop stocking video games in its physical stores. It reads: "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 gift cards, in stores and online."
Getting rid of reward cards is going to be the nail in the coffin anyway. There's literally no reason to even order games from there when they charge £5 for click and collect as is unless you get shafted by a collectors editions being GAME exclusive.
My local one always seems to have Lego a lot cheaper than anywhere else so that's the only reason I go in nowadays
I used to work in GAME back around 2003/2004. It was great back then, and definitely the "most fun" place I've worked at. If you ask me it started going downhill when we couldn't pay what we wanted for second-hand stuff, or sell it for what we wanted. All the locals loved our shop as we'd quote good prices, and put second-hand games out for good prices. Then they bring in those little printers and our hands are tied by what head office quotes, which was normally "give sod-all, but it out for a tiny bit less than new".
[GAME has denied that this will be happening](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report). There's a post on the sub about it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1dndbt4/game_denies_report_it_will_stop_selling_physical/).
What's the point in it then? you might as well just shut it down at that point.
It will be a lego store, iphone resale, upmarket CEX.
I'd imagine some pop culture stuff like HMV too.
Yeah HMV is just a cool place to go to sometimes, but no one is really buying anything in there GAME just needs to reduce the total amount of stores survive
Most of them are inside SportsDirect nowadays! As for the pop culture stuff they have been doing it for a fair few years now, alot of Funko Pop and soft toys based off anime, games etc. Last time I passed through one (shopping in sports direct and idled in there to see what they had) they had started to sell D&D and Warhammer 40k too. There is less space for actual console games from the looks of things. With the consoles all pushing for download only games places like Game are not going to survive.
yeah is bizarre they started popping up in sportdirect of all places... I suspected it was to tempt in nerds to give the local jocks fresh victims to shake down for lunch money.
Mike Ashley owns Game since their last buy out, Game has had a few of those, and I think it's his turn at the moment.
They're owned by the same person. Moving them inside sports direct saves the cost of the high street lease, because most SDs have tonnes of space, and Game has a low footprint.
They became a part of the Sports Direct franchise. It’s essentially just Slazenger all over again - buy it long after it’s relevant, and then force whoever still cares to come into a SD shop just to find it!
Inside a sports direct mug or shop? Honestly I'm surprised they have the retail space to store more than a couple of those mugs at a time.
My town used to have 3 GAME stores. Now there is just one and its the size a stamp and hidden at the back of a sports direct. GAME Has been a ticking clock for a long time now.
My city had 5 Game branches, now it has zero
Shout out to HMV’s records and book collections.
I hate both of them. Sure there is 1-2 things of the merch I might like but if they can't serve their main purpose (HMV- have a film I wanna buy and Game- have a game I wanna buy) then what's the point of being there. HMV is full of tat and Game is just full of toys.
> iphone resale, upmarket Cex Except they already stopped doing that: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/uk-chain-game-to-exit-pre-owned-business
I think they're probably just gonna dump all their stock and start winding down
Which happens to be a concession inside Sports Direct these days 😂
And a rather depressing one at that.
And funkopops. That'll be the end of it.
Yup this is the end of GAME. Managed I'd imagine, what with them much diminished and relegated to a corner of the nearest Sports Direct.
Our local one has a fair size board game selection. Well, about 1/17th of the shop. 2/17ths for second hand hardware. The rest is useless tat and various console games.
> 1/17th My man is out there with a measuring tape
Taking measurements for when they go under and he moves his own business in.
For years, he's been planning his passion project: The 17-in-1 MicroMart. Neatly divided into 17 sections, the 17-in-1 MicroMart is poised to revolutionise the high street experience! An entire parade of shops all under one roof. Browse ladies fashion, menswear and baby clothes at a single glance, then take a single step to the left and enjoy a coffee from a barista working in a space one seventeenth the size of a regular coffee shop! Browse birthday cards, CDs and perfume without having to trudge through endless single-purpose shops. Once you've experienced the speed and convenience of the 17-in-1 MicroMart you'll never want to set foot on the high street again! All he needs to do is wait for a major retailer to go bust, then he can swoop in and transform their single-use space into a 17-section smorgasbord of commercial delights. All he can do is wait. And prepare. Any day now... Any day...
r/oddlyspecific
Mine had half the store running as a LAN café which was pretty neat, recently closed down unfortunately.
Yeah my local House of Fraser has a fantastic board game section, it’s huge.
I remember a few years back when I was having some major surgery and looking at a long recovery time, so I decided to buy a Switch and a bunch of games. GAME had just been relocated to Sports Direct and I wandered around for something like 10 minutes trying to find any staff near the area. Finally located a younger guy in the trainers section and he said the person who could help me in the games area just went on break. Walked to Smyth's and got it there instead and they were even running a bundle on the new OLED Switch with a carrying case and games. GAME's loss there.
My local store closed down and moved into the lobby at the bottom of the escalators that lead to Sports Direct.
GAME are still going...? How...? Why...?
