UK Retailer GAME Won't Be Stocking Mass Effect 3, Other Upcoming EA Products

Managed to cement my collectors edition this morning from ShopTo.

Looks like the Xbox 360 and PC versions of it are pretty much sold out on all fronts at this point.

"EA Sports... it's not in the GAME."

Yeah, that was bad.

@DStason said:

That has to be the most generic store name I've heard heard of. GAME? Really?

It used to be called Electronic Boutique, I'll let you decide which is better.

& I am severely pissed about this news, I really wanted the N7 edition having missed out on prior CE's. I doubt i'll be able to get it from other stores either since it's pretty close to release and chances are they'll all be sold out..

Sad to see that happen. I guess the big box stores are all stocking ME3 for people in the UK. Sucks to see niche stores have trouble like this. I know Gamestop gets a bad rap, but I go in there from time to time just to browse. Much better than going to BB or Walmart to browse. Gamestop usually has some hard-to-find games in the used section.

@BaconBuTTy said:

Anyone ever shop at CEX?

Do you find their stores to be stinking rat pits, staffed by seemingly un-managed children too?

Yes and yes!

I'll be sad to see Game go. I get 90% of my purchases there and apart from the odd game which comes out between £40- £45 I find most are at the usual £39.99, I've always found HMV to be more expensive. The staff are all pretty cool in my local one too, I'll usually have a chat with them about the latest releases and they talk to me as a fellow gamer and not a sales person.

Im always using there trade in too, I trade most games in within a few weeks of buying so that the value is still high and then have the credit put on a gift card so I can use it for the next release I actually want rather than having to get something then and there (or within 1 month at CEX). So really I rarely spend over 15 or 20 quid on a game this way and I like that!

Im too impatient to order online, if I want game, I want game NOW!

Good thing i'm using my current £40 credit on SSX on Friday! Was worried they might not be stocking this when I saw the headline but i'm guessing they are probably sitting in stores already.

@Krokodile said:

Pleeeeease let this happen to Gamestop.

yeah people losing their jobs is awesome!

Maybe EA just wants them to get a better name.

Oh no, I guess now I have to buy all my games online for way less money, and put up with them showing up at my house before their official release dates. OH WAIT, I ALREADY DO.

That has to be the most generic store name I've heard heard of. GAME? Really?

I had a good sum of store credit for Game but thankfully I spent it all on UFC 3

I never forgot when GAME screwed me over after buying a faulty ds lite, haven't bought anything there since.

The future of gaming is online and called "Pay 2 play"

In 20yrs time owning things like games,movies & music will be History.

I don't live in UK but I am glad That I just get all my games from Amazon and Steam.

ho boy, sounds like the beggining of the end

This could also be related to Origin. GAME tried to throw their weight around and get games delayed on Steam so people couldn't buy it there before they could in store in the UK. If they tried the same with EA, EA may of them to get bent.

Anyone ever shop at CEX?

Do you find their stores to be stinking rat pits, staffed by seemingly un-managed children too?

Game are the middle man

They sell new games for £45-£50 and pre owned game for £35ish depending.They are expensive, online retailers sell for around £32.99-£37.99

The sooner developers start seeing cash for their hard work the better and with the pre ownder business being as huge as it is thats not going to happen.

So the less people like Game, the better.

The gaming industry will end up like the music industry unless we put our hands in our tight pockets and help people.

I work for Game's sister company, Gamestation.

This isn't the greatest news to hear today.

Pleeeeease let this happen to Gamestop.

@bonorbitz: As I understand it, GameStop has less direct competition - here in the UK, Game (and its sister companies) are squeezed by HMV, a very competitive supermarket sector who are all prepared to sell big new releases as loss leaders, and a healthy online sector, with all of the above involved as well as Amazon and a few smaller online companies. I get the impression that due to the sheer size of the US, it's a little more difficult for online retailers to compete with large retail chains like GameStop on a national level - you need to have warehouses and depots all over the country, which takes a lot of investment, while the UK is a small, densely urbanised country, which is roughly the size of a single state.

