GAME, the U.K. and Ireland's recently stock-troubled leader in high street games sales, has bought out biggest rival Gamestation. The smaller chain was purchased from previous owner Blockbuster for £74 million ($148 million) and will continue to be operated as a separate brand.
It's a surprise move, given that both chains have co-existed for a number of years now, and speculation is that the purchase is a pre-emptive strike on behalf of GAME, intended to close the window of opportunity for other video game retail groups such as GameStop to buy into the U.K. market.
What all this means for gamers however, remains to be seen. Given GAME's notoriety for uneducated staff, inflated prices, and a frankly vampiric approach to trade-in deals, a huge number of U.K. players have probably just proclaimed the high street dead to them and vowed never to shop offline again. It's a completely understandable standpoint. The reason Gamestation has thrived where so many other chains have fallen to GAME over the years is its understanding and respect of the market. Knowledgable staff comprised mainly of serious gamers, a dedication to retro gaming (my local branch currently has everything from a Game Gear to a TurboGFX 16), and the best prices on the high street have provided the antithesis to GAME for a long time, and are the reason they've been so endeared to the hardcore fraternity.
While GAME is stating that Gamestation will remain Gamestation, fears of things going horribly wrong are definitely understandable, particularly in regards to pricing. With the cost of the buyout combined with estimated restructuring costs of £8 million ($16 million), it's probably going to be a fair while before Gamestation customers allow themselves to breathe easy again.
[Via Gamasutra]
Contest:
8:20 PM on 05.02.2007
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The difference is both Gamestop and EB already sucked before their merger.
As pointed out though it was more of a 'gamers store' than game is. Hopefully this will be retained but I fear the worst. My local Game and Gamestation in Dundee are about 20 metres apart. I can't see them keeping both stores open. Which is a shame. Because I really hate Game and will likely stop going there. Looks like its Tesco and Woolies for me.
After reading this I am now cautiously optimistic that this move could work in favour of everyone.
So a pre-emptive measure to stop Gamestop from infiltrating the UK market and doing.....the exact same goddamn thing?
Good job GAME.
I know very few independent gaming shops here in the UK, the few that are left, are cherished relics of a time, sadly for now at least, that has been left behind in favour of retail n00bs.
God bless you Gamestation, you were good to me whilst you lasted. Thank you for my GCon2's, my DS, my first DS games and other apparel.
LONG LIVE GAME CENTRE
LONG LIVE GAME CENTRE?
Gamestation are the ones that jack up their prices and screw over sustomers with crappy trade in prices.
The ONLY reason why Gamestation have survived is because they sell Retro hardware and games. GAME deal with current generation software and systems only.
But GAME have much better deals on new software than Gamestation ever have. Also from my experience the Gamestation staff are pretty dumb too (compared to GAME staff)- they are also more ignorant of the customers and tend to talk among themselves more.
As far as I can tell this can only be a good thing- as long as GAME allow Gamestation to keep selling old retro titles- I need somewhere to buy my Saturn and Dreamcast games!
To be clear I never work for our own stock in either chain and I am upset to see this buy-out, competition on the high-street always benefits the consumer.
But I don't know where you get off publicly stating that one chain is inherently better than the other. Truth is: they both suck. They are both over-priced, both screw you on trade-ins and both contain people who know very little about games.
It may be the case that in your town that Gamestation are better, but unless you regularly visit all the branches of both stores, then you have no position to make such dumb statements.
As it happen, where I live the Gamestation totally sucks, and the game is much better. The Gamestation employees are rude and inattentive (yes I have been waiting at the counter for 5 minutes for a REASON) and their prices are generally higher than Game.
Gamestation do have a better selection of used games/hardware but they do not test the games they take in and they are often in poor condition. The used hardware is often over-priced, and you're almost always better off shopping on eBay.
The Game is staffed by competent employees, they have a 10% student discount on all items (GS manager insists theirs is only for chart games), and you essentially get 1% additional back by using a store card.
Game, its worth pointing out, also have a great deal on the original 360 right now. £280 for the premium + 2 free games (including Crackdown and Gears), which you can easily sell on eBay for £50-60.
Long and short of it is: never buy games from the highstreet unless you need it RIGHT now; amazon.co.uk, Play.com, Play-Asia and Yes-Asia are always going to be cheaper.
If you want second hand stuff then Gamestation is better, but nowhere near as good as eBay.
Overall your comments, made in a public arena, were pretty unbalanced and poorly judged.
I dunno if this is good or bad. Sometimes I pick up a good deal from GAME and Gamestation have been overpricing their stuff like mad as of late. £50 for some not very good second hand 360 games. £30 for some other second hand games that are frankly not worth it. I prefered it to game but what I really prefer is my local independant. They get imports and the staff are great, they're understanding and even let you haggle a little on trade ins sometimes. They usually have everything for £5 less than Game or Gamestation too.
Looks like its going to be Independants and Online retail from now on.
Seriously, there's no-one who hopes Gamestation doesn't change more than I do. At the moment we've just got to trust GAME at their word and hope they do what they say they will. It's just they're not a company a lot of people have much faith in, as you can see.
Fucking Game.