A Couple Of Reasons I Hate Shopping At GAME

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 at 11:32 am in Asides · Comments

GAME is pretty much my last resort for game purchases, and today I remembered why. Sneaky tactics like hiding normal editions of games in the stock room, having only special editions — which are considerably more expensive — on display. It didn’t escape me, a regular video game consumer, but the more casual shopper could easily be fooled.

Oh, and the fact that every time I shop there my gender is somehow brought into it. “You would love Skyrim, you can play AS A GIRL!”. Not forgetting the time I queued for Crackdown and was greeted with “This isn’t a very feminine choice”.

I’d much rather throw my cash at the independent dealers, or even GameStation. Yes, I know GameStation was bought by GAME a few years ago, but there seems to be a huge difference in the attitudes of staff. GAME is run by suits. Sneaky, sexist suits.

Ugh.

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5 Responses to “A Couple Of Reasons I Hate Shopping At GAME”

Will

# October 22nd, 2011 at 11:40 am

I think you are just going to the wrong Game stores. My female friend works as the assistant manager at one of the Game stores in the Metro Centre. Therefore I don’t believe Game as a whole is a sexist company, as they wouldn’t consider her for this role otherwise. I have also never encountered the staff hiding regular editions in the stock room, but I’m quite surprised to hear this. Usually when I go in Game I get pestered (which is highly annoying and why I personally don’t shop there) but they tend to offer the cheaper version of the game, or even preowned.

Arnold Sideways

# October 22nd, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Will, you actually highlighted reasons why I hate Game. Although not just Game, the other retailers too. That’s how they push the preowned game down customer’s throats. It might seem they’re doing the customer a favour but their actual motive is because they make much higher profits on preowned games because they don’t pay a single penny of the sale to the developer/publisher. I see it as legalised theft. Go into any Game store and it’s rows and rows of second hand games, and one tiny little shelf with new games on. When you buy a game you’re not paying for the box or the disc, you’re paying for the right to experience someone else’s IP, owned by the publisher or developer, so by selling second hand, Game are making profit on something that’s not theirs. What retailers have effectively done is kill the middle ground in games. Game developers can either make a massive hit/hype like CoD and get rich because of the huge day one sales when second hand aren’t available yet, or they make a game that’s ok, but sells almost nothing, and they go out of business. With an “ok” game, customers would be happy to wait till the price dropped a little like all games do, but by that time Game and the like are already shovelling preowned copies down people’s throats, and so the same copy of the game gets played by several different people. By buying preowned, you might be saving yourself a few quid, but you also contribute to things like the demise of Black Rock Studios or Bizarre, and the shrinking of the games industry as a whole. Retailers are basically biting the hand that feeds them, because if all these studios go out of business there won’t be a triple A market to make the games they make so much money out of, everyone will have given up and gone off to make iPhone games.

Adam

# October 22nd, 2011 at 12:34 pm

GAME is a total ripoff. As much as possible, I order from Amazon as 9 times out of 10, it’s the cheapest.

Rockers Delight

# October 24th, 2011 at 10:44 am

@Will Of course I can only base my feelings towards GAME as a whole on the experiences I’ve had in the handful of their stores I’ve purchased from, and this is how I feel.

dave

# January 3rd, 2012 at 7:09 pm

HMV is the way to go. They a cheaper than Game and you don’t get asked to buy every other rubbish product to go with your game. In failing that Shopto.net is a great site first class on every order and pretty cheap too.

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