We have several smaller online retailers (such as Shopto) who provide an excellent service, at much cheaper prices than bricks and mortar or Amazon. As a result, they don't have quite the same stranglehold over stuff like pre-orders as GameStop seem to have, since Amazon and Shopto at least will get new releases to you on or before release date. All of this has lead to an extremely competitive market here, compared to other countries - it's not unusual to see big new releases dropped to half price within a few weeks of release - if not on release day itself. One memorable example: supermarkets could afford to sell MW2 on day of release for £25 ($40), rather than the £40-45 (c. $65) Game sell new games for. Anything which has flopped will often be cut by massive margins within a week or so. Meanwhile. Game are charging $60 for pre-owned...

Game also has traditionally made big play of trade-ins and preowned, to the extent that their shops are now unpleasant places full of old copies of old Fifa games, rather than anything new. The problem there is that everybody else does that too, and gives much better trade-in value. Seriously, Amazon do it, even our equivalents of Safeway or Walmart do game trade-ins now.

Ultimately, they're a terribly run company.

Also, Game's business model and general management practices are near-identical to GameStop's. Back in the 90s Game were taken over by Electronics Boutique, who rebranded themselves as Game... UK EB had previously been spun off from the US arm which is now... part of GameStop.

@Zatoichi_Sanjuro said:

You mean the tactic to base multiple GAME stores five minutes walk from one, with both stores stocking the exact same over-priced, second-hand games didn't pan out?! Specialist game store-my-fucking-ass. I've seen better game selections in HMV. I've seen more variety, including older system titles, in CEX stores. They deserve to go out of business. Someone else will fill the vacuum, and do it better, because they couldn't possibly do it any worse.

Can't put it better. Badly managed, awful company who had to bully/buy their way for their majority market share can't keep a foothold when better companies arrive, then goes down the pan. News at 11.

This will just lead to a branding change in the UK. EB own GAME, GAME bought over Gamestation a few years ago now. The prices are the same in each store but the type of environment is different, Gamestation looks well run but no dudes in suits.

I used to work a GAME the discount was the only good thing.

Ah, shiiiiiiit! There goes my Mass Effect 3 CE pre-order =( But:

@Zatoichi_Sanjuro said:

You mean the tactic to base multiple GAME stores five minutes walk from one, with both stores stocking the exact same over-priced, second-hand games didn't pan out?! Specialist game store-my-fucking-ass. I've seen better game selections in HMV. I've seen more variety, including older system titles, in CEX stores. They deserve to go out of business. Someone else will fill the vacuum, and do it better, because they couldn't possibly do it any worse.

Your absolutely 100% right.

You mean the tactic to base multiple GAME stores five minutes walk from one, with both stores stocking the exact same over-priced, second-hand games didn't pan out?!
 
Specialist game store-my-fucking-ass. I've seen better game selections in HMV. I've seen more variety, including older system titles, in CEX stores.
 
They deserve to go out of business. Someone else will fill the vacuum, and do it better, because they couldn't possibly do it any worse.

This doesn't surprise me at all. Over Xmas I bought Skyrim, Uncharted 3 & Saints Row 3 from the high street. All three were around £38 in HMV and £43 in Game. If you can't compete on price with your only brick and mortar competitor then you are going to struggle. It's more of a shame about Gamestation as that is the number one high street resource for used game sales and can have some pretty good 2 for £20 offers.

So when does Gamestation die too, since they are the same company?

Sucks that people will lose their jobs, but I won't miss Game in the slightest. Whenever they talk about bad GameStop experiences on the Bombcast it always sounds like they're describing Game to me, so that should give non-Brits a good idea of what the chain is like.

This sucks for the people who rely on their jobs but as a company they totally had it coming. Constant staff harrasment and upselling, overpricing on pre-owned and classic titles and terrible selection in pretty much every branch I've ever been in. Staff knowledge was very sporadic too. For every guy who had a legitimate interest and knowledge of video games, there are usually a couple of retail bots who don'tknow what to say if you asked him about something other than CoD, FIFA or strategy guides.

I recommend UK gamers to preorder their copy in ShopTo. They're cheaper and guarantee day of release delivery with £5 of credit if they don't.

I have no sympathy for GAME, they regularly charge an extra 10% on price than that of competitors. That's the way of business, don't provide a good service, don't expect to last long. It is sad that some people could eventually lose their jobs, but this could have been avoided.

what about used copies of games? do they sell them? because i heard gamestop and other stores make most of their money selling used copies rather then new ones

God fucking damn it!!!!!

most profit in the games industry for retailers tends to be in the add on hardware and possibly in the guides range. Games themselves don't turn a heavy profit individually though the amount of sales you could expect from a major title like Mass Effect could make it worth it. Kudos to GAME for holding to their statement and plan but I hope it works out for them somehow. Usually when a retailer stops carrying a few major products most people are going to go elsewhere and stay elsewhere.

