High Street Blues

By Rob Fahey Published 24 January, 2009

It's a dreadful time to be a high street retailer - and it's only going to get worse.

Published as part of our sister-site GamesIndustry.biz' widely-read weekly newsletter, the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial is a weekly dissection of one of the issues weighing on the minds of the people at the top of the games business. It appears on Eurogamer after it goes out to GI.biz newsletter subscribers.

The decline of traditional retail is a topic which has been discussed, on and off, for around a decade now. It's a conversation which is particularly relevant to videogames and other digital media, where direct online distribution is possible, but online shopping has affected almost every retail sector - even clothes and food, the backbone of the high street.

In spite of this lengthy discussion, it's still something of a shock to see two large retail chains, both of them very active in the videogames sector, shutting down in the space of a couple of months. Woolworths has been a fixture of towns around the UK for a century, and in recent years has been a key outlet for videogames, especially at the casual and family-oriented end of the market. Zavvi, the new name of the Virgin Megastores chain, occupies some of the best retail property in the UK and was determined to focus the core of its business around videogames.

Now they're both gone, or are on the way out. With no buyers in sight for either chain, both have suffered the fate of stock liquidations, massive job losses and the sale of their individual retail locations.

After years of discussion and dire predictions regarding the future of high street retail, should these closures be seen as support for those arguments? Is this, as much of the commentary has indicated, a clear sign that the high street is entering its latter days?

Too much weight can be placed on those conclusions, and it's important to consider that there are special circumstances surrounding the collapse of both Woolworths and Zavvi. In the case of Woolworths, the company has been facing trouble for many years, and found little succour in the buoyant economic conditions of the past decade. Ironically, its low-cost, "cheap and cheerful" approach (many would debate the use of the word "cheerful", in fact) might have resonated better with consumers in a recession. It'll never have a chance to find out, however.

Zavvi, meanwhile, has slid out of view protesting all the while that it's a victim of circumstance. Its sales through 2008, the company says, were healthy - but when Woolworths went down, it also spelled the end for Entertainment UK, a distribution outfit which supplied Zavvi with much of its stock. With tens of millions of pounds of debt suddenly being called in and deep concerns over how to keep key items (especially games) in stock over Christmas, Zavvi promptly ended up being dragged down by the Woolworths disaster.

Just unlucky, then? Woolworths, caught short by the timing of the economic cycle; Zavvi, a victim of pure circumstance, mere collateral damage in Woolworths' implosion?

That's one interpretation, and it's one to which many in the high street retail business have flocked. There's certainly an element of truth here - but in dismissing these dramatic collapses as mere circumstance, we risk blindly ignoring the important lessons and indicators which they provide.

The fact is that very few corporate collapses are marked by graceful, textbook descents as sales slide, profits fall, and the whole operation is wound down by administrators. As managers (and eventually administrators) attempt to rescue businesses facing difficulties, they often take gambles which result in far more dramatic collapses. Weakened businesses are also easy prey for hiccups in the economy of any description, which can result in a seemingly sudden demise rather than a slow decline.

In other words, yes - the collapses of Woolworths and Zavvi are definitely the product of circumstance. However, there is an important argument here which says that those circumstances could only sink these large companies because there are bigger, underlying problems in play.

The harsh reality is that high street retailers are increasingly being burned by trying to play in the same markets as successful online stores. Online retail has squeezed profit margins significantly, even to the extent that many online stores such as Amazon and Play can make a profit at prices which would drive bricks-and-mortar stores into the red. It's extremely telling that even in the depths of Zavvi's closing down sale, the store had few bargains on offer which weren't already cheaper online.

Moreover, with those profit margins so tightly reined in, bricks and mortar enterprises find themselves more vulnerable than ever to the kind of bumps in the road I mentioned a moment ago. They become heavily reliant on day to day cashflow, which can be seriously impacted by supply problems. In order to paper over those cracks, they need a healthy credit relationship with the banks - and right now, one doesn't utter the phrase "healthy credit relationship" within a mile of the City of London without eliciting bitter laughter and angry stares.

It's also extremely telling that nobody actually wanted to step in and buy Zavvi, let alone Woolworths. HMV has picked up a handful of stores in order to extend its network around the UK, but even at that, some of Zavvi's choicest retail locations - such as its enormous London store on Oxford Street and the hugely prestigious Piccadilly Circus store, formerly occupied by Tower Records - look set to leave the media retail sector entirely. They're most likely to end up selling budget clothing for the next few years.