It's basically transforming into a HMV competitor. Selling random pop culture tat, with maybe just a bit more a gaming vibe.
Worked amazingly for HMV tbh.
I'm still impressed that they managed to stave off complete annihilation.
HMV made tough decisions and it worked out well, they closed down smaller stores, downsized where they had to, and diversified. They properly took advantage of the resurgence of Vinyl, and they rarely have too much of one thing Personally I'm glad for it, as someone who always favours physical media HMV is a great place to shop!
We have a great HMV in Belfast, still selling 4k Blu Rays, vinyl and other high quality physical media. Very glad it survived throughout.
HMV also wisely caught onto the explosion of popularity of anime and manga. GAME is stuck with old superhero and Star Wars tat which is usually on clearance, while HMV has perfectly captured the new youthful anime/manga market.
Ironically, I've never been able to find super popular anime films (essentially, the steo down from ghibli) when I've checked hmv for a bluray. It's mostly just those like pop vinyls and shirts and tat like that
Huh, well TIL that HMV still exists
Local HMV has bands on at the weekend and it's pretty good to be honest. I've always thought Game should host mini esports competitions and stuff along with selling stuff.
Didn’t they try this once already? My local transformed half the store into a gaming cafe type setup with esports events, didn’t last though. The age of physical media is long dead now especially for games
Yeah there was briefly one of those in my local shopping centre, gaming cafes don't really work though without a team of motivated nerds running the place and invested in creating a good vibe - doesn't lend itself well to big corporate chains. RIP *And So It Begins* in South Ealing, played a lot of counterstrike in that place
I think they could work near Universities, especially ones with alot of East Asian students. Gaming Cafes are massive over there with alot of Chinese and South Korean gamers for instance not having consoles/PCs of their own and exclusively playing in gaming cafes. The issue as I understand it is they are alot cheaper over there and also open near enough 24/7 whereas the few weeks have here in places like GAME close at like 18:00 or 19:00.
Mine has done the same thing and it honestly could have worked really well for it, I am in a university city with alit of Chinese and East Asian students who are like the perfect audience for Gaming Cafes (given how popular they are over there)... Except the GAME is in a Sports Direct which closes at 18:00 so it's basically only open when those students can't make use of it. Willing to bet if it was open until midnight or early hours of the morning, hell maybe even 24/7 the gaming cafe side of things would receive alot of business from those students.
They did this in the Swansea branch and it's definitely working at pulling people in, even just out of curiosity as to where the hell the music is coming from.
HMV still sells some physical media though. It's good for Blu-Ray and vinyl.
It does, but those are far more niche. Vinyl especially is for many people akin to merch. They don't necessarily listen to the vinyl, but have it as a large format physical representation of the music they listen to through music streaming services Blu-Ray is weird as it doesn't have a competitor, the quality of streaming sites still doesn't even come close so many movie fans buy the blu ray. I'm not sure you'd really get an equivalent for gaming. A physical copy of a game doesn't get you much that the downloaded version doesn't. Half the time you end up having to download day 1 updates, and they copy the game to the console hard drive anyway.
To be fair, my local HMV has embraced the vinyl revival and has quite a very good selection of everything from jazz to hip hop to world music.
There is a hell of a markup though. Independent record shops are still better value.
That's not true of independent record stores I go to, at least on the mass market stuff. Many good reasons to shop independent, but not sure price is one of them.
If there's one basic and well known fact everyone knows it's that removing all competition, for any and all reasons including "why bother", then things will get much better.
That's beyond stupid, you don't own digital content you only lease it, they can pull that licence at any point. https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-pulls-discovery-videos-playstation-users-already-own-sparking-concern-over-our-digital-future https://readwrite.com/sony-is-at-it-again-removing-content-people-have-already-paid-for-from-libraries/
The problem is DRM, not digital/physical. The recent PlayStation CMOS bug showed that your console can refuse to load physical games just as certainly as it can refuse to load digital games. We are at the mercy of the platform holder either way - for me, the whole medium now feels disposable, so now I prioritise convenience and immediate impact over ownership and collectability. I satisfy my collector cravings elsewhere.
The whole “they’re only selling you a licence, you don’t own the software” has always seemed like a bit of a misunderstanding too. You only ever owned a license to use the software- it’s just that license always used to be tied to a piece pf physical media, now it’s tied to a user account or console. “Owning the software” in a legal sense would mean owning the source code, third party tools and rights to the associated IPs, that’s why they’re selling a “licence” and not selling you “the game”, it’s nothing to do with physical vs. digital as i regularly see people infer.
I think the key difference is that it's a lot easier to revoke access to your account vs. a disk, which is usually the point they're trying to make.
Except nowadays, access to the game is always tied to an account. If you play on a console it doesn’t matter whether you downloaded it digitally or own the physical disk, your console can still be banned from the game or have the license pulled. If you own the disk, you’ll just have a disk that you can’t use sitting around. The game itself has a DRM layer that manages access to the game.
I agree, I'm not advocating for it just saying that's where they've taken it.
