This morning’s news of GAME’s troubles with EA, whilst terrible news, come as something of a non-surprise in light of the retail giant’s recent financial troubles. The company’s shares on the London Stock Exchange have plummeted over the past 12 months — but what has brought this on, and what has sent people elsewhere in the first place?
Without a doubt, Mass Effect 3 and such aside, GAME and its umbrella businesses Gamestation and online store Gameplay have been in trouble for quite some time. GAME’s sales at Christmas were down 17.6% on 2010 and a massive loss of £18m was reported last year, even after selling off international stores and cutting jobs from their head office. GAME even closed 19 stores at the start of last year. The company is closing 35 very soon, hoping to close yet another 25 by the end of 2013 — and online business Gameplay will shut down tomorrow. The decimation is barbaric but essential.
Unfortunately, this enterprising massacre hasn’t been enough, and with the Ubisoft and EA news, things are beginning to look grim — and lack of digital sales could be to blame. As of November 2011, GAME’s digital sales — PSN and XBL titles — made up less than 10% of overall sales. Supermarkets and sites like Amazon and Play.com are pushing games more and more, undercutting GAME and Gamestation, who still charge full whack for each and every game they sell and refuse to budge from this sort of tactic. PC game stocks are dropping, save for droves of budget titles, the group having apparently conceded victory to Steam.
As an occasional GAME visitor, I can’t say I’ve been a fan of their overly aggressive sales tactics — and these are probably, along with cost, sending people running to the supermarkets. A couple of years ago I was casually interviewed by a GAME manager at a local store after I enquired about a job. Aggressive selling is naturally a part of any retail job, but the manager went as far as to suggest that zero gaming knowledge was necessary in order to work in a store selling games. Shouldn’t it really be part of the plan?
This interview descended into farce as I was told to ring off the five “Ws” (what, where, who, why, when) and turn every point of an Xbox 360’s design into a reason to flog GAMEcare insurance along with GAMEware controllers, headsets, memory card units, charging kits, game guides and bundle software. I left convinced I’d never want to work there if given the choice, and I now work part-time in a retail job where the selling atmosphere is much calmer, less pushy and ultimately favouring of the consumer.
I have friends who do work in GAME and enjoy it, but perhaps I’m missing that personality trait which allows me to endlessly hawk insurance at people ultimately not interested unless I scare them into buying it like a living, breathing copy of the Daily Mail. But the aggressive sales style has its victims — earlier today I was told of one GAME store that faced closure unless “a ridiculous amount” of PS Vitas were sold within the next month.
The store in which I was given an impromptu once-over is, at the time of writing, one of three GAMEs and two Gamestations which currently operate in a square-mile area of Glasgow. Until recently there were two more GAME stores, which beggars the question: How many is too many? Two of the GAME stores alone operate within the same shopping centre. It’s overwhelming.
The reasons for GAME’s decline — but not, it should be noted, ultimate extinction yet — are probably a combination of these factors, plus a general feeling that the business has been warped and diluted by its own push for that extra penny or two in each customer sale. Who comes into a games store to buy plushies, trading cards and other kitsch gear? Save that for Forbidden Planet. As it is, GAME is in a lot of trouble. They aren’t done yet, but should they avoid inquisitive introspection their situation will probably grow more dire with each passing week and each breaking news story of another publisher declining new credit arrangements with the troubled group.
cobberwebbTS
Time to spend the £13 I have saved as XP points on my Gamestation card AND the £5 online voucher I received when Gamestation cancelled my Mass Effect 3 Collectors Edition pre-order. Luckily Amazon still had them. Shame cause I liked Gamestation before now.
FawnDoo
I’m no great fan of GAME but that said, I don’t relish the idea of a massive company being in trouble and take no pleasure at all in the thought that hundreds of people are probably worrying about their jobs right now.
The atmosphere in the shops isn’t great – there is a lot of sell-sell-sell pressure there. My own experience with a bad member of staff has stopped me going there at all, if I am honest: I can just as easily pick up the latest games news on the web and shop at leisure sitting at home. The only thing that real honest-to-god high street shops have over online retailing is the customer service element. Lose that, and I think shops lose the only advantage they have over online models.
Cameron
I am a avid Gamestation shopper, namely because the shopping experience is great at my branch. So, I am really conserned about this because I hate shopping anywhere else. The Supermarkets don’t really offer anything other then the big, new titles. And online just doesn’t feel right to me. So I hope someone wants to buy the parts of it though, as I think that as a large company, GAME will not servive, but there are parts that would be really profitable.
thixty
what will happen is they will go into administration to offload a ton staff and stores that dont have alot of traffic in them probably keeping stores within stores like your excellent Hamleys store you work in (totally not stalking you promise) and we will start to see titles coming back to the brand they may also sell off gamestation but i doubt they will totally disappear Game is too well known a brand to just die off … and i agree with the Glasgow stores they are like Subways you could throw a stone in any direction and hit one!
Ross
I worked in a GAME store until just two weeks ago, where they failed my probation, due to a mistake I made for a cash trade in, I feel like I’ve been harshly treated due to the store losing hours and sales. PS Vita was pushed immensely hard, and our focus everything we go in is to “attach” a sale onto another. Each store fights hard in fear of closure, and staff are pushed into pushing the customers. In the store I worked in, staff lost hours if they didn’t get a deposit on the Vita. It seems like if this company wasn’t in turmoil, I wouldn’t hae lost my job.
Indiana
I was a Christmas temp for GAME and it’s stupidly aggressive then. The targets were okay, because it was Christmas and people were buying consoles and I was smiley and friendly enough that I didn’t scare them off when trying to sell GAMEcare. However, in january, the targets weren’t changed to fit shopper’s budgets. They remained the same. I was the only Christmas temp kept on out of 10, so i was pretty confident at this time.
They’re done in percentages, so this might seem slightly easier, but when you work 4 hours on a Sunday when it’s been snowing and no one wants to be on the high street, and you only serve one ot two customers, you’re most likely not going to sell consoles or headsets or xbox live points because well, it is just after Christmas and most people DO get their gaming equipment FOR Christmas. I eventually quit near the middle of March because I was so stressed about hitting targets all the time. Seriously, I was worrying more about 4-8 hours a week than I was about Uni work. It ate away at me for ages after and before work.
GAME really need to realise that customers don’t want everything shoved in their face at once.
Aidan
I worked in a game store last xmas, had a great time, people complaining that they were pushed into selling extra items, welcome to retail, I really don’t see why people complain about doing the job they chose, if Game do close down it will be a real shame because in Game or Gamestation you get people who know what they are talking about!!!