GAME (as in the shop GAME): Retailer Of The Year 2019

Harry Ellis wrote:Went into GAME on Friday, saw that they were selling BOTW on Switch for £59.99 and left immediately.

I do that with Gamstop here, some of the prices on games are absolute madness.

Smyth's toys are amazing for games. Normally Amazon prices and it's a nice store.

If Game can't make a profit this year they never will. It's the biggest year for gaming in years.

Godzilla wrote:Smyth's toys are amazing for games.

Must vary from store to store. The one here is lame.

Smyth's toys is like Toys R Us but without the soul. :cry:

Smyth’s is fine but I refuse to go there ever since I nearly lost a round of Streetfighter 2 to a three year old.

Smyths is always the best and Curry's are pretty good too.

Lagamorph wrote:
imbusydoctorwho wrote:Went into Game this weekend and said about the store closures and the manager said to me they're just saying it to make the landlords drop the rent, bit of a crappy excuse.

They won't be the first retailer to try this excuse. Mike Ashley normalised it last year and if it works for GAME then I'd fully expect multiple other big retailers to start making the same threat to their landlords.

Is GAME classed as a big retailer though in the grand scheme? I think what will be more interesting is Arcadia.

Walk down a shopping centre and most of their stores are there (burton/top shop..etc) they’ve moved off Oxford street I believe now due to rent. To me if they go under the high streets screwed. That would leave Next by itself?

The government needs to step in with landlords and businesses together. Businesses take heck of a lot of profit, landlords rents I’d agree are too high but I can see why they also don’t want to lose out.

CVAs are becoming the norm and seem to mostly result in companies going bust a year or so later, which is worse for the staff who lose out on pay & their jobs and the creditors/debtors.

With the new wage wise predicted in April some businesses will do something to combat it, be it heavily cutting staff or something else. An extra 50/60p per hour for some stores is going to have a dramatic effect on wage costs. It would be nice for companies to absorb this cost and reward staff with proper wages. But ultimately I think staff will be cut as a result

The biggest shopping centre in the UK (Gateshead's Metro Centre) has loads of empty stores and they have been empty for a long time. They now wallpaper the front of the store to look like fake stores so it's not as depressing.

Not sure who it fools or if it's just to confuse guide dogs.

There GAME store is huge. A large part of it is a gaming area which I think is just Fortnite. They also have a pc section at the front and a window half filled with second hand phones. Despite CEX being around the corner.

Godzilla wrote:The biggest shopping centre in the UK (Gateshead's Metro Centre)

Actually, the largest is now Westfield White City.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... om_by_size

Awesome place.

Godzilla wrote:The biggest shopping centre in the UK (Gateshead's Metro Centre) has loads of empty stores and they have been empty for a long time. They now wallpaper the front of the store to look like fake stores so it's not as depressing.

Not sure who it fools or if it's just to confuse guide dogs.

There GAME store is huge. A large part of it is a gaming area which I think is just Fortnite. They also have a pc section at the front and a window half filled with second hand phones. Despite CEX being around the corner.

The Southend store has a large collection of phones in the window and PC stuff but it's mostly crappy keyboards and headsets.

Just ordered a couple of extension cables for my SNES Mini from the Game website. Say what you like about the high street operation, but being able to get free delivery on just over a fiver's worth of gaming accessories is pretty good. I also used them to get a second Steam Link a couple of years ago for the free delivery as well. If they have the cheap thing you're after it's probably better than Amazon.

GAME has their own awards, as voted for by the general public/customers...

GAME Interface Hubbies: The Game of the Decade Awards

It’s awards season, which means it’s time for GAME Interface’s very own er, totally prestigious video game awards - The Hubbies! If you took part in last year’s, you might be familiar with how this works: a couple of weeks ago, we asked you to nominate games in seven categories. The top five nominations for each category went into a follow-up ‘Finalist’ survey where you voted for the overall winners.