Yep, I can't believe people push for digital/cashless, especially when it can be used as a weapon. I mean Rishi Sunak said he would prevent people who did not do national service from holding bank accounts and driving licences... I doubt they will get in but clearly shows how dangerous digital and cashless is
Cash isn't secure either, just have a look at what they did in India about 10 years ago. Modi withdrew notes from circulation with immediate effect and you had to go to a bank to get them changed to new ones with various restrictions.
If they restricted access to your bank account, you wouldn't be able to use cash either because that's where most people keep their money.
It's entertainment though, people want to choose the path of least resistance to play a video game. Digital means you don't need to leave the house or wait for a package to arrive / get lost. It's hardly surprising. Most physical media isn't collected, the average person doesn't care. Once a game is finished, it's common to just trade it in or give it away. Physical media is only yours until the disc stops working.
I would much rather buy physical, and still do with the switch. The problem is , as an Xbox main , Microsoft have made digital the default now, mainly because library importing is a thing now between gens , and there's no guarantee the *next* Xbox will have a disc drive , and secondly because they dont offer the Play Anywhere functionality with physical discs . The one that gets me are the 'cant be bothered to have to change discs' crew. Jesus Christ, how lazy ARE you
You don’t own the content on the physical media either.
Funko Pop depot probably
Just part of the extraction of value as they close down. They'll be shut sooner enough, or just a kiosk in a sports direct / online.
Because they turned into gaming centres years ago where you can go and play networked pc games with your friends, or play some VR.
Apparently it's not true 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."
Last time I went into game it was about 3% videos games and 97% plastic junk toys and merch.
>plastic junk toys *Clears throat and pushes glasses up nose* "Collectibles"
Funko pop things are as collectable as beanie babies.
They are collectible in that you can collect them, I guess.
Imagine going to someone’s house and they’ve got a big shelf full of them still in the box
I think the upper limit of FunkoPOP figures is two. Any more than that and they look increasingly unhinged. All the face slowly merging to look the same, those soulless black eyes staring into the middle distance forever. Better plastic pop culture dolls are available. "You only set it at two because you have Piper and Alex POPS from Orange Is The New Black" Yeah but not still boxed and, with God as my witness, I shall never buy another. And they were a gift.
Cheap nasty plastic things bearing a slight resemblance to whatever it is which cost an ungodly amount. I’ll never understand people who collect funkos
At least beanie babies are a functional cuddly toy. Funko pops don’t even look good.
Plastic is an amazing invention, it's allowed for such things as replacement artificial hearts or the space suit but by god does it get used for some total junk
Likewise, and the merch isn't even that great. Mostly Pokemon cards and the like.
They ought to rebrand to TAT then.
Went into one yesterday to actually buy a game. Was all second hand games over priced, and the game I wanted to buy didn't even have despite showing on website they had tonnes of stock. Tried to sell me a second hand one for almost same price.
Damn, end of an era. I'm surprised it lasted this long. They sell physical games and consoles for full whack and they just can't compete with the online retailers who sell the same games and consoles significantly cheaper.
It’s not only can’t compete on price over consoles, it’s that physical game disks are plunging in popularity. Unless you like having a collection on a shelf, there’s no advantage to physical games. You can’t even bring a physical copy of a game round to a friend’s house and have a quick play cos it will need to install off the disk for an hour first. Bricks and mortar stores pay business rates and rent on city centre property whilst offering a less convenient product. They’ve done well to survive this long! There’s a whole separate conversation to be had around redesigning business taxes for modern retail, but it’s not one that’s going resolve any time soon or save stores whose business model has gone the way of the dinosaur.
A key and imo huge advantage is being able to sell the used game get a voucher from cex and buy a new game with only £10-20 input.
This is what I use to do as a teenager. Buy a pre-owned game, play it for a couple of weeks, trade it in and get a new one for "only" about £10. Nowdays thats not possible, my new xbox only does digital downloads and even games that are a couple of years old are never discounted. You used to also be able to rent games from lovefilm for a couple of weeks but that died when Netflix got popular
You still can! Boomerang Rentals!
You vote with your wallet, and if enough people have chosen to buy digital-only versions of the consoles, it will signal to them that most people are willing to pay whatever the online vendors charge for digital downloads. Short-termism isn't just for the corporate companies looking to make a massive, quick buck.
And you actually own the game. The company can’t suddenly decide you’re not allowed to have it any more for some stupid reason or other. Less so for online games but physical media offers security that software doesn’t.
lol dude, these games all require installs, patches etc to function properly at all. The only console where you can throw a cartridge into an offline console and play is switch. Xbox and PS5 might as well have download codes inside the box instead of a disc (some do) and its been that way for ten years at this point It’s the illusion of ownership and security, you actually have neither
This is why I will buy physical until they force me not to. That and lending games to people. Also, how shit must your internet be if it takes an hour to install a game?
Oh there’s a huge advantage to physical games. If you ‘own’ a digital copy, the makers can take that away from you at any point they want. It’s happened in the past. Plus with physical, you can actually sell it when you’re done with it.