If Zavvi's sales were growing and the company had a good plan going forward, why didn't anyone buy them? In part, of course, it's down to the fact that with the banks sitting in the corner sulking and refusing to play, it's rather hard for the mergers and acquisitions game to continue.

It doesn't help, however, that sentiment about the future of Zavvi's entire market sector is almost entirely negative. It's not just that you can buy CDs, DVDs and games more cheaply online - many in the industry are still reeling from just how quickly digital distribution is replacing CDs. Five years ago it was expected to take decades to move consumers away from physical products; today, we're already past the tipping point in some markets. Who can blame the business world for looking nervously at the boxed movie and videogame markets and wondering how long they'll be around for?

All of which, of course, causes us to cast a questioning eye in the direction of the remaining retail giants of this sector - which in the UK means Game and HMV. They're likely to enjoy something of an upwards push from the demise of Woolworths and Zavvi, since there'll be less high street competition - and it helps that their sector, the relatively low-cost home entertainment market, is also likely to thrive in an economic depression.

In the medium term, however, what future is there for these businesses? If consumers increasingly go online - either for mail order or digitally distributed product - what justification can there be for the massive overheads involved in maintaining their enormous store networks? Perhaps its telling that both firms are committing themselves to second hand sales, much to the annoyance of the game publishing industry - this, after all, is a USP which online simply can't replicate.

In itself, that's a sobering vision of the future for the high street - media stores simply filled with second hand product that was originally bought online. Yet the bleak choices facing high street media retailers in the next five years may be to resign themselves to being second hand thrift stores, or to go the way of Zavvi. This recession won't kill them - but the march of consumer buying habits and preferences will leave them behind.

For more views on the industry and to keep up to date with news relevant to the games business, read GamesIndustry.biz. You can sign up to the newsletter and receive the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial directly each Thursday afternoon.

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About Rob Fahey

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Comments (66) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • harzo #1 3 years ago

    Yeah I work in retail and indeed times are tough. I can no longer afford every full price purchase I want to make and 2nd hand is a life saver at times for me. I no longer have time to play games all day anyways so I am being more selective in what I purchase. The likes of Woolworths and Zavvi, in gaming terms, could never compete anyway. Their prices were ridiculous for games and they were completely out of touch with the competition. Shame to see them go all the same.

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #2 3 years ago

    What would be wrong with bricks-and-mortar shops being repositories for second-hand games originally bought online? They make a bigger margin on preowned than they do on new games anyway.

  • GP79 #3 3 years ago

    Don't forget the impact the supermarkets are also having - a lot of the time they are matching and sometimes even beating the online prices. And you can buy frosties and cakes at the same time!

  • presh #4 3 years ago

    The wider question is why physical retail for digital goods really exists anyway. Not in the sense of no longer selling boxed goods - plenty of people still expect this - but why whole industries still take a digital file, burn it onto DVD, put it in a box, ship it to several warehouses, put them in lorries and shop them to stores. The technology exists for media to be printed in site, making that very expensive supply chain redundant. Personally, I think that's the only way to really compete with online.

  • FaceOmeter #5 3 years ago

    Stuart - Increasingly, second-hand games are useless because of online registration, DRM, and so forth. Even where this is not the case, online trading on Amazon Marketplace, Ebay, Playtrade &c. can still undercut the high street's hilarious prices...

  • t8yman #6 3 years ago

    digital distribution (unburdened with drm) is the future. imagine how many lorries could be kept off the roads if people weren't obsessed with shiny boxes and displaying their games/dvds/cds on vast shelves in their rooms?
    it really is just shallow to take pride in a rack of boxes. one ipod cotaining 500 well ripped cd's impresses me far more than a big wall of shite.
    same day worldwide launch of games/music/dvds via digital distribution wont be far away. I can even see cinema becoming mostly redundant and blockbuster movies being premiered online eventually (if hollywood got its shit together)

  • MaTTy_P #7 3 years ago

    Ahhh the joys of Woolies and overpriced games.

    I remember during the N64 days and one game being on the shelf for £54.99 and its sequel being next to it for £34.99...

  • Penguinzoot #8 3 years ago

    I remember during the N64 days and one game being on the shelf for £54.99

    Yeah, I remember those days. I might be wrong, but I don't think online was a viable competitor back then.

  • CapnCloudchaser #9 3 years ago

    For the short term at least, Woolworths closing and Zavvi having problems have lead to loads of gaming bargains for me. With 70% game sales at Woolworths and now 25% off at Zavvi, I've bought about 50 brand new games combined since Christmas, including two new consoles, so as a gamer, I'm better off at the moment.

