UK Retailer GAME To Close 40 Stores In "Rationalisation Programme"

I’m still surprised they are around. They had problems when I worked for them nearly 20 years ago. They just aren’t competitive at all.

This photo in this article looks like the game store in Cardiff, it's located right next door to sports direct in St David's shopping centre

@popey1980, one thing that frustrated me was the in-store prices, always £5 more expensive that the advertised online prices

The slow, shambling death of Game is due to the company itself, nobody else.

It's not just the fact they're overpriced. They've alienated gamers by trying to appeal to the casual market. Half the store is taken up by mobile phones. Most of the rest is pricy games merch.

Staff are under trained with little to no knowledge of the games they're selling.

You get harassed at the till to buy extras on top of your game. No, I don't need 2 years of insurance on a switch cartridge, ta.

I feel for anyone who is going to lose their job, but this is undoubtedly a good riddance. Hopefully a new retailer rises to plug the gap, cos I do think there's a market for a games shop on the modern High Street. CeX is evidence of that.

I must spend thousands on gaming each year but can’t remember the last time I purchased from GAME. They don't (didn't) share my interest in Nintendo and I always found a better experience at Smyths.

The higher prices and insistence of taking new games out of their shrink wrap for display (their minimum of 2 on display policy) saw sales from me drop significantly over the last 10 years. Really I only bought my PS4 from them in recent years. Same with that “New” games bought online wouldn’t always be Sealed. Try explaining that one when a boxed special edition that looks like it’s been tossed around in the break room.

Went to GAME at the weekend and the prices were ridiculous. Sw/Sh was priced £54, LM was priced £50. People must still buy them but you can find them much cheaper with just a quick search online.

Such a shame but only themselves to blame.

Smyths sell pretty much everything £5 - £10 cheaper so naturally any shopping I personally do will be done there.

I do wherever possible prefer going into a store and picking up a game myself rather than ordering from Amazon etc

Mainly because I want the game there and then rather than having to wait a few days for it to arrive in the post

I've tried supporting them as I like to pop into a brick and mortar store every now and then, but some of their pricing is ridiculous. I noticed some second-hand games in their own store being more expensive than new ones! Also, the last two times I tried buying something and brought the games I wanted to buy to the till, they didn't have the games in stock, so I left empty-handed.

I am not surprised GAME is always more expensive than it's competitors usually by at least £5, if it wasn't because i sometimes grab t-shirts and mugs from there i wouldn't bother looking in occasionally

@Welshland just what I was thinking.

No idea how they've kept going with their mad prices. Popped in just after Christmas to try to pick up Pokemon Shield. £55..

The 2020s will be the decade (exclusive) game retailers will disappear.

The Brexit effect rolls onwards. Just wait until we have to pay additional tariffs on games products because we’re out of the single market and customs union...

Sadly not a surprise. I always found the staff to be enthusiastic and knowledgable. It was always my go to place when exchanging games and consoles in the 90’s and early 00’s.
The obvious issues are online shopping and digital gaming. I still prefer to have a physical copy of games but it is what it is.

The other, and sometimes ignored fact, is that the UK market for video games is slowing down. Finances are tight for so many people now that 400 pounds on consoles is becoming a much bigger ask.
GAME closing stores is just further proof that video gaming in the UK needs a new injection of life and affordability.

@sanderev New game stores, probably but I think independent retro game stores will stay. Modern gaming as a whole is sadly moving increasingly away from physical and more towards digital, subscriptions and streaming.

Perhaps if they focused less on the sock bartering economy they would be doing better.

@Protocol_Penguin Not that I want to agree nor disagree with you on whether Brexit is an issue, but it's not actually the reason here why GAME is in hot waters.
As a retailer, GAME has proved time and time again they are unable to adapt and be competitive as a whole.

Personally I'm surprised they've been able to hang around for so long but I'll still be somewhat upset if they did go.
I used to buy my stuff from them all the time but not only does it feel like their stock in-stores is bare bones all the time, but their prices even for pre-owned things are often way too demanding.

I used to work at one years back when I needed a job and it's probably one of the worst experiences as a retail employee. Being forced to try selling add-ons here and there. Disc insurance here, pre-owned versions when the customer clearly wanted a brand new one. I feel like if GAME was more consumer friendly they wouldn't have to act as desperately as they do on a normal basis.
People would get mad at you and there was nothing you could do because it's simply how you was told to work.

