Gamestation stopped taking preorders for ME3 -- not Game (I ordered the N7 Collectors Edition last August)
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http://www.thesixtha...-any-new-games/
Same company, same stock dude. BOTH stopped taking ME3 special edition pre-orders about two weeks weeks ago. Allocation was reached very quickly because they have very little stock. Because they have no credit. And are screwed.
Who'd like to see a graph of GAME's share price over the last 12 months?
Depressing, no?
While the industry is definitely struggling because of overly-extended console lifespans (which are good for publishers only), GAME is definitely to blame in a big way for its own current state.
I think it's naive to suggest that GAME are the big bad guys selling games for £40, while supermarkets are the saviours by selling them for £35. It's teh supermarkets that are causing damage to the independent retailers. They buy stock in huge amounts of bulk, and strike up a discount deal (hence launch offers in, say, Asda for MW3 @ £30 when you buy some shopping). They'll then cover any other losses they make on the games (and they make losses for sure) by raking in profits from food and clothing products which have huge margins.
GAME and Gamestation can't compete with the scale of supermarkets, nor can they sell any other products at inflated prices to cover costs. Why do you think they sell pre-owned games? Big margins to cover minuscule profits on mint games. Why do you think they sell their own branded accessories? Big margins to cover the even smaller margins on mint hardware.
But with the company forcing pushy tactics and self-destructive sales initiatives on employees (ie. 'sell something extra' breeds the idea that selling two things is better than selling one. Even if the one thing makes more money than two other things), the company is guilty here of its own demise.
Only in part, mind you - supermarkets using tactics they know only they can use to monopolise yet another industry is another big factor.
I'd honestly rather pay a fiver more for a game from a specialist store if I had good service, could ask questions and get insightful answers. But GAME Group doesn't breed that kind of mentality. So when people get a less intrusive service for less money at a supermarket where do you think they're going to go?
Of course, you're screwed if you have to ask the dribbling fellow stickering NOW! albums anything more technical than the game's price. Which is where specialist retailers
should flourish. Instead, GAME have turned every sentence of conversation with a customer into clutching at sales opportunities (and ironically then ruining them) instead of good customer service.
The company's mentality (not just at a store level, but at an internal level too) always seems to be that if a customer just gets what they want, it's not good enough. Make them have more. Force them to pay for a shitty loyalty scheme. Make them put non-refundable deposits down on games on a spur of the moment impulse. Make them get the pre-owned game, even if it now requires on online pass, smells like cigarettes and is still more expensive than a mint copy on the company's own website.
In the last year it's become a shit company to shop with, and a depressing one to work for. The company's mentality seems to correlate to its share prices. Where prices began to plummet in the middle of last year is when they started to employ aggressive sales tactics to claw extra money in every sale. It breeds a mentality of customers not being people who you should be giving the best customer service to so they shop with you time and time again, but walking bags of cash who are to be bled as dry as possible in a single transaction.
But only if they buy more than ONE THING.
It makes you fondly daydream about the glory days of Electronics Boutique an independent Gamestation.
He/them/IT does