  • MrE26 #10 3 years ago

    Yeah, Woolworths & Zavvi were stupidly overpriced for games & Blu-Rays. I'd walk in, take one look at the price tag & go to HMV & get the same thing a fiver cheaper. They couldn't even compete with other B&M stores, let alone online.

  • Tetsuo_Shima #11 3 years ago

    t8yman, I still prefer to have something tangible in my hand. I wouldn't mind paying for downloads so much if they weren't so bloody expensive, even half the price you'd pay in the shops is too much; surely the overheads in digital distribution are almost negligible?

  • IneptPercy #12 3 years ago

    I have to say I have made the transition to online and have for a few years. Now I would say 98% of my games and films are from the likes of play.com, hmv.com, gamestation.co.uk and game.co.uk then used is generally gamestation.co.uk, cex.co.uk and of course ebay.co.uk.

    Add this up with cashback from quidco and you are saving a fortune compared to the high street, never mind the parking costs etc to get to these places.

    The problem is now that I am young and this is expected, but now my parents are asking me to find them things and they would have always gone the to shops in the past.

    As for digital distribution on site, I remember when I was younger that my dad took me to an eidos shop for some amiga games, now they didn't actually stock them, the had a load of empty cases, drawers full of pre-printed covers and a pile of black disks. so you could imagine you asked for something and it was made up for you. I can imagine the only waste would be the end of line games where they may have covers left.

  • Fixxxer #13 3 years ago

    With shops falling by the wayside it's an impressively bleak future of social alienation.

    Maybe town centers will look more like leisure parks with a cinema, bowling alley and town hall.

  • LawrenceArms #14 3 years ago

    On an incremental point here, I would never, ever want to replace tangible purchases of games. For me the instructions, and the disc are as much a part of the game as the game itself.

  • Retroid #15 3 years ago

    "Let's sell it to them before they sell it to us"

  • t8yman #16 3 years ago

    @lawrence

    without wishing to sound as if I am having a go at you personally - thats exactly what I find shallow. my media of choice is music, and when I was a kid - the album art and lyric sheet was everything, now I am older I couldnt give a feck if it comes wrapped in a brown paper bag. its whats contained that matters to me.

  • waynema #17 3 years ago

    Zavvi had the SC4 guide on the shelf at £13. It says £11.99 on the back!

    I asked at the till, £13 was the price...

    This was last week!

  • dirk_aircool #18 3 years ago

    I dont like digital distribution . and I want to trade in my old games including the ones like need for speed undercover that I got form ASDA for £22-00 knowing in all probability it would be a dog ( I was right ) but that I could trade it at Gamestation for 10 - 15 quid .
    Also I've found out that all the audio-books and most of the music I have bought from iTunes doesn't belong to me . I didn't realise this 'till my computer went bad and had to get a new one and when iTunes was re-installed I had to log in to unlock all my stuff . and I only got a few goes left now before my purchases are unusable. I could easily loose everything next time windows takes a belly flop and I have to reach for my recovery disks .
    Who reads the EULA anyway ? I would never purchase anything from a shop with that kind of a restriction in place .

  • RedSparrows #19 3 years ago

    Aside: I love having CDs in my collection. I shall never surrender! /hubris

  • metalangel #20 3 years ago

    The problem is that there is virtually no competition between these shops on the high street. When I go to buy a game I often check in five or six shops, and each one is charging the same price (£44.99 or £39.99). On the rare occasion one shop has the sense to cut even a fiver off that, they get my business - otherwise my money stays in my wallet and none of them get anything. GAME's recent and astonishing sale (Gears 2 and Fable 2 £29.99 each NEW!!) undercut some competitors (including the supposedly desperate Zavvi) by £15; and still others by £5 off their preowned prices! Without more of this sort of competition, people will just endure the day or two wait that comes with buying games online at something other than the bloody RRP.

  • CapnCloudchaser #21 3 years ago

    t8yman, I like to think of the box and instructions as part of a collectors package, and would thus rather have the physical product on a shelf, than a digital download. It is a part of the collectors appeal to me, especially with retro games.

  • Ryze #22 3 years ago

    Devil May Cry 4 for £9.75 at Zavvi.

    DEAL.

    Got to say that it's a huge shame that this chain will die, though. Damn Woolworths.

  • stevetuck #23 3 years ago

    I remember during the N64 days and one game being on the shelf for £54.99

    Think i paid £60 for that 'limited edition' gold majoras mask

  • MrChuckles #24 3 years ago

    Good.

