High street game shops coming to an end?

[AmigaNG]

So today in England I heard the slightly sad but not to surprising news that the biggest Gaming high street business, Game and GameStation in the UK may go into administration, I kind of knew it would come with Supermarket stores under cutting the price, online retails under cutting the price and downloadable games stores coming online but its kind of sad that when I go into town their be very few shops left of this kind on the high street. I still like and prefer getting physical copies of my games, maybe i'm showing my age, plus I like looking around the store, online just not the same thing.

I do miss the days I could buy Amiga games on the high street, I remember in 96 and 97 picking up loads of bargains when they where clearing all their Amiga stock.

So what do guys think the future of these gaming and software specialist stores will be? Are you sad to see them go?

[Lando]

I too have fond memories of going into Game to buy Amiga games with my pocket money, but I can't truthfully say I'll miss them.  I haven't bought anything on physical media (music, games or movies) in at least 5 years, everything is downloaded, and actually having a disc now just seems so inconvenient and retro to me now.  I think the Game group just outlived their usefulness and failed to move with the times by not morphing into an online business like Steam.

[VuData]

I miss the days in the late 80's going to my local games shop and spending hours looking over the walls full of games deciding which (usually budget) game to buy this week. I wonder if anybody has any copies of the videos that used to be running advertising the latest games.  

I think the writing has been on the wall for a while even without supermarkets undercutting the games stores. Downloads are going to be the main method of distribution and Game/Gamestation (and HMV) really can't compete.

[nasty]

Can't say I'll miss them much myself, I used to always go into gamestation and buy a fair few pre-owned xbox360 games. But then with Game buying them over they decided to jack up the prices of the pre-owned games and i stopped going in and started using other sources for them.

@VuData

I'm with you there, I used to love going into my old computer shop with my pocket money and spending hours trying to pick a cassette case from the wall. And looking at all the new games for computers and consoles you did'nt have

[darkage]

Wow I thought everyone just purchased 200 floppies and go to Computer Swap meets for their game fulfillment like alot of others in the day..  those are my memories  Up until 4am on school nights playing the new games..

[swoslover]

I can't say I will miss Game.  It has always been a bit bland and overly corporate to me.

To be honest I have never forgiven them for replacing Electronics Boutique, a favourite of my childhood

Gamestation I have always loved.  When the first one opened in Edinburgh it had masses of retro games and until I moved away around 6 months ago they still had a selection (the section had diminished considerably since the game takeover) and  it was possible to get some interesting stuff - I bought a PC-Engine there once.  Also, as a result of their lack of market knowledge and generalised pricing it was possible to pick up some real bargains, although this did begin to tighten up.

The news isn't surpirsing as the others have said the times they are a changing and these companies never really managed to stay in the game.

It's a shame for the staff though who are the ones that will suffer the most.

[Darth_X]

By the way, are there any high street shops that are privately owned (ie not part of a chain or franchise) and still sell Amiga stuff?

[chris]

I can't say I will miss Game.  It has always been a bit bland and overly corporate to me.

To be honest I have never forgiven them for replacing Electronics Boutique, a favourite of my childhood

Actually EB took over Game, not the other way around.  They rebranded themselves as Game in the process.

I used to like EB because it was cheap (something that hasn't continued), but Game was generally a much better shop, and had a bit of character.  You'd walk in and there would be loud music blaring out.  The Amiga section would be an entire wall of full price titles, then you'd look behind and find the smaller boxes of budget re-releases and accessories.  In the middle of the shop, there would be an A1200 on a table with Sensible Soccer or something running.  One year there was a Sensible Soccer tournament, an old friend of mine got through to the semi-finals and was a minor celebrity in the local Game for weeks afterwards!  There's nothing like that anymore, Game is just overpriced and (as you say) bland.  There's no reason to go in, other than to look at game boxes to then buy off Amazon later.

I'm hoping that somebody buys them, and makes them back into a decent shop like they were in the early 90s.  Pricing games much closer to online prices would be a big step forward for starters.

[jj]

What is defo going to spell then end of high street stores and also some online models is the move towards the big game producers to stop games being sold on.
 
A lot of them now come with a code you can only use once.  If you sell the game on you either cant play online or you have to ask for new code and pay some money.
 
Now i know this been the way with PC games for long time, but this will kill the second hand market on the consoles and this is where Game, gamestation and a few smaller outlets make their money

[jj]

I can't say I will miss Game. It has always been a bit bland and overly corporate to me.
 