I don't know much on if GAME is different now but maybe if they get new management for the whole company, they'll still have a chance to kick back with customer trust and loyalty.

@ShaiHulud
I totally agree with you, their used games are often more expensive than buying the game new or often are only a little bit cheaper. I like going into Game but haven’t bought anything from there in years.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention of course a big part of me not shopping there anymore was clearly the online market. I'm obviously gonna try saving any amount of money I can and GAME often seems to think a key-chain will convince me to dish out the extra £5 there instead.

It's a pity we won't have a dedicated gaming store on the High Street. Smyths and Argos do a far better job on price and customer service.

Gone are the days of a vibrant trade-in scene - even the pre-owned prices are crazy

This is where I get my new games from hopefully they don’t go

@Welshland I think that is the st David's store in Cardiff. Probably why they've used that picture because of the sports direct next door 👍🏻

A terrible company which seems content to rip off it's dwindling faithful customers. CEX is much better as is the mighty eBay.

It's sad to see specialist retailers having problems. I've always liked going in and just having a look around because you just never know if you might find a bargain that you want. I used to shop at GAME all the time up until the release of Yoshi's Woolly World. I remember going into the GAME store about a week after it came out to see if I could afford it and the price was £38. The Sainsburys store which was literally right next door was selling it for £33. I'd like to support the specialists but hey... I'm not a mug either.

Remember when you could go into HMV, Game, Electronics Buttock, GameStation or your local indie store to browse and compare games?

I remember my local GameStation in Derby having a Japanese PS2 set up behind the counter. It blew my mind to see Ridge Racer 5. There was also a guy who always just stood at the back wall quoting prices when asked. He never did anything else.

@Kyranosaurus I'd agree with you there. The effects of Brexit will surely be felt - or are already being felt - in lots of sectors in the coming years, but the demise of Game has already been happening anyway.

Didn't know they were part of Sports Direct. Makes sense, both awful companies with outdated customer service and policies. Surprised Game has lasted this long.

Last time I set foot in a GAME was three years ago. Was looking at a PS4 bundle online - the advert said 'available online and in-store'. Went to local store, saw an ad displaying the bundle, spoke to staff who said 'yeah we have it' and told me to join the twenty minute long queue.

Got to front of queue, staff said out of stock. I said but the guy over there said you have it. Manager came out, not apologetic at all, and said something like 'we don't actually do that bundle here, when it says available in-store it doesn't mean all stores.' I pointed to the in-store ad advertising the bundle. He says 'yeah but that doesn't mean in this particular store'. I sighed.

Worst part is, he then told me that they had the parts of the bundle in-stock and I could buy the items individually to form the bundle - which came out at like £50 more expensive. I told him to f-off. GAME always have been an absolute joke and the company deserves to die.

I do like going to my local GAME on occasion as it helps remind me what games are available; I always find it easier to browse in an actual store than online. But it always irks me that it you buy a "New" game, the game you are sold is more often than not, not a sealed copy, but the disc and manual (when they have them) put into the case you picked of the shelf which more often that not, is slightly damaged from other shoppers mistreating it when browsing themselves. I know that sounds petty, but if you are paying full price for a new game, I would like a sealed copy. Other retailers don't seem to have this issue. If it wasn't for stuff like this, and being overpriced, I would probably be more surprised that some GAME stores are shutting.

They need to go to be honest.

While I Agree with everyone else’s comments regarding some pre owned games being over priced and I don’t like the fact that nearly half of the store is taken up by pre owned stuff like mobile phones it’s just not like it was years ago and I now very rarely go into one anymore but everyone seems to have over looked one point in the article which is another big reason why a lot of high street retailers are struggling and that is because of having to pay in some cases ridiculously high rents to the landlord or local councils which are just unaffordable and are leaving a lot of places with empty shops and becoming mainly filled with charity shops who get significant cuts on the rent they have to pay for them

@Welshland @popey1980 this is the problem in general they are too expensive because of their overheads for the stores themselves.

@Protocol_Penguin How can you say its the brexit effect when GAME have been charging far more than other retailers for many years? the last time i bought anything from them was 2014 getting a ps4 on a black friday deal. They've always overpriced their stuff because they've had no other real high street competition until recently,but they've not adapted. Plus the fact (in my experience in the stores local to me) they've always had an elitist attitude and disregard of pretty much everything Nintendo. Shame people may lose their jobs over this and having less retail shops isn't a good thing either.