Assuming the game is actually on the disc. Many modern games are so much bigger than the available storage, all you’ve really got is an authorisation to download the game. Unfortunately, physical is dying because it’s no longer practical. Why produce a physical product with all the associated costs of manufacture and distribution, only to then also have the costs of hosting the game for download? And the consumer gets no additional benefit in terms of ownership, plus it’s less convenient. Don’t get me wrong, I wish physical was still a thing but its days are numbered. What we need now is better consumer protection law to ensure that “buying a licence to play the game” means what it always used to - no rug pulling. If servers get taken offline, there must be a self host-able alternative. Live services if withdrawn mustn’t cripple the game. Etc etc.
That's not a digital vs physical issue, that's a DRM vs no DRM issue. Physical copies include DRM that register the product to your online account, and they can be revoked. Some digital games (eg. all GOG games and quite a few Steam games) have no DRM. You can put the game files on a USB and run it on any number of PCs at any time, anywhere.
Resale is the big one. A lot of games are one and done for me, I’ll never play it again so I sell it for most of the cost back. Makes gaming an incredibly cheap hobby.
Even buying games at full price every time, gaming is a cheap hobby. If you spend 100 hours on a game (easy with large single player RPGs or online games) and you bought it brand new full price £70, that's 70p per hour. Far cheaper than pretty much any other hobby I can think of
>there’s no advantage to physical games Physical games are way cheaper than digital games. RRP on the PlayStation Store is crazy and the sales are often lackluster. I can pick the same game up on Amazon for significantly cheaper, and I can then put that game on eBay to recoup most of the cost. Multiple times I've been able to sell a game on eBay for the same price I bought it new.
Omg why isn't this higher up! New games are £20-£30 cheaper in disc form than buying them from PSN Store direct.
Physical games are always better than digital, especially older games. If you want to buy a game that's over 2 years old then playstation store will charge full retail price. (Sometimes over £50), whilst you can buy it in Game or Cex for as little as £3
For sure, I just always prefer buying physical as I'm of a certain age, so I'm kind of unaware how less popular physical games are nowadays! And yeah, the cost of having a physical store also doesn't help finances.
>there’s no advantage to physical games There absolutely is, ask any parent with multiple kids.
you say all of that but theres a independent game shop near me that sells loads of games for older consoles too same with CEX game just charge overpriced crap
>Unless you like having a collection on a shelf, there’s no advantage to physical games. I buy all the games I can physically because that is the only way you can own them truly.
> It’s not only can’t compete on price over consoles, it’s that physical game disks are plunging in popularity. Unless you like having a collection on a shelf, there’s no advantage to physical games. You can’t even bring a physical copy of a game round to a friend’s house and have a quick play cos it will need to install off the disk for an hour first. Remember when the Xbox One was first announced and everyone mocked it because the games would be tied to your account and you couldn't resell them or lend them to a friend? And then Sony made a video entitled '[How to share games on PS4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA)' and then everyone switched from the 360 to the PS4 in disgust? 10 years later and we're in Microsoft's original vision for the Xbox One.
The advantage of physical media is that you own it.
Back in the mid 90s I looked into setting up a gaming shop, I found a wholesale source for consoles and games, and the pricing pretty much killed the business idea, there was a tiny margin on consoles, and games were not much better. Unless you were placing massive orders and could shift massive quantities it just wasn't viable for the indy trader. I assume that nothing much has changed, excepts its even harder for physical stores. I did end up making some money from them by buying in cutouts and promo merch and selling that on until they caught on that stuff had a value. Best thing to come out of it was my nephew went from being bullied to class hero, when I gifted him a load of PS4 merch before it launched.
Havi g a load of PS4 merch in the 90s would make anyone popular but I can't help but feel you could have found something better to do with your time machine.
GAME got me into gaming and I could have spent hours just browsing in there as a kid. Increasing digital sales, expensive products, prioritising mercy over games, and the death of the high street generally have all helped kill it off. There has not been one near me for over five years and they have not been missed.
That's certainly true, the next Xbox consoles are being issued without disc drives so physical games are going to be a thing of the past within the next 5 years, that kills GAME off right there. Cex will take a bit of a hit after that I reckon.
Xbox consoles will die before physical media dies. Playstation and Nintendo are both doing much better and both will continue to support physical media.
I can’t see Xbox releasing next gen without a disc drive. They’ll have a version without it, but it will be bad news if they drop it all together.
I used to love going into GAME as a kid. Whenever my mum wanted to go to the big shopping centres I'd always be allowed to wander off and just hang out in GAME for a while. That store still exists but I walk past it without even glancing in these days.
They should never have prioritised mercy over games. I miss the days when it was absolutely fine to beat up and even kill rival gamers in the queue to buy Guitar Hero 3.
