GAME no longer stocking EA Games..

[Cactus Drags]

Shocked that both Worcester's GAME and GameStation are surviving must be busier then I remember

I would wager that their rent is ludicrously cheap.

It's eight stores from each region closed down.

It's not been done like that. There's 9 gone from ours. It's not GAME versus GS either, it's all done on profitability against rent and stuff. We survived this wave, if there's no buyer soon though, more stores will likely go, so I'm not exactly safe yet. Our friends round the corner at GAME got the axe though, it's just awful. I feel bad for customers too, the giftcard thing is bullshit. But they've been disabled on the tills, so no amount of screaming or threatening is going to get the cards to work. They don't seem to get that. I would love to sell this stuff, we need whatever we can get through the till, but if the facility isn't there, it's not there.

Worst for me was doing a £35 gift card for a woman for her kid's birthday this week. Not an hour later, the scheme's suspended. Obviously nothing I could do, but it's just....ugh.

[King Ellis]

Because there's no clip on YouTube:

Alice: A gift certificate is completely different from cash.

Dilbert: No, it's not. They're both pieces of paper you can exchange for goods and services.

Alice: You're missing the point.

Dilbert: Actually, a gift certificate is worse than cash, because you can only use it in one place.

Wally: And it expires.

Alice: At least it shows some thought.

Dilbert: It shows defective thought. You're trading perfectly good money for something that does the same thing, only not as well.

[Cactus Drags]

Fortunately, msot people so far have been really supportive and have wished us well. Only two bellends so far. I imagine that total will rise going into the weekend however, and it's going to be very difficult not to scream I COULD LOSE MY FUCKING JOB AND YOU'RE CRYING OVER £5, ASSBAG

[EWB's Best Poster.]

To be fair his fiver is one of the reasons you still have a job. He has some right to complain.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

And Im not saying that to troll you. Like you said it sucks some kids present is a card he cant use. I feel for everyone.

[Quom]

I don't. I feel sorry for the poorly informed customers and lower level staff. Gift cards shouldn't have been sold once manufacturers were pulling out. What they did was basically make uninformed people involuntary shareholders in their failing company. As a strategy it isn't bad. It gave them money for nothing (which was the risk if they went tits up as well) and potentially made them solvent for longer. On the other hand it has led to a situation where the brand deserves to take a knock as they have let customers down, it also leads to the poor staff on the floors who are lucky to still have their jobs needing to explain this and take the reaction of the customers.

I fucking hate businesses sometimes. If upper management needed to stand there and explain to the mother that they took her money knowing that there was a good chance it could be money for nothing they may not have been so quick to do it. If I were in Dragsy's position I would be honest with the customers. It's hard to stay mad at someone who says "It's not my decision, we were never told. I might turn up in a week and find the locks have been changed".

This isn't something like a lay-by where it may have been initialised months earlier. I personally think it's unforgivable. I just hope they do something to make it up if they do survive.

Again as I don't want anyone to think I'm having a go at Dragsy, I'm not angry at anyone in this situation besides the person or people who agreed to continue selling them when they were aware of their current situation. I am also annoyed that customers were so personally ill informed as to still be buying them.

[Dan]

If you send your GAME store card to shopto you get £3 off your first order over £20 with them (Y)

Oh and I'm not surprised that GS has stayed open here, it's always packed whenever I go in, although I imagine Grainger are ready to buy the store if it does:

Gamestation is the one on the right.

[DavidMarrio]

Is it weird that I'm pretty sure thats the Grainger games and Gamestation by mine?

Anyway yeh I gotta agree with Quom. I don't feel sorry for the arseholes who put Game and Gamestation in the situation that they are in but its the people like Dragsy and everyone else who are working in the shops that I feel sorry for, due to bad decisions made higher up its costing everyone. I do think as well selling stuff like Giftcards when the company is in a certain situation is a bit of a shitty move.

The ones in Liverpool don't surprise me as well going, considering when the the new shopping centre opened I can imagine rent not being cheap. I'll have to check one day though if the ones near mine are still open.

[Stormshadow]

Gamestation In Chesterfield is still open but it looked like GAME was closed

[cmb211087]

Game Blackburn was closed despite being the 4th best performing store in the company since last September. It really isn't about loss making stores, more likely the cost of rent.

We now have an indie shop and Bee. Com and that is it. Glad I got out when I did.