@popey1980 They're still quite big here in Spain. Their rewards or w.e are pretty decent too IIRC I might be buggin tho

Same as I said on the other article. Stores like this, EB and Game Stop are just not able to compete with online retailers who can ship the same product right to your door, cheaper than buying it in person.

Add to that the general shift toward digital that many people are making...

Welcome to the capitalism world. If brick and mortar stores don't offer something better than their rivals they lose. That's life. Don't like it? Tough. We don't get a choice.

@Welshland looks like it, an older photo perhaps

As i mentioned on the EB article, i feel sorry for the shop staff with the threat of their jobs on the line again in as many years.

But they are the only places in the UK that have 3DS streetpasses right?
Not that there is one over here, but ah well looks like I will NEVER complete the 3D pictures in Streetpass

@Kyranosaurus the more expensive gaming becomes, the lower the demand will be for gaming products and services. Games already are more expensive relatively speaking due to the collapse of the Pound in June 2016, and that situation will get worse when the currency sinks lower + imposition of tariffs and restrictions on imported products in future. I’m afraid that anything Game (the company) does is merely rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, so to speak, as a retailer dedicated solely to non-essential imported goods is going to be doomed when Brexit fully bites and drags down living standards in this country – people struggling to pay for food in a collapsing economy aren’t going to be buying the PS5 or Switch Pro en masse.

@RadioHedgeFund Exeter was a mecca around the turn of the millennium - it had all of the major players, Gameststion, a big GAME concession in Debenhams, plus three or four really good independents, one of which, IT Games used to import also (it was where I got Animal Crossing GC + the freeloader). Nowadays, needless to say, there is only a GAME left, and it's terrible.

@vyseofhr We still have an HMV in Exeter for what's if worth (I know, not much!).

It's sad but expected. These guys haven't been competitive for years.

Everything they sell is marked up.

@popey1980 They're still quite popular here in Spain. Also I might be buggin but their rewards program is pretty fair from what I remember

@sanderev People was saying that 5 - 10 years back

Sad people will lose their jobs, but another retailer unable to compete with the internet.

Prices are garbage at GAME.

The pricing they have are not competitive at all. Most of the time if I use the high street for switch games I use Argos. They also have stock at Argos of more hard to come by products like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter Generations. Most of the time I also find it better to sell the games at CEX for cash rather than trade in at Game - CEX at times have given me significantly more for a game than Game offered.

I hope the employees land on their feet.

I did buy some use (pre-owned) and also new games from them, when they had relatively low shipment prices to Europe.

But this was years ago in the late years of PS2 and golden era of Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles. And when they had many PC games too on CD/DVDs.

They even had promos/sales like buy 2 choose 3 for 10 ₤ and such.

I remember there was a shop better than GAME 20 years ago in my area called SKILL 2000. It was straight up a game shop, selling import games and the like. didn't know why it closed down. There was some rumor with GAME being behind it.
All i ever hear about GAME these days were "the people that work there are rude" when they are jolly people to talk to.
Still it sucks for the people that work there ...guess the internet was a mistake after all.

Figure this was coming since they screewed me over on my MMKII exclusive CE order and still to this day refuse to acknowledge they scammed those whom PreOrdered it.

GAME went bankrupt in 2015 here in Sweden. They used to sell quite a lot of random retro games, especially Nintendo ones I think, so it was always fun to check what was up for sale when you walked past them in a mall. The staff were friendly, and I think many of the old games I have are from there.

Sadly, it's pretty hard to find retro game stores nowadays unless you're specifically looking for them. Actually, there's not a lot of store chains that just sell new games either, especially what with GameStop closing down last year.

Hope Chester stays, never forget queuing outside GAME at midnight for my copy of Ocarina of Time. It’s a shame they’ve gone to pot really.

@Franklin People always seem to miss this. We keep hearing about "retail apocalypse" and "online competition" when, in the US, online still accounts for barely over 10% of all retail. When you look at the real cause of retail's implosion, at least in the US, it comes down to a commercial real estate bubble on a scale that will probably lead to the second great depression when it finally bursts (properties are valued far, far, far beyond what anyone would reasonably pay for them, which apparently isn't just the US, since GAME's quote alludes to that as well), and the fact that most "retailers" spend far more of their funding and attention on playing stocks, investments, and buyouts than on their actual retail business. They're financial firms that also have a retail arm, not companies centered around doing retail.

In the US, a lot of the "big" retailers that are failing now have been under obscene debt since the buyouts in the late 80's, and were relying on 80's level growth forever and ever and ever to pay for it. The moment sales slowed, poof, the bank came collecting and they had to liquidate.

