UK residents....Opinion on GAME?

Personally the whole issue with GAME going south really doesn't bother me, I never bought anything from there unless it was sold out everywhere else, everything just seemed needlessly more expensive than other shops. Also their used game prices were stupidly high. Whats everyone else's thoughts on this?

I, non-UK resident, agree.

I got Dark Void for £3 there, so that was a good deal, I guess. And it always sucks for people to lose their jobs, even if the dickhead who sold the xbox 360 to my Grandma was a horrible, scamming sod. But there must've been nice people there too, and it's those people who I feel for in this situation.

I shop online for all of my games now, but the GAME and Gamestation shops in Birkenhead seemed pleasant enough. I've never held any disdain for GAME or anything, I just never needed a reason to visit very often.

This isn't the 90's anymore and I'm not looking to buy a Sega Megadrive with Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

If you're not buying online then you're doing it wrong.

I never had any problem with GAME. Their service was fine. Staff were friendly. Prices were reasonable (not super cheap, but reasonable). They were always miles better than the only other reasonably large chain of game stores in the country, Grainger Games. I've been in Grainger Games when there was a long queue for the till, and two staff members were stood behind the counter playing Guitar Hero on the big screen TV they've got there. And when I bought Rock Band from them they made me sign something agreeing not to bring it back to the store if it was defective. Whereas I've never had any bad experiences like that with GAME. They always seem fine.

Plus, look at the impact this will have on the entire industry. You can hate GAME as much as you like, but no dedicated national chain of game stores will have a big impact on sales. The people who just walk into a store to buy games will only be able to get the big releases from places like the supermarkets. It'll make the smaller releases even more niche than they already are, with people forced to take to the internet to buy them - which many people aren't going to do.

I like GAME, it's nice having a store dedicated to video games. I haven't had any problems with their service... having said that I won't miss the stores closing down considering I have about 30 other options to buy games from.

I got quite a few cheap pre-owned games from my local store. Their online store was actually really good for new releases free postage and arrived on release date, I've had amazon fail to get it to me on release date even after paying extra for postage.
 
Staff seemed mostly friendly, only got hounded to preorder once but that one guy was pretty bad about it. 

The problem was the prices they had for some of their games, they were selling Xenoblade Chronicles for £50 when it first came out over here and was rare. I don't think they shifted any of those copies. I could even get Catherine cheaper on the PSN than in their store.

I've never really liked GAME. I just buy games from Amazon/Shopto or supermarkets. However the staff was generally fine and the stores themselves alright but I always felt they catered towards the COD crowd. GAME normaly priced games pretty expensively, also online stores/supermarkets are much more convenient (at least where I live since the nearest GAME/HMV is 20 minutes away) and that I just don't buy pre-owned games anymore killed off any interest I had in going to game.
 
I always prefered gamestation but they became shitty after GAME bought them.

I hav'nt bought anything from GAME in about 6 years, so I'm not too bothered if it disappears.
(obviously it sucks that people have to lose their job)

They got what they deserved after the shit they pulled with THQ and Bethesda.

I'm Spanish and we have GAME here too. The company is shit, the staff is pretty hit-and-miss. I've met nice guys, I've met total scumbags. GAME is going down? Good riddance.

I hadn't had any issues with GAME until last year, and even then that was with one particular store.

I went to the tills with my purchases in a store, in which the only people in the front were me, the till monkey and another customer. The other customer and the till monkey were not interacting at this point. So I go up to pay and the monkey IMMEDIATELY makes a beeline for the other customer asking the general questions you would expect. I patiently wait the two or so minutes I assume this will take him then say politely "excuse me?" He then blows right past me into the back and disappears. I wait another couple of minutes then just leave. One of the absolute worst customer service experiences I've ever had, so I'm not sad to see that fucker out of a job. Everyone else there I feel for, but not him.

Sucks that people lost their jobs, but I didn't like the way they conducted business. Prices are way too high, sold an unecessary warranty to my dad which is now worthless a bad layout.

@Tylea002 said:

I got Dark Void for £3 there, so that was a good deal, I guess.

I got Dark Void for 75p on Shopto.

Irish resident here.... No its not the same as the UK

Anyway i havent bought anything from them in years, for a long time now their prices compared to Gamestop and HMV have always been at least 5-10 euro more expensive. They also just were never bothered introducing a proper online store for Ireland. If i wanted to buy a game from their site i had to do it through the UK site with no choice to change the price into euros and since their delivery address form did not accept an irish address properly you were always left wondering if you would ever get your game not too mention when you would get it since everything was shipped directly from the UK. Gamestop however have a dedicated irish online site which negates all of the problems mentioned above AND an irish depot where all the games are shipped from

It kinda sucks I don't have a trade-in option anymore if I feel like it but I hardly did that anyway. I get almost all of my games off Amazon.