To be honest I have never forgiven them for replacing Electronics Boutique, a favourite of my childhood
 
Gamestation I have always loved. When the first one opened in Edinburgh it had masses of retro games and until I moved away around 6 months ago they still had a selection (the section had diminished considerably since the game takeover) and it was possible to get some interesting stuff - I bought a PC-Engine there once. Also, as a result of their lack of market knowledge and generalised pricing it was possible to pick up some real bargains, although this did begin to tighten up.
 
The news isn't surpirsing as the others have said the times they are a changing and these companies never really managed to stay in the game.
 
It's a shame for the staff though who are the ones that will suffer the most.

Gamestation is owned by game.  part of the problem is that Game paid well over the odds for gamestation

[jj]

I too have fond memories of going into Game to buy Amiga games with my pocket money, but I can't truthfully say I'll miss them. I haven't bought anything on physical media (music, games or movies) in at least 5 years, everything is downloaded, and actually having a disc now just seems so inconvenient and retro to me now. I think the Game group just outlived their usefulness and failed to move with the times by not morphing into an online business like Steam.

I buy a lot of didigital media on my 3ds, xbox, psp, kindle , itunes, steam
 
what annoys me though is I can not somehow make these not work and sell the copy on, or leave my digital media to anyone in a will

[Digiman]

See the thing is, people in the future will look back and say the day physical game sales stopped was the point in time when retro stopped.

Reason I don't waste my money on FILES via the net is

1. You can get that for free
2. I pay for the packaging/artwork.
3. It has re-sale value.

[save2600]

By "high street shops", are you talking about the smaller, independent stores that employed savvy, friendly people, whose prices may (*but not always) have been a little higher, but you didn't mind because you used to understand this thing called value?

It doesn't bug me in the least that crappy software stores such as GameStop would go out of business, but it's the same old worthless story repeating itself time and time again:

Small shop that everyone loves expands, opens a few more stores and gets bought up by a larger company who then kills off all the smaller company values and integrity. Large company, by the time it did everything it could to ruin the smaller business model ends up getting absorbed by an even larger company. By this time, all the stores look the same. Robots who do nothing more than earn a mediocre "living" as glorified clerks, robopathically executing their illogical and petty national corporate initiatives, become even further despondent as they eventually end up going out of business themselves because they forgot what customer service is all about and failed to recognize that not every market it is the same as one say, 2000 miles away.

Look at all the superior smaller stores that gave way to larger ones throughout the decades. Now tell me things are better out there in retail today. Somehow (it's no secret really - look at the average consumers spending habits) we've ended up with less choice. Less competition. Less innovation. And ****tier products. That includes the nonsense many software developers/companies are pulling today that basically forces the consumer into being a paying beta testing guinea pig. Yes, I like physical media. I also like knowing when I bought something (especially when it was on cartridge), enough time and care went into it back in the day to know it was the final version. It worked out of box and you didn't have to wait for a revision or other bugs to be worked out AFTER you paid for it. I have no interest in modern gaming today for all of these reasons and more. The few things I've paid and downloaded onto my phone or pad, I've played for less than a few minutes and would have totally forgotten about, if it wasn't for the constant "updates" incessantly bugging me on said devices through the damn app store.  lol

[runequester]

What is defo going to spell then end of high street stores and also some online models is the move towards the big game producers to stop games being sold on.
 
A lot of them now come with a code you can only use once.  If you sell the game on you either cant play online or you have to ask for new code and pay some money.
 
Now i know this been the way with PC games for long time, but this will kill the second hand market on the consoles and this is where Game, gamestation and a few smaller outlets make their money

Correct. From the developers perspective there's no difference whether you buy it used or pirate it.

"Software as rental, not as property" is coming to the consoles very rapidly.

[bloodline]

As a developer I am very happy with the new download model. It basically cut piracy off in a single swoop, the downside is tht you sell your software for less, but you do make
More sales.

As a software user, I'm happy to not have to worry about losing my disks, or having a massive box to put somewhere... But I'm am at the mercy of the distribution platform... Steam and iTunes for me.

As a child I remember rushing to HMV to buy the latest Album by my favourite band and the whole ritual around experiencing new music, and as such I lament the loss of the "album", iTunes has killed the last vestige of music as an artform... It's nothing more than an entertainment commodity now.

I'm not sure how this new model will affect games, but be sure it have an effect :-/