It’s finally good to see the future of GAME has now been resolved. The games industry needs a presence on the high street rather than being available in shops selling carrots, slabs of meat and dog food. Whilst it is good that you can get games at supermarkets, this particular product and market needs a specialist retailer – regardless of what your opinions are of the people who work there and their technical abilities.

 

What can be done to prevent the fire sale that sparked the collapse of the GAME group ?

 

So what has GAME got to do going forward. From the suggestion box these spurt forth like a spurting thing :

 

  • Shutting so many stores was necessary to reduce costs. You cannot continue having 2-3 shops of the same name within yards of each other competing and chasing the same quid. Hopefully now the lesson has been learnt and they should focus on 1 store maximum in any town centre.
  • The pricing policy needs looking at immediately. One of the big criticisms of GAME stores was the huge variance in some of the pricing, especially with the second hand stock. Having preowned games on sale for more than brand new copies smacks of laziness. They also need to look hard at the quantities of preowned games they take in, rather than simply take games for the sake of it
  • Perhaps the biggest suggestion of all is this : learn from your mistakes. Not everyone is given a second chance like this. Screw it up this time and it really will be GAME over.
  • Assess the competition. The pricing strategies of HMV should be lesson enough to ensure that you don’t follow their path. CEX specialise in mainly second hand stuff. The supermarkets will always have the power to offer better deals but most gamers would rather go to a game specialist. Set out your own stall and be unique, but not unique enough to alienate customers.
  • Finally there will be many who would have happily seen GAME go to the wall. The suppliers pulling out before administration was viewed in some quarters as “turnabout being fair play” Mend those bridges and be less like the old GAME.

 

What do I know ? Well not much but I do know we still have a specialist game retailer on the high street who Mum and Dad and Nan can go to on birthdays and Christmas and get the Call of Duty game you wanted rather than the Call of Juarez game you had never heard of.

 

Its happened to us all which is why we need specialist stores around to prevent it from happening

 

Embrace change and take the second chance. From the ashes a phoenix can rise but it is entirely within your own destiny. Screw it up this time and no tears will be shed.

 

NOTE : Since I wrote this article back on 2nd April, it has been well documented on various forums that GAME have not learnt a thing. Game prices for pre-owned items are back up to ludicrous levels, so much so that you can buy brand new copies at other stores for anything up to £10 less than GAME are selling second hand.

 

People are now trading back to GAME all the titles they got in the “spring clean / fire sale” a few weeks ago. Gamers are boasting how they have been able to make £30+ in some cases by trading back to GAME what they previously tried to get rid of.

 

Finally, probably the worst example has been items being put on the shelves with damaged boxes or missing instructions – what would be classed as seconds – and put on sale for quick removal. One store was reported selling these games at higher prices than the pre-owned stock they already had.

 

Perhaps, after all this, they do deserve to go to the wall after all…………..

 

Oh no, not again......