Will GAME Survive?

It is common knowledge now that the “GAME” group are losing business and losing it quickly, with recent reports of massive losses coupled with disputes with retailers it’s not looking good for Game, but will they survive?, well its inevitable that all games will eventually become digital but there should still be room for places like game selling digital copies, at least for a few more years.

Game cannot compare with online retailers

Before you look at what game can do to survive you have to look at its main problems, and biggest issues, and the first one that comes to mind is the price of games. To buy a game day one you’re looking at paying £40-45 at game, which to be fair is the price that games have been sold for some years now but the problem is they are being undercut constantly, you only have to do a bit of digging and you will find an offer that prices a new game at £30-35, or simply wait 2-3 weeks and you can find a game half price, don’t believe me? Have a quick look right now how much Final Fantasy XIII-2 is selling for online whilst in game it’s still close to its original price. So you’re probably asking yourself, why would anyone buy from Game then? And the simple answer is they don’t, you still have a dwindling group of old fashioned gamers who will buy over the counter but the vast majority simply are not paying £45 for a new game, they are getting online deals or waiting for the price to be lowered.

So we’ve established that people are no longer buying their games from GAME but that’s not the only problem they face, the shopping experience in a Game store is terrible, I do still go in from time to time to have a quick browse and I do occasionally pick a game up, but from walking in the door to walking out it’s just a nightmare. I must clarify that I’m speaking from experience in this piece so the game store near you may be different. The main problem is that the staff just aren’t qualified to have conversations with any gamers let alone gamers who know their stuff like me, you will ask them a simple question like “is this game made by the same developer as the previous one?” and they will just look at you like you’ve just come in the store naked. Then you get to the counter to pay for your item, I normally ask something such as “Is game X selling well?” and again they just look at you and utter some excuse as to why they don’t know, I’m sorry but being in that position you should be able to answer questions from an aspiring video game journalist. Finally they have to cheek to ask “would you like a guide with that?” now I know that they are forced to ask this by the powers that be at Game so I’m not annoyed with the people working in the shop itself, but no one needs a guide, if we did we would ask for it

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Comic Book stores are social experiences 

What could save Game? Well the obvious thing you would think would be lower the prices, although that is an option that won’t happen because whatever price Game lower their products to supermarkets and online retailers will always be able to undercut them so in essence a dramatic price drop is out of the question. My suggestion would be to make Game a better social experience, think of places like Games Workshop and Comic Book Stores, when you go in there you go for the people as well as the products, yeah you buy your comics but then you spend half an hour discussing the latest issue with the people who work there along with other members of the public who happen to be in the store, so why can’t this be the same for Game? Well it can, all Game need to do is hire people who have a passion about video games, and that doesn’t have to be someone in the industry, any gamer can tell you a lot more about the games they play than the people who currently work in Game. Imagine this, you walk into game with £40 from your pay check, you walk up to whichever area applies to you, for me it would be the Xbox section, and there’s a game employee there to ask if there’s anything you’re interested in, you pick up a game ready to buy it but before you do the employee tells you to wait a second and he then tells you some of the games details you may not have known such as does it have an online pass, he then tells you about alternative to this game, etc. This approach to create a social feel about the store would give gamers a place to go to both buy games and express their opinions to other like-minded people, although online retail is cheaper it is completely anonymous, Game could tap into a large market if they just had more knowledge of what their selling.

We return to the initial question, will Game survive? And my answer to that is no, but my answer to the question can Game survive would be yes. I just don’t see it happening, I think the change the company would have to go through is too big and they wouldn’t be willing to do it, so that being the case I can see 2012 being the demise of the Game group as we know it, there are other avenues they can take, such as becoming an online only store, but I believe Game as we know it is dying.