Look. I'm not a massive Game fan. I mostly buy my stuff on amazon. But seriously... Anyone who thinks there will be a brick and mortar "Games" shop in 10 years time is nuts. This is just the beginning of the end. With the popularity of digital downloads and the major consoles pushing full game downloads on their systems (well maybe not so thus gen) but next gen I'm sure the consoles will be. Also used games suck! The makers of those games never see a dime and so allowing company's like this to make profit on the same item many times over.

@sofacitysweetheart: seriously. Fuck EA, they suck now.

As Mass Effect to me is the most important thing to happen to entertainment since Blade Runner, it sickens me a think a company that incorporates the title GAME in it's business model is letting the interactive equivalent to 'Gone with the Wind' slip under it's belt. Yes I wear rose coloured specs when it comes to my Shepard, LOL.

@SockLobster: I'm seeing it more as people losing jobs in the end. Granted yes the used games market is a disaster but even publishers are finding ways around that with things like the EA pass.

Wow! Sorry UK Mass Effect fans! :(

@dekkadekkadekka said:

Does anyone else hear Alex's voice when they read his articles?

Im so glad its not just me.

Well, I certainly feel like I've stolen someone's Collector's Edition pre-order now. Those things were effing sold out and I had to pay a lot of money to buy it from an ebay seller from Canada. I couldn't find it anywhere here in Europe, for the 360. I was surprised that not even amazon.uk had it. But now they do, and I immediately pre-ordered one and cancelled my overpriced ebay copy. I'm sure they'll be out of stock again soon enough, and some people who were supposed to get it from GAME might not get it at all anymore (for the 360 anyway).

It's a hard life.

@Terranova said:

@bonorbitz: they charge higher prices than any where else , give next to nothing to you for trade in's yet sell them on at near full price , i saw a pre-owned copy of darkness II in a Game store for £35 full retail is that much in some places, people have just wised up and are going else where and such profits etc have dropped a fair amount and they can no longer afford to pay to stock everything, it wont be long until they are gone or someone buys them out, rumor is Gamestop is interested in them.

Boy, that sounds a lot like Gamestop here in the US. I guess the only difference between Gamestop shoppers and GAME shoppers is like you said: GAME shoppers wised up, huh? So what I want to know is what's with Gamestop's customers?

Thank fuck for that, my order of SSX is unaffected, hopefully this means no more shitty preorder bonuses that force me to order from them. Shopto.net and amazon are all that you need, zavvi has good deals too.

@BakingPanda said:

Its sad to see these brick and mortar stores slowly failing. On the flip side maybe this will be the start of the digital era in gaming.

I don't see how this is sad at all, it seems EA has won the war on used sales as far as they're concerned. Game has always been a cess pool for retarded parents to buy overpriced games for their whiny kids, gamestation was decent before it was bought, and now HMV are the sole survivors.

If they are anything like Australia's Game, I say good riddance, they, along with EB games routinely charge up to $40AUD more than places like JB.

hmmm. I know they overcharge and push 2nd hand waaaay too hard but I still loved the concept of a student discount and loyalty points system. Something nice about browsing physical boxed copies of games in a dedicated games store as well. Since GAME/Electronics Boutique killed off most independent games shops I cant have too much pity for them as a corporation.

If they are anything like Australia's Game, I say good riddance, they, along with EB games routinely charge up to $40AUD more than places like JB.

You know, Amazon is pretty good.

@bonorbitz: they charge higher prices than any where else , give next to nothing to you for trade in's yet sell them on at near full price , i saw a pre-owned copy of darkness II in a Game store for £35 full retail is that much in some places, people have just wised up and are going else where and such profits etc have dropped a fair amount and they can no longer afford to pay to stock everything, it wont be long until they are gone or someone buys them out, rumor is Gamestop is interested in them.

Not stocking EA games?

Wait... what's the bad news?

As one who is unfamiliar with GAME's woes, could someone fill me in as to how they got into this predicament in the first place?