    What do high street retailers do apart from sell you something you can get cheaper somewhere else online?

    Oh, and rip off developers....

    In 9 weeks, Gamestop got revenue of $543.5 million selling pre-owned games that developers worked hard to create, and all Gamestop did was buy off consumers at a rubbish price and sell for $5 less than a new game.

    [link url=http://kotaku.com/5136721/gamestop- pre+owned-sales-the-numbers-and-the-horror
    ]http://ko taku.com/5136721/gamestop-pre+o...[/link]

    Retailers going bust? Bring it on....

    (But i do feel for the guys who actually work in the shops of course, just not the chains themselves)

  • bad09 #25 3 years ago

    I'm a growing fan of online buying and digital download as we head into 2009. Retail is just to expensive for me now and it really puts me in a bad mood paying over the odds when I know if I'm patient and wait a couple of days I'll have it cheaper.

    Music is a no brainer for download I rarely buy whole albums and need a DRM free single which I can now get.

    Download movies are becoming more appealing in 2009 for me with the PS3 rent or own. I like Blu but while I don't mind the few days wait of the internet, I kind of liked going to the shops to buy my movies but Retail Blu prices are a bitter pill which I'm not keen on taking to often. Also, the movie industry seem set to drive Blu into the ground with digital copies only with the crap that won't really sell, and the continuation of the double dipping (seriously somes of the releases have absolutely nothing but the movie - whats the point of all that tech if they won't use it?)

    Games, for some reason I still buy on the high street/or the small local guy if he has what I want as I normally impulse buy or launch day buy (I can't trust online for the stuff I'm itching for on launch) but the revelation that my PS3 games can go on 5 machines (and people don't even need to be signed in as me to play 'em) is brilliant, and while not all games have this awesome flexibility on PSN it has really impressed me and if more "retail" games went down the PSN (5 machine friendly) route I may bite - just not at silly prices like the PSP stuff.

    If that's coming from me, who didn't really fancy digital download for anything other than music, I reckon retail is on pretty thin ground these days.

  • Tyronne #26 3 years ago

    Digital distribution is fine and I was quite happy with it UNTIL the moment arrived that publishers were charging MORE for a digital release than I could purchase the boxed version for online/on the high street.

    That for me was the time when I decided that they could go F&*k themselves...you are not ripping me off like that.

    Now I am just happy to pick up the sale bits from steam and buy loads of 2nd hand software.

    not only that but recently I have been picking up loads of bits from gog and also replaying loads of old stuff in my collection that I never really finished and thats a large number of games.
    Edited by 1 at 24/01/09 @ 14:12

  • bad09 #27 3 years ago

    "Digital distribution is fine and I was quite happy with it UNTIL the moment arrived that publishers were charging MORE for a digital release than I could purchase the boxed version for online/on the high street. "

    True it does seem as we move further into DD the savings are not passed to the consumer.

    Also PSN and Live games are increasing in cost even though user numbers are increasing, what's that about? As for the PSP I sure hope nobody out there is actually paying those prices!

  • tomkuryakin #28 3 years ago

    @ Retroid

    "Let's be careful out there."

  • secombe #29 3 years ago

    " Perhaps its telling that both firms are committing themselves to second hand sales, much to the annoyance of the game publishing industry - this, after all, is a USP which online simply can't replicate."

    This seems to be a rather odd comment considering the popularity of Ebay, Play Trade and Amazon Marketplace.

    The obvious reason to using a bricks and mortar where second hand is concerned is to trade your stuff for new games, in that case it's not so easy for the online stores to replicate (yet)

  • IneptPercy #30 3 years ago

    "GAME's recent and astonishing sale (Gears 2 and Fable 2 £29.99 each NEW!!)"

    If you go through quidco and you buy online you will get 9% cashback in that case. Good deal :-)

  • Cannibal #31 3 years ago

    My prediction for the future... Sky will rake it in.

    More and more homes will be pushed to digital. Digital will be slowly integrated with online services more and more and eventually your Sky box will become a mini pc with a digital delivery service and hard drive.

    When that happens, the internet phobia shoppers will accept it as the norm and Gran will be downloading her favourite movies onto her hard drive with the push of a remote button. I can see it becoming another console when this happens as well, with games also being delivered.

    Intergration is the future for technology. More for less.

  • secombe #32 3 years ago

    More and more homes will be pushed to digital. Digital will be slowly integrated with online services more and more and eventually your Sky box will become a mini pc with a digital delivery service and hard drive.