[Summers]

Game Blackburn was closed despite being the 4th best performing store in the company since last September. It really isn't about loss making stores, more likely the cost of rent.

We now have an indie shop and Bee. Com and that is it. Glad I got out when I did.

My old store's lease is up in May. It's staying open and, if the company survives, carrying on beyond May. The rent was so high that they were considering closing the store months ago.. so I doubt it's rent.

[King Ellis]

My local Gamestation is closed but the Game remains. Game just moved last year to this new open air mall type thing that was opened so I guess it made more sense to keep the one that has a newly furbished store.

[Thrilla]

Game Blackburn was closed despite being the 4th best performing store in the company since last September. It really isn't about loss making stores, more likely the cost of rent.

We now have an indie shop and Bee. Com and that is it. Glad I got out when I did.

My old store's lease is up in May. It's staying open and, if the company survives, carrying on beyond May. The rent was so high that they were considering closing the store months ago.. so I doubt it's rent.

Its likely the amount of profit made after the shop meets its outgoings (rent, rates, wages, etc). Our company were looking at cutting a few shops and ours survived because of the low rent and our net profit being high even on poor sales weeks, whereas there is a shop in Nuneaton that takes at least double what we do a week but they lost 3/5ths of their paid staff due to their low net turnover.

[Frederick Jameson]

I do feel sorry for everyone staff and some customers for example the woman who bought her son a gift card for his Birthday they may be cases where someone has done that but they can only afford to get a game say on Christmas and Birthdays and they have really had to save up and go without to put together that £35 (or whatever) and now all it is is a worthless bit of plastic but that is not the staffs fault I'm sure if they knew they were getting cancelled they just wouldn't of sold them and told them why.

[Cactus Drags]

To be fair his fiver is one of the reasons you still have a job. He has some right to complain.

What a stupid thing to say.

Game Blackburn was closed despite being the 4th best performing store in the company since last September. It really isn't about loss making stores, more likely the cost of rent.

We now have an indie shop and Bee. Com and that is it. Glad I got out when I did.

My old store's lease is up in May. It's staying open and, if the company survives, carrying on beyond May. The rent was so high that they were considering closing the store months ago.. so I doubt it's rent.

It is rent in large number of cases, but stuff like profitability and location regarding volume of stores in an area obviously factor in too. But it is definitely rent, or half the Gamestations that have been saved so far would have been gone.

I think it should probably be made clear that the administrator(s) made the decision about the gift cards, so saying we shouldn't have been selling cards and we were essentially fleecing customers is bullshit. The people making the decisions as of yesterday were not the people making the decisions the last couple of weeks. Also, loyalty and gift cads haven't been completely erased. They're essentially suspended, so for the moment you can still earn points, but not redeem them. The amounts will still be tied to the cards, they just can't be added to or taken from. Depending on what happens regarding a sale or whathaveyou, they could well be usable again. I also get that it sucks for the gift cards to be unspendable, but legally, people with cards are classed as creditors and are last in the line to be paid, as I understand it. Not ideal, but they're well within their rights to do that.

[METALMAN]

I don't. I feel sorry for the poorly informed customers and lower level staff. Gift cards shouldn't have been sold once manufacturers were pulling out. What they did was basically make uninformed people involuntary shareholders in their failing company.

Actually no as there is no potential for them to make a profit out of their investment like an actual shareholder might. :/

[Crybaby Bunting]

A friend of mine pretty much burst into tears when I told her that the £90 of combined credit and giftcards she had were made worthless overnight.

It's things like these that make you think that time is up for GAME. Who would want to shop at GAME now? It doesn't matter how many stores they keep open if you've already lost the custom.

[Fry_4000]

A friend of mine pretty much burst into tears when I told her that the £90 of combined credit and giftcards she had were made worthless overnight.

It's things like these that make you think that time is up for GAME. Who would want to shop at GAME now? It doesn't matter how many stores they keep open if you've already lost the custom.

Why didn't she use it before this happened? I had loads of credit that I didn't really want to use but did anyway because it was clear this would happen.

[Dan]

Honestly, that's just dumb.

They've been going to shit for weeks, it's not just an overnight thing, it's been on the news on TV, in the papers, all over the internet and if you have £90 worth of GAME credit you must be interested in games so avoiding that kind of media is no excuse.

[Cymbols]

I thought that, so I used up all if my vouchers on Friday just in case.