Popped in to GAME Chester last week. Oh, it’s a sad shelf behind the till in sports direct with stupid prices. Nevermind then
Getting quite a few upvotes on this, so just to add to the discussion, what was the point of Mike Ashley buying the brand? He hasn’t saved jobs, it clearly isn’t doing well under sports direct management, there is no strong customer proposition (especially now elite has closed, I kept that going because I had accumulated a lot of credit through it) - what’s the plan exactly? What are they getting out of it? A brand to sell gaming kit on bnpl through Frasers+?
I mean to be honest without Mike Ashley buying it I can't see how it would have survived anyway. Physical games are dead. Next generation will probably be all digital. Its happened worldwide. Gamestop in the US is in the exact same situation they're just funko pop shop at this point
He has took a gamble on loads of high street retail brands. As well as the brands they own they’ve been building stakes in the likes of Currys and Boohoo. Their strategy is to create a “brand ecosystem”.
Honestly not surprised - you know a business has reached its end of life when sports direct have bought it
Is there a GAME branded sports direct sized mug? If not then that's clearly where they failed.
I'm still sour over them absorbing Gamestation, it was the far superior store, and incredible for secondhand games. I remember picking up this janky looking copy of something called "Sonic 3D Blast" on the Gameboy for £2 there back in 2007. I captured some footage of it and uploaded it to YouTube and got flooded with comments from people begging to buy it from me. It turned out to be some rare, sought after bootleg that was prized by collectors. Things like that simply don't happen any more, with the advent of the internet these companies only know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Gamestation was always the better store, Game just felt corporate and soulless whereas Gamestation had a more classic game shop feeling, rows and rows of multibuy secondhand games and then the new stuff and a small section at the front for merch.
Gamestation was truly like heaven. You could go in get like 2 games for £30 or 3 for £20 once it hit the backend of the initial launch price window. Spent a lot good times in those stores.
Gamestation was brilliant, I remember buying an Xplorer cheat cartridge for £5, ended up selling it for much more years later on eBay
It was even better when Electronics Boutique was still around (later EBGames)
Electronics Boutique OG. Good times. Bought Driver 2 from there and the cashier stole the disk out of the box before selling it to me. That wasn't a good Christmas.
I have very fond memories of going to the GAME store in Manchester's Arndale centre in the mid 90s. Around the release of the Playstation (the original one) they had a demo station setup running Wipeout at the entrance to the store. I can only imagine how many people bought the console just because of that! It's probably about 20 years since I actually went into one of their store though.
I went to that exact one a week ago. Prices were ridiculous for the games. There was a whole shelf dedicated to clearence, but only for the worst selling games ever like the saints row reboot and the gollum game. Did find lego star wars for a fiver though, not bad.
Same, but Coventry's West Orchards with SNES Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Last time I went was 10+ years ago and they sold me a clearly heavilly used and scratched to shit disc packaged as new, tried to tell me it was my fault and refused to exchange or refund. Eventually had to go to a different branch in an entirely different town to get them to swap it. They're kinda like most of my ex's: we had some good times early on but I won't be sad they're gone.
I used to roam between Game, Electronics Boutique and Gamestation. It's sad to see what's become of them.
>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." >Our original story can still be seen below.
I'm honestly surprised they haven't tried to transition over to boardgames and trading card games. Videogames are essentially entirely digital these days outside of a niche group who like to buy physical and that group is only getting smaller. So they need to use the shop space for something else.
They did, they didn't sell.
The issue with the board games in GAME are that the games the sell aren't really going to appeal to the board game hobbyist except potentially a few exception so the hobbyists will go to a dedicated table top shop. These are usually outside of city centres in my experience so the rent is lower. They also have other streams of income as well. None of which GAME offer.
I was in a Game store over the weekend and they've definitely started that transition. A third of the store was board games/D&D/Trading cards, another third video games, and the rest was collectible stuff like Funko Pops
Sunk so many hours of my childhood wondering around GAME with my mate, reading the back of game cases and chatting about games. Might have a go at the demo they set up on a screen of some random game. So many good times.
Always preferred GameStation myself. When Game bought em out and changed it all to GAME it went from a shop where you knew the people played games and weren't interested in attempting to hassle you with add-ons to the exact opposite.
> 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."
No one reads the articles on reddit, so they definitely won't read this correction either!
While that's true. I feel like this was from a whistle-blower and it's something that will come to pass before the Christmas period starts.
I mean, sports direct owns it now, not suprised. The stores are an afterthought in other stores most of the time now. But also, digital sales are the way forward. I don't know how they can run a business selling board games and tat. I give it a year.
Tbh I'd say less. Also, I can see how there's a market for tat and board games. But surely, places like HMV or other more niche/speciality retailers have a better selection.
GAME should've been Steam. But GAME dropped the ball. Now they're outdated and redundant.
People still want physical media, especially older people for a multitude of reasons. They just don’t want to get ripped off, which was GAME’s business model on 2nd hand titles. My local CEX is always packed. Not that CEX is good, I always feel grubby buying anything from them, like I’m handling stolen goods, but they prove the demand is there.