    SKY can't actually deliver 'on demand' content in its current form and will never be able to via its Satellite network, so it would have to rely heavily on the Broadband side of things (and massive hard drives) to deliver the content to you in the way we will come to expect soon...and at the moment we are nowhere near the speeds needed for that.

    Cable/Virgin/Telewest/Blueyonder/Whatever is in a better position to supply true on demand content (and does already), as the content can actually be accessed 'on demand' ( i.e.how the average person expects 'on demand' to mean), you will notice Virgin have thousands of music videos/movies/TV shows etc all available at the touch of button with instant start ups, as the content is actually piped directly to you...the same is simply not possible with Satellite technology, hence what SKY deems 'on demand' is actually content of their choosing that they deliver overnight to be stored on a hard drive in your home...and of course there are serious limits to that, even with ever increasing Hard Drive sizes.
    Edited by 3 at 24/01/09 @ 15:46

  • ThemisB #33 3 years ago

    Yeah the gap between retail and online prices has never been so vast. I buy a reasonable amount of games, and I can't remember the last time I walked into a shop to buy one. Got LBP, Resistance 2, Motorstorm 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Prince of Persia, Mirror's Edge, Far Cry 2, Bioshock and Midnight Club - total cost to me online - £191.90, an average of less than £20 per game. It is worth noting that these purchases were all made before the January sales, too, and pretty soon after they were released. The same games would have cost me closer to £400 on the high street, perhaps a bit less now that the sales are on. High street retail is simply not a viable option for me.

  • Darpy #34 3 years ago

    PECKO PECKO

  • LawrenceArms #35 3 years ago

    @t8yman

    You dont need to soften that, I am fully aware some people are not bothered about physical media, but then some are, and I know a lot are. I would loathe to see the extinction of physical media with specific relation to videogames.

  • BigJonno #36 3 years ago

    Thanks for the Quidco tip. It has virtually every online retailer I use already. If I'd known about them a year ago, I would've made a few hundred quid already, I reckon.

  • Sar #37 3 years ago

    Fuck Game.

    They're rip off bastards, and the sooner they go under the better!

    I tried to buy the L4D guide. Game were "selling" it at £12.99, despite the RRP printed on the back stating £9.99...

    I argued the toss with them and they tried to bullshit me about "exchange rates" and the publisher GUESSING the retail price in £'s!!! If they want to try and price gouge their lifeblood customers like that...

    Fuck them, I got it on Amazon for £7.50.


    Fuck Game.

  • captainrentboy #38 3 years ago

    That's weird, I work for Game and I've NEVER priced up a strategy guide at a higher price than what is stated on the back :/ I'll give the L4D guide a check tomorrow, I have a feeling that maybe Sar's local store is just filled with retards.
    But saying Game are gigantic rip off bastards, just because ONE product you were after was a little on the steep side price wise is a tad unfair. I know for a fact that there are plenty of titles in store that are actually equal or actually a little less in price than they are on the big online retail sites.
    Off the top of my head, Mass Effect on 360....
    Amazon- £24.99
    Play-£14.99
    Gameplay-£12.99
    In my store it's £7.99 new.
    See, it's not always facking terrible :)
    Edit- Just thought of another one, Eye Of Judgement on PS3 with the camera, £19.99, Brilliant price, you can't deny it!!
    The way I go on anyone would think I actually like working there :/
    Edited by 1 at 24/01/09 @ 18:43

  • niteninja #39 3 years ago

    Its beginning to look like the end of game retailers places like game and gamestation simply cant undercut online for new games.
    Play and amazon will take over.
    Online distrubution is still years away most people still dont have internet access and even if they did speeds are not good enough yet.
    Downloading a gig is ok but a 20 gig game?
    Gamestation survives on preowned and even play are doing that better now.
    Edited by 1 at 24/01/09 @ 19:22

  • Sar #40 3 years ago

    @captainrentboy

    My local Game is filled with retards. Particularly the female manager, who is a complete cunt (I should know, I worked for her for 4 months about 6 years ago, before I quit because of her cuntishness).

    The guy in particular who I was dealing with did seem like a complete spack-head though.

    Oh and ME new in our local Game?

    £19.99

    I kid thee not.

    The more recent PC version is £5 cheaper ffs.

    And that's another thing that annoys me about our local Game - their reduction of their PC games stock to piss taking proportions. There's literally a half-carousel of the things now, whereas when I worked there it was half a wall's worth (about 20ft all told, floor to ceiling).

