Being a fan and consumer of video games in the UK has been getting increasingly difficult over the last decade or so. It used to be simple; go buy the game you wanted from Game Station or GAME (which I only learned recently that GAME owned Game Station but still). Of course other retailers and the larger supermarkets had an entertainment section, but for shops dedicated to gaming, those were your best options. Then sometime in the mid-2000s, Game Station shut down and we were left with GAME until Cex came along. But, as a store, Cex is akin to a "Jack of all trades" when it comes to entertainment products. Around the early 2010s, a new competitor to GAME showed up called Grainger Games with new and pre-owned games at reasonable prices and a good amount given when you wanted to trade in. For the largest part of buying my games I'd instinctively go to Grainger Games, until March 2018 when all their stores were closed seemingly out of nowhere. Fast forward to 2019 and your options for gaming dedicated stores are down to independent stores found on nearly every high street or GAME, but even that is on thin ice.
It wouldn't be an understatement to say that digital games have been on the rise since the 7th generation (PS3 and Xbox 360) and have only gone up since some games don't even see a physical release. I myself can attest to the fact that a large portion of my game library is now digital with a large portion of those being free with PS Plus. I mean, if a game is cheaper online than it is on disc then why not. It'll only take up the same install on a hard drive either way, one way just requires me to move a bit first.
Now, there's a chain of sports shops here in the UK called Sports Direct and up until two weeks ago, I didn't know that the owner had a fair sized share in GAME as a stakeholder. But the new development here is the share has increased and according to business sites (who know a damn sight more than me) once a shareholders stake reaches a certain percentage, they are entitled to an offer of a buyout. As of writing this, no word has come out yet if Sports Direct plan to go through with it but if they did and were successful, it's likely that a majority of stores or all GAME stores across the country will close. As mentioned at the start, this would leave only independent retailers specializing in video games left for us Brits to buy our games in an actual store. Sure, you can go down to a Cex shop and grab a game, but they’re all pre-owned products and they don’t have any real options to buy games or films brand new. Our other options go down to bigger stores and supermarkets that have entertainment sections or relying upon online retailers like Amazon for new games.
Why did I feel the need to write this up then? Well, while I’ve never had the best of relationships with GAME as a retailer, I’d rather not see it go the way of the western. Surely Amazon would be a good substitute but my experiences with Amazon when trying to pre-order or buy new games has been less than successful in the past. I distinctly remember pre-ordering a Fan Edition copy of Pokémon: Sun which never showed up on the day of release, prompting me to travel to the next town over to buy a copy in a toy shop. Pre-ordering troubles aside, I can’t have been the only one to notice that prices for new copies of a game fluctuate like crazy on Amazon where a new release can be the average price (somewhere within the £40-£60 mark depending on the game) then skyrocket the next. While it’s okay as a general place to buy physical copies of games, Amazon certainly isn’t my main choice for getting new games day one.
To sum up, the entertainment market in the UK needs a serious boost in revenue or at the very least, maintain its current revenue but have no fear of takeover or closure. Independent retailers do the best they can with what they have and I in no way want to say they don’t deserve to exist, but they’re not best when you play games regularly and keep up to date with the medium. Supermarkets have entertainment sections that only sell new copies of games, but these are simply chart games with only a handful of new releases depending on console (still haven’t found Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 in any supermarket). The rise of the digital games market cannot be ignored nor should it be stopped, but gamers everywhere will always have a fondness for physical media and actually having a game in our hands and on disc.
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| An example of a typical GAME store here in the UK [Image Source: Gizmodo UK] |
Being a fan and consumer of video games in the UK has been getting increasingly difficult over the last decade or so. It used to be simple; go buy the game you wanted from Game Station or GAME (which I only learned recently that GAME owned Game Station but still). Of course other retailers and the larger supermarkets had an entertainment section, but for shops dedicated to gaming, those were your best options. Then sometime in the mid-2000s, Game Station shut down and we were left with GAME until Cex came along. But, as a store, Cex is akin to a "Jack of all trades" when it comes to entertainment products. Around the early 2010s, a new competitor to GAME showed up called Grainger Games with new and pre-owned games at reasonable prices and a good amount given when you wanted to trade in. For the largest part of buying my games I'd instinctively go to Grainger Games, until March 2018 when all their stores were closed seemingly out of nowhere. Fast forward to 2019 and your options for gaming dedicated stores are down to independent stores found on nearly every high street or GAME, but even that is on thin ice.
It wouldn't be an understatement to say that digital games have been on the rise since the 7th generation (PS3 and Xbox 360) and have only gone up since some games don't even see a physical release. I myself can attest to the fact that a large portion of my game library is now digital with a large portion of those being free with PS Plus. I mean, if a game is cheaper online than it is on disc then why not. It'll only take up the same install on a hard drive either way, one way just requires me to move a bit first.
Now, there's a chain of sports shops here in the UK called Sports Direct and up until two weeks ago, I didn't know that the owner had a fair sized share in GAME as a stakeholder. But the new development here is the share has increased and according to business sites (who know a damn sight more than me) once a shareholders stake reaches a certain percentage, they are entitled to an offer of a buyout. As of writing this, no word has come out yet if Sports Direct plan to go through with it but if they did and were successful, it's likely that a majority of stores or all GAME stores across the country will close. As mentioned at the start, this would leave only independent retailers specializing in video games left for us Brits to buy our games in an actual store. Sure, you can go down to a Cex shop and grab a game, but they’re all pre-owned products and they don’t have any real options to buy games or films brand new. Our other options go down to bigger stores and supermarkets that have entertainment sections or relying upon online retailers like Amazon for new games.
Why did I feel the need to write this up then? Well, while I’ve never had the best of relationships with GAME as a retailer, I’d rather not see it go the way of the western. Surely Amazon would be a good substitute but my experiences with Amazon when trying to pre-order or buy new games has been less than successful in the past. I distinctly remember pre-ordering a Fan Edition copy of Pokémon: Sun which never showed up on the day of release, prompting me to travel to the next town over to buy a copy in a toy shop. Pre-ordering troubles aside, I can’t have been the only one to notice that prices for new copies of a game fluctuate like crazy on Amazon where a new release can be the average price (somewhere within the £40-£60 mark depending on the game) then skyrocket the next. While it’s okay as a general place to buy physical copies of games, Amazon certainly isn’t my main choice for getting new games day one.
To sum up, the entertainment market in the UK needs a serious boost in revenue or at the very least, maintain its current revenue but have no fear of takeover or closure. Independent retailers do the best they can with what they have and I in no way want to say they don’t deserve to exist, but they’re not best when you play games regularly and keep up to date with the medium. Supermarkets have entertainment sections that only sell new copies of games, but these are simply chart games with only a handful of new releases depending on console (still haven’t found Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 in any supermarket). The rise of the digital games market cannot be ignored nor should it be stopped, but gamers everywhere will always have a fondness for physical media and actually having a game in our hands and on disc.
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