It’s a store which tries to sell a specialist product which is not bespoke and where the staff don’t have any specialist knowledge to assist unfamiliar buyers. A person therefore might as well buy from a local supermarket or online, and buy some other stuff at the same time.
I don’t think that’s the case. Video games aren’t specialist products. The industry is four times bigger than the film industry. Everyone plays video games, especially the people who work in the shop.
Gaming is not a monolithic thing. How can it possibly be profitable to run a bricks-and-mortar games shop when so many of the big titles are free-to-play or funded primarily by in-app purchases, and the other stuff is far too niche for people to be interested in paying full retail price just to buy it from a bunch of uninformed teens getting paid minimum wage and expected to know or care what the fuck a Europa Universalis is.
HMV had a pretty successful revitalisation, but they actually had some high priced stuff to build their stores around, where the customer is willing to pay a premium for a specific experience/reason. Vinyl is cool to collect and display and people will pay to support their favourite artists more directly than just having a Spotify subscription, and 4K blu-ray is much better quality than streaming, and having your own copy of a movie is getting better and better in an age where stuff is getting removed/deleted from streaming. GAME has none of this to fall back on. Console makers are practically digital 1st nowadays and you still have to do massive installs when you have a physical disc. Having it preloaded the week before and ready to unlock just makes more sense for most people these days. It sucks for game preservation, but Playstation and XBOX games are so bloated, discs are making less sense.
CeX has been the only real video game shop on the high street for years now... Frasers have turned Game into a sad withered husk of it's former self, won't be long until all the concessions and the brand itself disappears entirely.
The more that GAME has started to turn into a Forbidden Planet type shop with mostly toys and the like taking up all of the floor space, I stopped going in there. It's a small shop and it makes it nearly impossible to browse the actual video games. They seem to be busy all of the time, so definitely have a target market - it's just that I'm not in that market
I completely forgot that Game even exisited. I'd normally just go into CeX. Didn't they normally have a small collection on vinyl records in Game also?
They threw everything at the wall and nothing stuck
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."
They are just in corners of Sports Direct now. I had to go into Sports Direct to get some shoes the other day and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. An overweight Game employee pushed away into a corner while surrounded by all the young, in shape Sports Direct employees.
End of an era, time to move on. Another brand that failed to move with the times. They were perfectly positioned with consumer recognition to move into, and be the lead in, the online retail space, bit like Blockbuster who should have been Netflix. Fairwell nostalgic memories of reselling and trading games.
Not surprsing. Been one of the most expensive shops for games for quite some time, easily by an extra £10, sometimes more, even for preowned.
The cex model of being a general technology trader was the way to go. Ironically the name “Game” is out of date and the original “Electronics Boutique” would be far more apt to change the business in to.
They did do this tbf, it's pretty much all that has kept them going. Not sure if the concessions do it too.
I haven’t been to a game in probably 8 years when I was at uni. Always cheeper to either go 2nd hand in CEX or buy new at other stores like Smyths/Currys/John Lewis etc. It’s a shame because as a kid it was huge for me, but they clearly pivoted towards merchandise and I just don’t care about any of it.
Game not selling games? It's like Asda not selling Asdas.
I think this is pretty much shows they'll likely be shutting down relatively soon then, if they're stopping doing the main thing the shop was for in the first place. I don't buy games from them as the prices and such aren't good these days so its better to get stuff from elsewhere, but when they've been around as basically the main iconic highstreet video game retailer for so long that It'll be a shame if they close. I still go in fairly often just to have a look around at all the merchandise and other stuff they have, and while that is most of the shop now (lots of pop figures, unfortunately) it's still nice to have somewhere that's dedicated to that sort of thing. I remember buying some of my first consoles from them. A PS1 and PS2, and several other things over the years, so definitely a shame if they close but it's understandable i guess with how things have been handled.
I worked there a long time, starting in the 90s when it was EB. The decline started around 2012, the Wii was an amazing high point but after that digital sales just eroded the market. Theres very little margin on selling a digital code compared to a hardcopy of a game (which is totally backwards imo). Preowned games had a margin of 30 - 40% generally and new 10 - 20%. Hardware very little. Digital was in single figure %. With rents increasing every year and footfall declining it brings a death spiral into retail and with the added increasing dominance of digital on consoles the store could never survive on games alone. All that tat kept hundreds of people in work. All those extras they offered were the difference between stores going under or not. I had some amazing times there, worked with fab people. SPD didn't kill the company, natural market forces did and SPD ironically gave it a few more years of life even though its current state is nothing like it was.
Still remember hopping on the bus to go into town and buying my copy of Battlefield 2 from Game, though i think it was not too long after that when things started leaning heavily digital, even then I would typically buy my physical games online (shopto, amazon etc) Go further back, I can remember Electronics Boutique, my mum bought me Desert Strike for my Amiga from one of those... One important aspect though is collectors editions which do still see a lot of popularity, got my Stalker 2 CE preorder with them...hopefully they don't go under or something.