    Plus that, and the fact that since our local Zavvi just got shut down last week, they've jacked all their prices up to retail prices, since they have no local competition.

    Again, fuck Game (my local Game particularly).
    Edited by 2 at 24/01/09 @ 19:29

  • StooMonster #41 3 years ago

    PC, it's Steam where possible -- any extra price is worth it to me for the no-CD key, and download as many times I want, and where I wish -- and if it's not on there then online retailer as they are so much cheaper.

    Console, online retailer, so much cheaper; no brainer choice.

    Online retailers have more easily accessible sales than physical retail too, I picked up Halo 3 at Play.com for £13 in lead up to Xmas whilst it was "full price" in my local retailers.

  • metalangel #42 3 years ago

    Sar, your tale sounds suspiciously familiar... you aren't in Cardiff are you?

  • FenderMaster #43 3 years ago

    I really hope B&M stores don't disappear, theres nothing better than when an anticipated title (Street Fighter 4!!) is finally released, and you walk into the shop, pick the case off the shelf, and bring it up to the counter!!

    I just don't get the same feeling with digitally distributed games + my PS3 harddrive is almost full what with game installs, download games and demos, so very soon I'm going to run out of space...

  • HermitArcader #44 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • beckyh #45 3 years ago

    Fuck Game.
    They're rip off bastards, and the sooner they go under the better!
    I tried to buy the L4D guide. Game were "selling" it at £12.99, despite the RRP printed on the back stating £9.99...
    I argued the toss with them and they tried to bullshit me about "exchange rates" and the publisher GUESSING the retail price in £'s!!! If they want to try and price gouge their lifeblood customers like that...

    That is not just price gouging it is actually illegal. It is illegal to increase the price on a price marked item. If for example a game has an RRP of £44.99, that is only a recommended retail price and the shop can sell it for more or less if they wish. However if the price is marked on the item itself as part of the packaging then it cannot be sold for more than that.

  • BonzoBanana #46 3 years ago

    I hate paying for parking it puts me right off going to town. I can walk it occasionally as I'm not that far but if I go to Tesco then I get free parking and can nip down into town as well but I flatly refuse to pay normal parking fees so don't go to the high street very much. I went past clarkes village the outlet shopping centre the other day and thought might as well pop in although it was only about 1 1/2hrs from closing. I assumed it would be free parking but no, so drove out again. People now have a choice for goods be it online or supermarkets so what is the incentive to pay for parking? There are a lot of people like me who don't want to pay £3 to do 3hrs shopping. Its basically a tax for looking around the high street only to find most prices are generally higher than elsewhere. Sod off!

  • Aradiel #47 3 years ago

    Woolworths? Cheap?! LOL!

    Oh, wait. You were serious...

  • L_Ron_Cupboard #48 3 years ago

    i think that closing stores will probably end up being replaced by alcohol outlets anyways...

  • wonton #49 3 years ago

    I too was one the many knee-jerker "Its not just about the game/movie/music itself its about the packaging, collecting, being able to sell second hand etc"

    But now i don't give a feck. Ive come to appreciate entertainment for what it is, not for the externalities.

    Also with the advent of online registration, anytime you use a game you are still tied to the internet, so you may as well get it digital anyway (unless you have a poor internet connection).

    btw those who get caught out when they have to rebuild their computer should be careful about the terms and condition, digital isnt a golden goose it still has its strange issues.

  • Lamont #50 3 years ago

    How about a bunch of unique shops including second hand goods? Much better than a bunch of homogenized overpriced crap that no one really wants or needs. So a bunch of sweatshops in India and Cambodia can't churn out shoddy clothing 24 hours a day, oh the humanity! Woolworths can't push the latest "hip-hop" sweatshirts or whatever they've decided the kids want. I don't give a squirt of piss about any of these corporate bastards. This is a *healthy* downturn. Why all the long faces!?
    Edited by 2 at 25/01/09 @ 05:15

  • BartonFink #51 3 years ago

    Never mind being able to buy games, dvds, etc. cheaper on online stores in the case of Zavvi all you had to do was walk around the corner to your local Gamestop, Game, HMV and you would pick them up cheaper.

    In one of their stores here in Ireland (Newbridge) they had a stock clearance of DVDs etc you would have thought they would be trying to shift the games too but nope. They were still full price and in a lot of cases you could walk around the corner to Gamestop and pick up the games anywhere from €20 to €35 cheaper.
    Also remember them trying to sell GT5:prologue for €60.