Ohhh well never mind.
Ive been on & off with game for years here's my experience with them when ive ordered pre-rder limited edition with steelbook's they don't come and i contact them and they say they have sold out but heaps are for sale on ebay.
Also games are over priced they give you really low money for trading in games like £2 a game. The staff don't care to much and would rather be around the back.

I miss the old school independent game stores where somebody that loved games deep side would own a store and would give you a fare price for trading a game and there 2nd hand games would be a fare price and an arcade machine would be in the corner of the shop
(killer instinct). It's like the big stores have made the independent stores all but nearly all close and it's game or amazon for games.

I the snes and spectrum zx days independent stores where many and looking around would be a joy with people that knew about games and what you where talking about.

@NEStalgia

I was being a little flippant, but interesting read.

I was predicting another great depression when the last crash hit (believe it or not). I wasn't quite right, it was more of a recession.

But governments and central banks have run out of options for when the next financial crisis occurs, the family silver has already been sold. So could well be on a 1929 scale.

It's fairly overdue historically speaking, and I'm seeing similar signs from a decade ago.

@Protocol_Penguin That may or may not be true but what I'm trying to say here is that way before any of this was even considered an issue, GAME had been in this same hot water before.

Before the European Union had ever been considered a topic to dominate current politics, GAME had shown both poor judgement and management, amazing people time and time again how a company could be in trouble for so long yet last so long. I'm not making this up to say that Brexit isn't an issue either. I'm simply saying that the chances of this happening purely because of it, and not (yet again) due to GAME's own incompetence is highly unlikely.

Dig through past news articles of the last 2 decades if you don't believe me because this one isn't the first.

My local GAME closed a couple of years ago and was replaced by the fifth or sixth mobile phone repair shop on the high street. GAME just can't compete with online merchants.

My local one in Chichester closed a couple of weeks ago right after Christmas.

@Grumblevolcano True, there will be a market for retro for the foreseeable future. But at sometime people will stop playing 80s and 90s games, and then we'll have 2000s and 2010s games as "retro", but those are already on a lot of "digital" services. At some point, there will be no physical media for new games, meaning there will also be a delayed end of retro games.

I haven't used them since they dropped the £1 beat CEX trade in. Always preferred Gamestation as at least the staff at those places knew what they were doing. The amount of time I've known more than the assistant at GAME is scary. Plus the manager at my local one is a bit of a knob.

@Franklin Exactly! You weren't as wrong as it looks in '08. I'm not sure what policies the UK invoked last time, but it really should have been a depression overall and only wasn't, in the US, because the government stole the next 20 years of taxpayer input and floated it into the banks so they could keep going as if nothing had happened. It didn't fix anything, it just taped over the the leak to hold it for another length of time, kicking the can so the damage happens on someone else's watch. And even with that, the net effect is STILL catching up to us with the "retail apocalypse" being one part of that (for all those complicated, indirect reasons above.)

I recall at the time there was discussion that the commercial real estate bubble was much much worse than the housing bubble that caused the '08 "recession" and that it would be true disaster when that burst.

Since the leak plugging at the time, that bubble has only become a lot, lot, lot worse. In the US, most commercial real estate, on the surface, is overinflated and is a big reason a lot of retail closes. But looking closer it's so absurdly overvalued that nothing could ever realistically use it at that price. And landlords are leveraged based on the on-paper value of their other real estate, not the real saleable value, and has a lot to do with retail and mall closings like this. I presume it's working similarly in the UK.

The shell game goes like this: I'm a mid-level shopping center owner. I own, say, 15 shopping centers/malls across a sizable region. I want to buy a 16th at $250M. I take out a loan based on my total portfolio value, including anchor store locations that each have a leasing potential of $200 per square foot at a total of $2.8M/yr each. The bank gives me the loan and I buy the new shopping center. The problem is this: In the current consumer spending market no retailer is going to pay $2.8M a year for those spaces, so they will sit abandoned. I'm making NO money to pay back that loan. However the bank is using the listed potential leasing value of my total properties as collateral.

Actual capitalism - supply & demand says if I have big box real estate, and they sit empty, I should lower the price to sell the space at prices retailers are willing to pay. Stores move in, turn a profit, the community economy flows, everyone is happy.