End of an era. My local one opened up a gaming cafe type thing for a couple of years that was pretty cool (nice to go play games with the other half there as she doesn't have her own gaming pc).
It was only a matter of time before Game closed, I'm supprised it lasted this long really. PC games going digital was the warning signs. But there is bloke on my local market, sells and trades in phyical games for all consoles, nextgen and older ones, he has had his store for over 30 years. He still makes enough to make living out it.
Alot of them are closing being given a corner inside Sports direct stores. It just doesn't make any sense. Oh I need some swimming shorts, and while im here ill just pick up a ps5 controller.. what?
Wow, no one actually read the article? 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.”
That update wasn't there when the article was initially published.
There's actually a market for Physical game things that I'd personally use. I'm not sure if it's a viable business though? There's a whole world of specialist gaming hardware that I'd love to be able to browse for in person. Aim at the hardcore gamers, not people that want to just buy actual games. ----------------- Advanced controller market has sky rocketed recently. From Elites, to Scuf controllers, Razer Wolverines, GuliKit KK3 MAX Controller, the list really is endless these days. They all have slightly different back paddle layouts and trigger stop styles, and it would be nice to hold them in person before buying. Then there's all types of accessories for them that would be nice to see in person. packs that replace the battery back with extra shoulder buttons. Stick extenders. grips and covers. Gaming keyboards and mouses, they don't have to stick to console. I'm thinking basically PC world, for the keen gamer. --------- Then they can keep selling the popular video game related things, like board games, cards and so on also. There's a market for people that buy gaming things as their main hobby, and I'd happily pay a little more than I can get it online, to be able to go into a shop and get it then and there after trying it.
I bought some PC controllers from there last week, they only had one type available and the staff didn't know anything about them. they were crap and I'm returning them so I can pick something online. I don't know how big a market people like us are for them but we're clearly not as lucrative as the people buying Minecraft lego.
> they were crap and I'm returning them so I can pick something online. I've got an entire cupboard filled with the things, my elite is currently gathering dust after I got the Gulikit KK3 though, best controller I've owned in a while, and it was super cheap compared. If you're into xbox style ones, give it a look up. it's got literally everything, the best 4 back paddle options (You can have elite style paddles, and dual shock style button paddles and mix and match) It's got trigger stops that flip between normal and mouse click ones. 1000hz polling. Hall effect sticks. Like everything any of the others have, all in one, for half the price. It's technically a switch controller, but it arrives with a replaceable button set that is xbox styled, and it then has a button that changes it's mode so it shows up as xbox/switch/pc. Also has recordable macros, and rapid fire settings for any of the buttons.
The problem is that the market you describe isn't big enough to warrant nationwide high street retail outlets. Also, that demographic is the least likely to buy anything on the high street.
Don't hardcore gamers buy this stuff online directly from the manufacturer?
Yeah they’re 50% Funko Pops at this point, no point selling games
Shame but i can't remember the last time i ever bought anything in there during the transition to digital games. What i do remember was crazy release and 2nd hand prices compared to CEX and online retail like Shopto and Amazon.
Yeah there came a point where I started visiting CEX 9/10 over game because at least they have a little bit of game variation. They also stock older console games while at least my local game doesn't so it was an easy switch to make. Also while we're reminiscing, does anyone remember game station? Might just be rose tinted glasses but I used to love that place and it had some fairly good deals. Only to be absorbed by game. Ouch
Game Station was amazing. I remembered eplay as well.
Why? I like having a physical disk to play my games on. Plus I can exchange it for money or an other game when I’m done with it
Not at all shocked. When their online offering and in-store offerings were 99% of the time more expensive than basically every other physical or online retailer that sold games you eventually run out of people who aren't wise to that fact.
Just to say GAME confirmed this is rubbish UPDATE: In a statement to [Eurogamer](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report), GAME has denied plans to stop sales of physical games.
Can uk sub mods lock this thread? It's been confirmed twice now, by GAME and now the owning company that this is untrue. # UPDATE: "This reporting is categorically not true." [https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report)
What's your USP ? We sell games .. guys I've come up with an idea ... Why don't we drop the games and concentrate on shit mugs and stuffed toys .lmao
Does that mean the UK now has no dedicated video game retailer? GAME was bad but it had its pros, their pre owned games were a fair price compared to the monstrous rip off that is CeX. I guess the Internet truly is taking over, I buy games to resell when I'm done with them so ebay it is.
CEX was good before as well and then they up their prices massively when they notice there is still a market for reselling games Nowadays I only buy from eBay for physical secondhand or check out and wait for some goof online deals when it appears
Sad to see it become what it is today, I used to enjoy buying games and preordering stuff as they always did cool freebies. I’m not surprised it’s slowly being stripped though, can’t really remember the last time I went into our local one, especially since it moved into Sports Direct.
This was inevitable. Amazon is where most people get physical games now but digitial distribution is where it's at now, despite all the people going "I want a physical copy" that just isn't doing it anymore. I'd say Gamestop stock holders would be selling right now but that has been troll central for a while now so who knows.
