Several weeks ago, fellow Briton Dave broke the news that UK retail chain GAME had bought their biggest rivals Gamestation in a move that disgusted many gamers in this fair nation, myself included. Game is a horrendous chain that has a clueless and inept staff, no quality control or testing of secondhand games and a sickeningly unreasonable part exchange rate. The threat of a GAME controlled monopoly on the UK's games retail industry is a terrible thing, but the Office of Fair Trading is currently investigating the takeover to assess the true ramifications.
The OFT works to ensure healthy competition and is looking into whether or not the buyout of Gamestation will reduce such competition. Considering the market for dedicated high street video game retail was limited almost exclusively to those two chains, I think that should say quite a bit already.
After the jump, you can read the statements of both the OFT and the GAME Group. If you'd like to know quickly what kind of chain GAME is, however, consider that they, supposedly a video game store, pulled Manhunt from the shelves after a kid got murdered with a claw hammer and the game got irresponsibly blamed. That kind of turncoat activity has never been forgotten by this particular editor.
The OFT on the GAME/Gamestation merger:
"The Office of Fair Trading is considering whether arrangements are in progress or in contemplation which, if carried into effect, will result in the creation of a relevant merger situation under the merger provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002," detailed the OFT.
"Should it be found to be a relevant merger situation, the OFT will further consider whether the creation of that situation may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the UK for goods or services that warrants reference to the Competition Commission for investigation and report."
The GAME Group's statement:
"As expected we have notified the acquisition of Gamestation to the OFT for normal regulatory review. This review will take about two months and we will be co-operating fully with the OFT process."
Jim Sterling's thoughtful opinion:
"GAME's run by twats."
Contest:
1:29 PM on 06.01.2007
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Thoughts?
I personally love/loved Gamestation. I'm a huge trade-in nut and the Gamestation near me is visited at least once a week, usually way more. They have a staff that are predominantly savvy, reasonable part-ex rates and just a generally good atmosphere. They also currently have awesome retro stuff a lot of the time, but sadly my friend in the Orpington branch says they're going to soon stop the retro stuff because they're money-grubbing shitpieces. Looks like the GAME influence is kicking in already.
Blindside, where have you been? If Jim ALL YUKEN! didn't say bloody and twats because he was english, then it would be annoying. But British twats make me giggle.
I agree, I've gotten into the habit of picking stuff up online, trading on switchplanet or just waiting until the price drops.
There needs to be a game store run by actual gamers who don't force you to reserve a game at gunpoint or give you $2 for a trade-in that they'll later markup to $20.
Gamestation has loads of cool retro stuff and pretty cheap too!
I still buy most of my games over at an independant store or cheap titles online, yeah so what... i pay an extra 5 quid for my new release games. Its worth it... not to talk to those spotty creatures who know nothing about computer games behind the cash desk in Gamestation or GAME (granted not all are spotty but I love stereotypes! since im a scouser, know what i mean? :D ).
I go to GameStop for preorders because they're semi-close to my house, the staff there is reasonably intelligent, and there aren't any independent game stores around. For non-preorders, I go down the street to Fredrich von Meyerstein (aka Fred Meyer, a mega grocery chain in the Western US - Nex knows what I'm talkin' 'bout) to buy the games. For reviews, I turn to peers and the internets.
Now that I'm thinking about my buying habits, I'm a bit sad that I don't have a local game store around my area. *single tear*
You know the store sucks when you see a preoqned game costing more or equal the amount of the non-preowned version.
Gamestation FTW!
Sadly, however, Drakengard is shit.
…At least, it used to have a good retro section before they started unloading the crates of tacky Nintendo merchandise.
As far as I know, trade in prices etc. aren't changing, but I'll keep an ear to the ground.
Now all the games wizards stores are GAME stores.
In my local shopping centre we now have an EB and a GAME store. EB is cheaper.
Also TWATs.
My local shopping centre has both GAME and EB too. There was an independent store as well but they shitted themselves right out of business. They got rid of all Retro and PC stuff, and they all became fucking morons.
It's kind of ridiculous at EB though, some stuff is crazy cheap, and some is just ridiculously expensive.
JB-HI FI seems to be really pushing there games section now as well. The two near me both expanded their games sections heaps and theyv'e started doing trade ins.