UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders

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Rex Kramer
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PostUK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Rex Kramer » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:36 am

UK high street chain Grainger Games has had it’s supplier credit limits cut and are currently “working tirelessly with our advisers to explore all options and are in dialogue with a number of interested parties regarding the future of the business.”

The company is informing those who have pre-ordered games, including Far Cry 5, that they will not be getting the title. Grainger Games reported losses of £1.3 million last year and investors are said to be worried following the collapse of Toys R Us and Maplins. Grainger have said that these failures have meant that “confidence in UK high street retail has been at an all-time low.”

We have had a tip-off that the company has already stopped trading certain hardware and are preparing to close stores, possibly as early as Monday, although we must stress we have not confirmed these details.

Grainger have 67 stores across the country and employ around 400 staff.


http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2018/03/20/ ... re-orders/

Hope nobody around here is affected.

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Buffalo
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Buffalo » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:39 am

All of the ones I’ve been in have always been a bit skanky, but the prices are great, considering it’s the high street. Would be a shame to see it go.

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Photek
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Photek » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:42 am

Digital games are killing all these stores, thats why they sell T-shirts and game related tat these days. It's just how it's going to go unfortunately.

When I bought my switch in gamestop the guy was practically begging me to buy games for it in store, when I told him I'd be digital only he genuinely looked sad.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Preezy » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:42 am

I've never seen one in the flesh, only ever heard about them on the forum. Another one soon to be biting the dust, it seems.

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KK
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by KK » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:46 am

It'll be sad when videogames have no presence on the high street, but you can tell it's coming. People dumping physical for digital seems to have really sped up in the last year or so, especially with such good offers on the PlayStation store and Microsoft announcing their subscription services. Why on earth would you pay 50 quid in a high street shop to play Sea of Thieves for example when you could get it cheaper online or play it for under a tenner courtesy of MS.

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Tomous
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Tomous » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:58 am

KK wrote:It'll be sad when videogames have no presence on the high street, but you can tell it's coming. People dumping physical for digital seems to have really sped up in the last year or so, especially with such good offers on the PlayStation store and Microsoft announcing their subscription services. Why on earth would you pay 50 quid in a high street shop to play Sea of Thieves for example when you could get it cheaper online or play it for under a tenner courtesy of MS.


Yep, it’s only a matter of time. Digital and online retailers mean there’s just no market for a specific high street shop with more overheards to cover.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Saint of Killers » Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:01 am

:| Looking forward to local GG being replaced with one of charity shop, betting shop, or cafe.

My local GG looks pretty clean from the outside. It's ram packed with gooseberry fool (Funko Pops :dread: and other tat) but clean. The CEX down the road meanwhile...

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KingK
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by KingK » Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:04 am

I never knew they were a physical store. Never seen one and thought it was an online site I'd never visited.

Shame for the staff but surely the writing has been on the wall for years for any physical store? I mainly buy digital but the occasional physical copy i buy only ever comes from Amazon.

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KjGarly
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by KjGarly » Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:06 am

Went in the one in Bootle Strand as I took a fancy to a Mario Rabbid and Luigi Rabbid figure they had displayed in the window, which I thought would be great sitting next to the Peach Rabbid I got off my Secret Santa. Asked if they had contactless when paying with my phone. Didn't work. Whipped out my bank card, contactless didn't work there either so they can strawberry float right off for making me insert the card and enter a 4 digit pin the bastards :x

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Lagamorph » Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:56 am

I went into the branch in Redcar yesterday and good lord, the smell, I couldn't handle it, had to just turn around and leave within 30 seconds. It was worse than any branch of CeX I've ever been into.

Their prices used to be really good in Grainger Games but lately they've been bumping the prices up little by little. They went from being £5-10 cheaper than GAME to being maybe £1-2 cheaper, sometimes even more expensive.
They're also even worse than GAME for giving you gutted new games.


A bunch of the branches have also been re-branded as "Trade Nation" rather than Grainger Games, even though it's still the same company. Suspect they were trying to target the CeX demographic a bit more.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by BAKA » Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:58 am

A shame. I remember when they were just a little market stall in the Grainger market. Traded in a huge amount of PSOne titles there that I now regret doing so, but at the time it was my only way to fund buying new games (I was a kid). My first Castlevania game came from there, Symphony Of The Night.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Lagamorph » Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:59 am

Just seen this post over on ResetEra

My brother-in-law works as a driver for Grainger Games, based at the main warehouse in Longbenton (Just outside Newcastle). They have been told the business is pretty much done, probably as early as the end of March. He (along with the warehouse staff) will be losing their jobs. Apparently the scale of the problems have been pretty well hidden, up till a couple weeks ago at least.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Gemini73 » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:00 pm

Never been in one myself, (they're mainly situated further up North are they not?). With Gringer gone I guess that GAME will be the last of the UK's major high street games retailer then.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Mafro » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:00 pm

Never seen one of these stores in my life. Looked them up out of curiosity and it seems there's no stores in Scotland and they're mostly concentrated in central England so that explains why. Maybe they should have tried branching out a bit more.

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Lagamorph
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Lagamorph » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:01 pm

Mafro wrote:Never seen one of these stores in my life. Looked them up out of curiosity and it seems there's no stores in Scotland and they're mostly concentrated in central England so that explains why. Maybe they should have tried branching out a bit more.

They're mainly in the North East. They started out as a literal market stall in Newcastle and gradually grew from there. I'm sure they wanted to expand faster and further but I'd assume that was an expense they couldn't afford so they were going for a more gradual expansion.

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kerr9000
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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by kerr9000 » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:03 pm

My local is a nice little clean shop, had lots of great deals from there, it will be a shame if they go, especially before game.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by KK » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:15 pm

If only they'd won the MCV Retailer of the Year Award instead of GAME.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Earfolds » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:18 pm

I went to one in Sheffield, it was okay. Always a shame to lose indie game retailers. We've lost some pretty good ones over the years.

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by Trelliz » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:20 pm

Didn't they sponsor and arrange a completely disastrous media event with strippers and midget wrestling or something a few years ago?

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PostRe: UK Retailer Grainger Games In Trouble, Cancelling Pre-Orders
by jawafour » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:26 pm

I've never had a Grainger Games store near where I've lived (London area) but it's still sad to hear of another gaming retailer in trouble. I used to love looking through games in a store but those times have, for me, long gone.

I've pretty much gone digital-only on PS4 and my Switch physical purchases are mainly from ShopTo with the occasional Amazon order. I used to much prefer disc versions of games but, once the manuals went and the discs became - quite often - download keys, I moved to digital versions.

I still kinda begrudge the high launch pricing of games on the digital stores but it turns out that this benefits me rather than the publishers as I've cut right back on getting games at launch. During 2015 and 2016 I was bitten several times but publishers slashing prices mere weeks after I purchased them at launch, so I know it's better to wait now. The "pre-order" bonuses seem to be pretty lousy and season passes vary wildly in quality, so they have become less attractive, too.


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