But no, I can NOT lower that on paper leasing price. At all. If I do, then my total assets are now lower valued, now I'm over-leveraged, and the bank will come collecting. And I can't pay them back! So the more abandoned property I have sitting at absurd lease rates nobody will ever pay, I can borrow MORE money from the bank based on the theoretical value of that property and keep running. I just have to keep the property at that listed rate and say I'm waiting for a 10 year lease from he biggest stores based on their historical (1995-2005) high rates. I get more money by accruing more debt based on imaginary values that aren't supported by the market for my assets than actually pricing the assets according to the market and making an actual profit!

So part 2 of that story is GAME/GameStop comes in, and they finally cede to try paying $200/mo per sq ft. They last about 2 years, realize they can't turn the amount of profit needed to pay that, and break the lease. Add to that their likely leveraged buyout from 30 years ago where the future earnings of the company was the collateral to the bank for the loan to the new owners for the overvalued price they paid for it - which required permanent growth of sales from the 1989 high, and the 1989 rate of growth to make the numbers match....even if they're turning a profit at $200/sq ft, it's not a sufficient profit to please the bank that basically controls them. And inventory liquidation is the bank's demand. Thus their $5 more than the competition pricing that only further harms their position. That's the other part of the shell game.

Eventually I run out of free loan money, and go under. Then the bank goes to collect and finds assets not worth what they loaned out for them. Now the bank itself is overleveraged. They "redevelop" the land for something willing to pay up front. Usually something high luxury or publicly funded. That itself was built on similar loans....

The shell games and IOUs work as long as nobody's looking hard and collecting. We're pretty much running on a whole economy of IOU's that date back over a quarter of a century and it only works as long as nobody's collecting. We spent 2020's money in 1993. We spent the treasury patching the hole in 2008. And the sinkhole has grown a lot since then beneath our feet. Housing was big. This is bigger. And we're out of tape. Stores like GAME are just canaries in the coal mine. Yes, they were mismanaged, but not really in the ways people tend to think, and it applies to most business, not just them.

People are becoming acutely aware of the "retail apocalypse" but not the underlying causes. People are mostly buying the line that "online shopping has displaced traditional retail, and millennials buy less, and would rather dine out for "experiences" than buy things." It's a lie steeped in truth. The "millennials" the media keeps talking about are in fact the >$100k/yr group. AKA they describe the habits of rich kids and apply it to an entire generation as the reason for the visible economic effect. Turns out rich kids behave a lot like their rich parents did, and everyone else behaves much like their average parents did, too, economically. It hides the reality. For now.

@Heavyarms55 may find the above interesting for putting in perspective other recent conversations about the happenings of civilizations... I'll bring the popcorn. You can mug someone for some butter.

I hear what people are saying but they're not all bad. Got an xbox bundle with about 4 games including Red Dead 2 physical and Forza Horizon 4 download. Deal was online. Went to Thornaby Teesside Park Game and deals instore were slightly different instore and a bit - about a tenner - more expensive. However they were happy to honour the online deal. Not only that when I mentioned in passing that I already had the cheapest game, Prey, in the bundle but was still a good deal they offered to swap it with the cheapest game from another bundle, Dishonored semi-sequel. So not that big a deal but things like that make a difference and just can't be done online. Getting into mobiles was dumb though. I think CEX need to be careful. I often see them handing out couple hundred quid for phones, but rarely anyone buying for a couple hundred...

Does anyone else try not to nod off when trying to read a comment longer than a novel??

When GAME 'merged' with Gamestation, they should have adopted the latter model (and their expertise). They might today still have been a profitable company. Overpriced, poor range, poor staff knowledge, zero customer service....hardly surprising they are dying.

No one here will be sad to see them go. That says it all.

@Protocol_Penguin there's always one (idiot) who has to bring up Brexit!

My 2 cents. A friend of mine applied for a job at game. Very attractive woman. No interest in games. Just needed a job after finishing uni. Got the job. Was not the "go to guy" you used to find in every store when I was younger.
Popped in there just before Christmas with a guy I support. He knows everything you can think of about gaming. Very attractive woman working there. He was trying to speak to her about something, think it was the new Star Wars jedi game. She didn't know what he was talking about.
I've never been to a clothing store and met a staff member who didn't know about the clothes. This kind of practice is what has been killing GAME since I was young. Not to get at the people who are being employed who don't enjoy games, but someone shouldn't be working in a dedicated gaming store who doesn't breathe video games.
If I go to my local hobby store every member of staff gets involved in MTG or yugi oh, has a working knowledge of most of the games they sell and they get involved with the customer. If GAME did this, people would probably be more inclined to come in and drop cash.