Best Single Player Story / Experience of the Decade

WINNER: THE LAST OF US – 29%

Runner up: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt – 28%

3rd: Red Dead Redemption 2 – 20%

4th: God of War – 12%

5th: Horizon Zero Dawn – 10%

Best Multiplayer Experience of the Decade

WINNER: GTA V – 32%

Runner up: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – 21.4%

3rd: Destiny – 20.7%

4th: Overwatch – 15%

5th: Fortnite – 12%

Best Indie Game of the Decade

WINNER: CUPHEAD – 29%

Runner up: Stardew Valley – 23%

3rd: Untitled Goose Game – 19%

4th: Inside – 14.9%

5th: Undertale – 14.7%

Favourite Video Game Character of the Decade

WINNER: GERALT OF RIVIA (THE WITCHER SERIES) – 30%

Runner up: Nathan Drake (Uncharted series) – 26%

3rd: Mario (too many series to list here!) – 19%

4th: Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2) – 15%

5th: Kratos (God of War series) – 10%

Best Video Game Soundtrack of the Decade

WINNER: GTA V – 27%

Runner up: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 26%

3rd: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt – 18%

4th: The Last of Us – 17%

5th: Red Dead Redemption 2 – 12%

Most Influential Game of the Decade

WINNER: MINECRAFT – 26%

Runner up: GTA V – 22.3%

3rd: The Last of Us – 22.0%

4th: Dark Souls – 19%

5th: Fortnite – 11%

Overall Best Game of the Decade

WINNER: THE LAST OF US – 26%

Runner up: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt – 22%

3rd: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 19%

4th: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 17%

5th: Red Dead Redemption – 16%

SAD NEWS to belatedly report. GAME's run of "MCV Retailer of the Year" came to an end this year. They were finally defeated by young upstart company Amazon (they mostly sell books, so I'm told).

So this is how GAME dies... Losing its award to Amazon.

I’ve noticed (by chance more than seeing any marketing) that Game stores are slowly moving into Sports Direct stores/Frasers.

Walked past Sports Direct in Boro the other day and saw this, & a post (literally a random person not an official Game page) on Facebook about the one in Sunderland doing the same.

The local Sports Direct to me also pulled the usual ‘closing down’ which I’ve not seen for a few years. Except this time they had told the staff they were actually losing their jobs, did a fire sale of stock, had it all cleared to send away what’s left & at the last minute (closing day) decided they’d reopen. strawberry floating despicable if you ask me.

They’d told the local press that the landlord was upping the rent, to which the land lord came out and said that’s crap. The contract had run out, and the land lord offered even less rent and Ashley refused. Naturally Ashley got an even lower deal at the 9th hour.

It's been years since I've seen a branch of GAME, let alone been inside one. I'm amazed they're still going.

I bought a PS4 Pro in game recently, could have likely got it cheaper online but I wanted it there and then. Funnily enough I got the last one they had in stock, to me a high street video games retailer only having one of a particular console in stock is a little worrying.

Reminds me of the dying days of Gamestation where the shelves were filled with stuff which when you took it to the counter was out of stock.

Cumberdanes wrote:I bought a PS4 Pro in game recently, could have likely got it cheaper online but I wanted it there and then. Funnily enough I got the last one they had in stock, to me a high street video games retailer only having one of a particular console in stock is a little worrying.

Reminds me of the dying days of Gamestation where the shelves were filled with stuff which when you took it to the counter was out of stock.

It's probably the outward tide of "old" hardware before the new stuff comes out, why would they get more stock in?

Trelliz wrote:
Cumberdanes wrote:I bought a PS4 Pro in game recently, could have likely got it cheaper online but I wanted it there and then. Funnily enough I got the last one they had in stock, to me a high street video games retailer only having one of a particular console in stock is a little worrying.

Reminds me of the dying days of Gamestation where the shelves were filled with stuff which when you took it to the counter was out of stock.

It's probably the outward tide of "old" hardware before the new stuff comes out, why would they get more stock in?

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. It was more that they had boxes on the shelves advertising items for sale which they didn't have in stock, the box I took to the counter was put straight back on the shelf. Video game stores are they only stores I've ever seen do this, it gives the illusion everything is okay when it perhaps isn't.

Cumberdanes wrote:Good point, I hadn't thought of that. It was more that they had boxes on the shelves advertising items for sale which they didn't have in stock, the box I took to the counter was put straight back on the shelf. Video game stores are they only stores I've ever seen do this, it gives the illusion everything is okay when it perhaps isn't.

Also they never put 'live' boxes of stuff out on the shop floor, someone could run in, grab one and run out again otherwise. I once saw some dodgy prick asking to hold and 'have a look' at the actual console box, despite being told the display ones are exactly the same but empty, and getting all pretend-uppity when they were told they always keep the actual machines out back until sold, clearly trying to grab one to do a runner "are you calling me a FAAAAKKING thief m8?" etc

GAME (as in the shop GAME): Retailer Of The Year 2019

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