    No wonder they went out of business.

  • metalangel #52 3 years ago

    The only game I bought from a Zavvi/Virgin in the last 5 years was Mass Effect when it was reduced to £19.99 Before that, the previous purchase was probably my new Dreamcast! Their prices have had little grounding in reality for a long time, it is only with current events that they have finally slipped off the razor's edge. I have bought downloaded stuff - for PC. And only because I could burn myself a physical copy with the CD key in a text file on the disc as well.

  • merkdot #53 3 years ago

    I think the market will contract, but until the hardware simply doesn't use physical media, there will always be retail outlets for games.

    The article studiously ignores the supermarkets, for example. Gaming didn't start out in specialist shops.

  • Kaspar #54 3 years ago

    With shops falling by the wayside it's an impressively bleak future of social alienation.

    Maybe town centers will look more like leisure parks with a cinema, bowling alley and town hall.

    You mean they'll look like PS3 Home? Except maybe livelier?

  • bonker #55 3 years ago

    "On a separate topic - What I do not understand is why Game are looking to continue their expansion in these bad economic times - surely a focus on consolidating their current assets is more important than spending money on widening their reach. "

    Market leaders love, just *love* recessions. It hurts them too in the short term but in the medium-long term they are left with less competition and can take the piss even more with their anti-competitive ways - something Game are also market-leaders at already ...

  • Sar #56 3 years ago

    @metalangel

    Unforunately not, which means there are at least 2 Game stores taking the piss.

    I'm just outside Belfast myself, in Newtownabbey.

    @beckyh

    AFAIK it's legal to sell for higher than RRP, just not good practice with long-term customers. Piss those off and cut your nose off to spite your face.

  • secombe #57 3 years ago

    The article studiously ignores the supermarkets, for example. Gaming didn't start out in specialist shops.

    That's a very good point actually, I remember the old Spectrum games that my friends used to buy in Newsagents and local independent toy shops...and I had to get my Atari 2600/7800 games from Toys R Us (twice a year, as the nearest one was about 70 miles away!)

    The first dedicated games 'shop' that I remember was when I used to buy my Master System games via the post from Special Reserve, otherwise it was Woolworths etc for the High Street.

  • aphexstwin #58 3 years ago

    this may not just be a problem limited to our choice of entertainment here.

    i was reading an article in last months top gear about the demise of the american car industry. and it does sound familiar to whats going on with high street retailers today.

    basically, the us car industry has its roots based around the fact that they thermselves own the factories were the cars are built. which means if the cars arent selling the factory loses out, job cuts and then an empty factory which still needs paying for. over in europe, cars like the boxster are made in the same factory in sweden as the corsa, saabs and some fords.and in austria, one factory is responsible for making many bmw's, audi's and vdubs. these factories arent owned by the car makers so they dont have the overheads and are responsible for a fraction of the cost if the car industry collapses, as it has done.

    you take this to entertainment. while movie studios and game devs arent responsible for their own outlet chains, they still shoulder some of the cost if the store goes under because people still believe in high street shopping. the amount of choice for the foot slogger becomes less and less competition drives up prices, as was seen in the end of the format war. the online retailers will then naturally take up some of the slack mainly because its vastly cheaper to have a warehouse and a mailing operation than it is to rent and run a 'bricks and mortar' high street chain, with its business rates (which are crippling in the town where i live - stockton), overheads and staffing costs. it costs play absolutely fuck all to store a copy of lbp in its warehouse and next to fuck all to get it mailed because something that size can fit through my letter box. add this to the fact that play are based in jersey, a tax haven, and you can really see why they are making the assurgence.

    in terms of digital downloads....

    i think its the games industry, in one sense, getting greedy and cutting out the second hand market. i vehemently oppose digital downloads mainly because my woman would leave me if i didnt give her something to unwrap at chrimbo. i love having the box in my hands. for music, the .mp3 is going to do more harm to the very talented album designers than the cd did over vinyl. who can forget the sprawling, find-something-new-every-day cover artwork of sepulturas 'arise' to the elegant simplicity of the 'beaucoup fish' cover from underworld?

    anyway, this debates going to run and run. but the sad truth is, companies make more money when they shoulder less risk, something game, gamestation and hmv have all found out, and why them too, have turned to online retailing, just another part of the 24 hour selling that it is britain

  • Buztafen #59 3 years ago

    Its annoying to find that increasingly im going shopping to find a game on the cheap, only to realise i could get it for a little more than half the price online. I miss the days when the game you really want could be picked up in town for immediate enjoyment. Recently the only gem i found was Valkyria Chronicles in gamestation. The last time i was in Woolworths i was probably about 17 and i bought a some shitty single to play in my mums car, Woollys was always a tatty shithole....i wont be missing it.