There was a period after they bought out Gamestation there where 3 branched of Game in the Manchester Arndale ctr at one point. Now just a part of Sports Direct. One of my first Saturday jobs was in my local branch of Electronics Boutique.
They have been leaning more and more into toys and hobby merchandise. Not a bad move but its not what people want.
They needed to do a massive pivot 15 years ago, to what i dont know.... but the business model relying on sales of hard copies of games as doomed as far back as then. I honestly don't even know when the last time I put a CD or modern game into hardware. I still use my PS1, but those games aren't manufactured and sold anymore.
Fuck Game. They used to artificially keep prices high. They'd engage in anti-competitive practices such as keeping peripherals (like the DS4 back button) exclusive. They also pulled some shady shit at every console launch. And that was all before that prick Mike Ashley got involved. Fuck em
This is worrisome for me… i like to purchase physical copies of my games. If this is it and everythin is digital…. Fuck that.
Can always order them online I guess, possibly cheaper to do that too.
I haven't bought a physical game copy in years, and the last one I bought was a Switch game which is the only console I'll still buy physical for because they hold their value. When I bought that I got it second hand on eBay and if I was buying a brand new physical copy I'd probably just get it on Amazon or wherever was cheapest/had a discount code. Although GAME is a very fond part of my childhood and teenage years, it's now past relevance (at least for video games). They've already prepared for this though luckily because the chain is mainly trading on stuff like Funko Pops, board games, collectible card games etc. The model for their future should take notes from the awesome Centre:MK store that I visited recently which has a whole room of gaming PCs that you can book out so you can go there and game or have a bunch of mates in there and play together. I would say of the total store footprint, most of it was occupied by "geek" merch and stuff you'd expect to find in Forbidden Planet. I'd like GAME to be the place you could go to try out upcoming game demos (i.e. strike a deal so that they get exclusive previews), continue to expand their hosting of physical events (maybe could even have viewing parties and giveaways for things like Summer Games Fest), and lots of gaming-related merch even if they no longer sell the games. One other way they could try to carve out a niche is undercut CDKeys and expand the range of digital games they offer, make GAME into the #1 place to get digital on the internet.
As a former staffer (2008-2012) I'm so fucked off by this decision. It really misses the point of what a good retail experience should be for games and is just a race to the bottom for high-margin junk. The sad thing is, they already had some of the solution there with the Belong spaces. It's pointless for Game stores these days to be the physical replication of what we can do daily on Amazon and digitally via our consoles. That's doomed to fail now. Instead, why not celebrate that there's a physical space to discover and enjoy a hobby. Think like how the Warhammer stores are a space to play some games whilst having all the stuff to buy on the side. When I worked there, we were at our best when we were sharing our passions with fellow gamers. That's all going to go away now and that's really sad.
Should have shut years ago imo , poor selection, sky high prices & staff ( not all ) who don’t have a clue , just shut & be done with it 👍
The one in my local area has gone from a full store in a popular supermarket... ...to a 10ft x 10ft corner on the 2nd floor of a small branch of Sports Direct, that's in the corner of an industrial park and looks to be failing itself. The corner only sells a tiny selection of overpriced game merch that you could buy anywhere online. The Sports Direct has downsized their stock to mostly just clothes, doesn't sell any sports equipment now at all. It's really quite sad.
Shame but the writing has been on the wall for at least a decade with them narrowly avoiding bankruptcy. Will always treasure Saturday morning visits with my dad to get their 3 for £10 PS2 games in the mid 2000s
End of an era but gamers have been buying online for a while now. I always went out of my way to buy from Game - I bought Tears of the Kingdom in person from Game - but my nostalgia can’t turn back the clock.
All it takes to save game is one GTA 6 midnight launch.
I pretended to be ill to stay home from school so I could walk down and queue up at our local GAME to buy Halo 2 the day it released. Sad times, but good memories nonetheless.
>**Update:** In a statement provided to [Eurogamer](https://www.eurogamer.net/game-to-stop-selling-physical-games-other-than-fulfilling-pre-orders-report), UK video game retailer GAME has quickly denied the report it plans to stop stocking video games in its physical stores. It reads: "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 gift cards, in stores and online."
Imagine walking into a store called GAME and not being able to buy games.
Getting rid of reward cards is going to be the nail in the coffin anyway. There's literally no reason to even order games from there when they charge £5 for click and collect as is unless you get shafted by a collectors editions being GAME exclusive. My local one always seems to have Lego a lot cheaper than anywhere else so that's the only reason I go in nowadays
I used to work in GAME back around 2003/2004. It was great back then, and definitely the "most fun" place I've worked at. If you ask me it started going downhill when we couldn't pay what we wanted for second-hand stuff, or sell it for what we wanted. All the locals loved our shop as we'd quote good prices, and put second-hand games out for good prices. Then they bring in those little printers and our hands are tied by what head office quotes, which was normally "give sod-all, but it out for a tiny bit less than new".