@C-Olimar I agree. I used to LOVE going into Game during the Gamecube Era. That was exciting. So many games! Wall to wall. And a big bargain 2nd hand bin in the middle. It was cluttered, but invitingly so. The one in my town looks so bare bones now half of it is some dark PC online gaming area, I think? The other is a few chart titles and merch. Lots of boxes with download codes too..... :/

Sad days. Much prefer going into Computer Exchange.

The last time I stepped in GAME was when I needed to get legendary Pokémon download codes during 2016, and maybe a few more Pokémon after that. For browsing games, I'll go into CeX, which is much more interesting, as you might find something rare or something cheap. My local CeX had an Atari Lynx in the shop window last time I passed by. I didn't want it, but it was sure great to see something silly like that for sale on the high street regardless.

If I want to buy a new Switch game at launch, either Amazon or Nintendo UK Store is where I'd go. Otherwise, CeX or eBay.

I buy loads of games all the time, and I never see a reason to go into a GAME.

The retail apocalypse is here whether you hide your head in the Amazon box or not. In 2019 the preliminary estimates are 16% of all retail sales will be online with Amazon capturing 43% of it. Retail is a huge swath from gas stations to high end department stores and groceries as well. There is some growth but the majority of it is low paying wages and low cost goods. This means retailers that paid higher wages continue to adjust, close and cut people, infrastructure and revenue for local economies. This leads to a domino effect which causes more companies to be affected. It is blatantly obvious by the bare shelves at surviving stores. No one can afford to hold product now. It is too risky which drives sales online to get what is needed fueling more impact on brick and mortar based sellers.

Real Estate has had some bubbles but the current trend of vacant properties is a side effect, not a causal effect for gambling landlords.

Personally I miss the video game/software retailers we had in the US as I prefer physical copies and a good part of the fun was going there to look and finding gems and deals. Not the same when you are scrolling through thousands of suspect marketplace vendors.

@SwitchForce Where you at the pre release event?

The days of retailers charging way more than the value of the product are over because they don't have anybody bent over a barrel anymore due to online and cheaper prices for the same product. That's why they have to trick and gyp you. Which makes you not want to go there for sure.

I made one purchase in GAME last year. I went in for a browse because I really don't go in very often and they happened to have PS4 controllers for £35 which I thought was quite a good price for an offline store, and I wanted one for my Apple TV because I knew support for it was coming.

Then more recently I realised I forgot to buy Gears 5 for my collection. Amazon was ~£35 for standard and ~£50 for ultimate so I thought I would check the GAME website while the sales are on. £50 for the standard edition as a special offer and £35 for pre-owned.

I bought the standard edition from Amazon.

@Welshland I believe it is Cardiff as it has that weird VR experience on the left as you walk in

Personally I’m surprised it hasn’t already vanished. The prices are higher than anywhere else I get my games Preowned or new, new games are unsealed unless you’re buying within a week of release, trade in is a joke £13 for breath of the wild when down the road at CEX I’d get £33.
Personally there are 2 local to where I live and one has really bad customer service and the other is really pushy, now I only go in While my wife goes shopping and I’m just looking to waste time

GAME are you too expensive. Staff can sometimes go over the top, even to the point of telling me to make sure I don't get my eShop card wet.

I think I’ve only walked into Game about 3 times in the past 5 years. CEX about twice. Disgusting place. I’ve gone 99% digital with my Switch, and with the Wii U it was either Amazon or Argos. The console store I used to spend the most in was Advance Console Entertainment back in the 90s. They used to do mods and imports. Iconic London store.

@WesEds, the photo is 100% the Cardiff store, not that it matters. I'm in cardiff this weekend after a very lengthy absence, purposely went to St David's 2 to see if the was the same photo. It looks like the photo could have been taken a couple of days prior to the article going up, everything's the same.

@Protocol_Penguin they were in trouble when I worked for them in 2012. Also in 2008 they had to buy Gamestation to survive. Please, please, do not confuse 'Brexit' as a blanket to throw over mis-managed companies, I know it's easy to chuck around and apply to everything.

Massively overpriced! I only go in there now and then to get ideas for new games to play and see what's around.
I always buy elsewhere because why should I pay £5 - £15 more than Smyths or Amazon for example?

I'll always try to get a game in an actual store rather than online cause I wanna play it on the day, and there's a special feeling you get when you pick a game up in the shop that you just don't get when buying online!