  • captain_chris #60 3 years ago

    Can B&M stores compete with online stores? Well maybe.
    While online stores are good on price they are pants for convenience. Almost any package bigger than the actual DVD case will result in a trip the Post Office in town on Saturday morning and, unless you get there 30mins before they open, standing in a queue for the best part of an hour. If the guy in front of me has bad BO thats not worth saving a fiver for!

    What B&M need to do is, rather than mimic play, amazon et al. with an online store of their own, is provide a service that online cannot. Who needs shelves and shelves of boxes? They should be much more like Argos! The prices could be centrally controlled, updated in real time (well daily at least) online and in the shops - this way they could compete with the offers online. I could reserve or buy and go into town knowing that there would be a copy of Prof. Leyton waiting for me when I got there!
    The majority of the store could then be given over to demo units (much like the little bit off to one side in the Oxford Street Virgin/Zavvi) where you could actually try out the game and the rest used for advertising.
    There are two added bonuses of this setup too. Idiot parents who are about to buy 18 rated games for 9yr olds can be shown the content before they buy; and shop staff might actually be able to tell you something about the games because we all know that they'll play themselves when the shop is quiet.

    Digital distribution might work but the producers/retailers/distributors really need to figure out the use cases before implementing poorly thought out DRM and download restrictions. And there needs to be a way to share/play your games when not at your machine. If i download Mario Party 13 why can't i play it at a friends house? I can if I have the disc! If I have found a game so great that I want to force it on my friends how about allowing me to send them a copy (figuratively, they would have to download it themselves obviously) that they can play for a reasonable amount of playtime? After all, I would let them borrow the disc from me! As for pricing and distribution; When I look for a game only one site (of the few available) seems to have it. This seems like its probably an unfair restriction on trade and I'm sure in time either UK or EU law will come to the rescue on this and prices will hopefully come down as there is more and more competition.

  • Sonic_D #61 3 years ago

    Complete side note, but some of us still prefer CD's and Vinyl as mp3s sound like cack on a semi-decent hi fi. I know you can get lossless downloads, but the fact is these are not common (esp for purchase as opposed to illegal download) and the output from a standard PC will not be up to the same standard of a mid-range CD player/Turntable.

  • Darren #62 3 years ago

    I've pretty much converted over from buying my games and hardware in the shops to buying 99.99% of my stuff online, including DVDs, BDs and the odd CD. I rarely buy locally except if I have to trade something in at GAME for something else. Why pay over the odds in high street shops when the same things can be bought off the net much cheaper?

  • symmetry #63 3 years ago

    "this, after all, is a USP which online simply can't replicate"

    http://www.cex.co.uk/

  • UltimateWarrior #64 3 years ago

    I actually like the idea of having my entire collection within the player itself. All my songs on an ipod. All my movies on a hard disk DVD player. All my games on my console. So that I can simply pick one to play and away you go. No getting up, opening boxes, putting in discs every time I wnat to switch games etc. My only problem with digital downloads is the DRM situation. The 360 is one of the worst with your purchases tied to the hardware and no way to change it within your profile. If you;re not connected online you can;t play what you genuinely purchased. I don't want to feel like I'm renting games, music or films as I do with Microsoft and iTunes. I want to know I own the damn thing and that if my hardware goes kaput I can still use my purchased items on something else. I want to know I cna play it whenever and wherever I want. It's not so much wanting my collection on display on a shelf but more to know that my collection is safe and completely mine.

  • spiny #65 3 years ago

    Perhaps its telling that both firms are committing themselves to second hand sales, much to the annoyance of the game publishing industry - this, after all, is a USP which online simply can't replicate.

    Amazon Marketplace?

  • jmg123 #66 3 years ago

    B+M will suffer with the second hand market as well. I was in Game the other day and Little Big Planet was £34.99 second hand, So I got it via play.com play/trade for £14.68 NEW (still shrinkwrapped in the sony plastic). Part of the trouble is overheads from the rent of city center premises, which have been going up faster than the property market did (although woolworhs owned most of it's stores).

    On a side not, I found that HMV will give up to double Game will for trade-ins?? was getting ~£15 for some wii games at hmv and game were me offering between £3 and £8 for the same ones.
    Edited by 1 at 30/01/09 @ 13:08