Last time I was in Game, my dad bought me the original Command and Conquer lol. So I like them for that reason alone.

Really don't care and GAME or Gamestation never really stocked many niche games in my experience so I see no real loss here.

Glad GAME is dead, bye bye :)

I haven't bought anything from them in a long time, but it isn't nice to see 2100 people lose their jobs.

Whilst I was no fan of what they or gamestation have become with their single shelf of new releases and constant up selling I will miss having the option to pick stuff up on a whim. I do think those reveling in their demise are being a little short sighted. With them gone I have one less option to choose when I want a game, that can't be good. Less competition can only hurt the consumer in the long run.

Always buy my games off the internet anyway.

Agreed with those talking about only buying online in recent years. That said, Game online was always an acceptable (better than acceptable) experience for brand new games in my opinion. Standard price that was only rarely undercut by other online retailers. Yes I am aware Amazon is usually a couple of quid cheaper, but by the time you add in paying for First Class as they demand for guaranteed day one delivery, as well as the Game reward points that were pretty good all things considered (as an aside, I ended up with around £70 of them by the time they didn't stock ME3, which I got rid of pretty sharpish at that point) then there is little to no difference (and any difference is arguably in Game's favour).

To be honest that is probably one of the biggest issues of "What the hell am I going to do now" things with all of this. Game online was my number one stop for most brand new games, and they generally arrived a day early as they would send them out a couple of days before release to guarantee day one delivery on standard post. Anyone consistently using Amazon for pre-orders know how good their turnaround on that stuff usually is? I usually wait for the GB review and then slam in a pre-order (one advantage of the Tuesday Friday release difference) to see if I can snag the incentives without the risks (which with Game I usually could, and still receive it that day early).

As much as I agree with all the hate that Game stores in general get. Here in Norwich there were two Games and a Gamestation that I was aware of. The smaller Game side-stepped the majority of the issues a lot of Game's have purely by having less staff to bother me, which at this point in physical retail is all I want, to get in and get out with the least hassle. That said, it has been a long time since I could consistently trust in their back catalogue, as well as seeing any competitive pricing on that back catologue (hell, I might even have to stretch my mind back to their Electronics Boutique days to fully remember when they seemed to stock EVERYTHING).

Edit: Just as a quick note, it was of course the large Game that survived, which although expected is still a shame. I don't need someone hanging around trying to sell me a 3DS every time I just want to check their prices. At least the single Game in my hometown survived though...I guess.

...Well, I'm rambling. Summary: Will miss online, might miss retail kinda sort of.

@let1down - only a couple of years ago there were 2 more game stores in Norwich, one in Borders and one hidden behind the kids clothes in Debenhams. So in a relativly small city centre there were 5 shops owned by the same company all selling the same product. Does make you wonder what was going on at board level. Also *East Anglian fist bump!*

I really liked Gamestation until half way through last year when they became Game2, i know a lot of people who have worked for Game (my circle of friends are all gamers) and i have been told so many horrible and unethical practices that happen in there on a daily basis, i wont shed a single tear for the company or the management but the normal workers i feel bad for. They killed Gamestation forcing them to do the same horrible practices and fixing their prices to match their own. On the other hand though, they did get all the best pre-order bonuses and it was handy having a dedicated retailer i could buy games from on a whim when i was out in the town on a Friday night.

That said, they had 6 freakin stores in Glasgow...6! All within walking distance of each other, its no wonder they ended up going down in the end, 2 stores per City would have made more sense...

@Zooey74: I guess the fact they shrank from five to three is at least something. I can understand the Gamestation being there prior to the acquisition/merger I can't remember which (although those two are really hilariously close together), it was the one on St. Stephens that confused me. They must have made sense at some point when Game was running high. My assumption (and this is indeed just an assumption) is that, at least towards the end (and we've obviously been hearing about mounting debt at Game since way into last year), the Game Group couldn't afford the redundancies that would have come with widespread closures unless they had the protection of Administration.

Edit: Oh, and *returns fist bump*. My forgetfulness should in no way be taken as me leaving you hanging.

I buy most of my games online these days, but I like browsing round a physical store now and again. I've also grabbed some nice 2 for £10 (or something similar) deals over the years. My nearest Gamestation (Bangor, North Wales) is still open...for now...