Yeah the GAME nearest me is about 60% funkopops and tat and like 40% games now. Everytime I go by, or in, there's barely anyone there. I remember these stores used to be fucking rammed with kids etc.
I bought an Xbox game there about a year back, and the cashier tried to push me to add on about 10 fucking things. I know it's their job, can't blame them, but no wonder its on its arse. Just let me pay 30 quid and fuck off.
I walked into my local one and half of the shelves were taken up by toys. It might as well be a slightly less awful Be More Geek.Originally Posted by Gray Fox
Mine is also largely toys, board games and Funkos.
They put a sign up last time I went in. It says this store no longer offers trade ins, pre owned games, pre orders, gift cards, digital content, game rewards or game elite rewards.
It's pretty much pointless it being open now.
That's usually the first sign of a closure.
Tesco was a great place to hoover up cheap physical game releases but has since ditched their game section (in my store anyway).
We used to spend SO much time in Electronics Boutique in the early 2000s hunting through hundreds of niche PC games for gems.
CeX is the only place with any kind of niche left. I still remember losing my mind when I spotted a copy of IK+ on the Playstation at Grainger Games. Or getting my 99p copy of Championship Manager 01-02 from Gamestation.
I owe EB my lifelong FM addiction. My bro bought me some proper cheap knock off shitty football game for my 10th birthday, I went to exchange it at EB and ended up picking up CM2. Addiction swiftly followed.
Ghostrunner is free on the Epic store today.
Lies of P has finally won me over. Turns out my first save was ruined by many, many daft decisions. Game of the Year.
It has its flaws I'd say, but it's one of the best souls-like games really and they captured the Bloodborne theme really well.
It's a bit more hopeful than Bloodborne.Toggle Spoiler
Can't wait for the sequel.
High level Tetris is peak savant madness.
Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy is free on the Epic store today only.
Started a new Disco Elysium run.
Batter Cuno.
I don't have the balls to try.
I was talking to a friend recently how much I was enjoying Disco Elysium but dropped the game when I got stuck. Finding out almost 2 years later that the solution was 'Go to Bed' was horrific. Not sure I can just go back though and I've tried restarting a few times but that first run felt like MY character and any decisions I make are false choices.
You could always role play as someone who is enjoying the game.
A really fun, 7.5/10 sort of game this. Good vibes, actually fairly funny, decent set pieces and doesn't hang about for 40 hours.
Well worth a punt for free.
I took six of those Epic freebies over the break. (Guardians of the Galaxy, 20 Minutes Til Dawn, Ghostrunner, Snakebird, The Outer Worlds, Ghostwire Tokyo and Art of Rally)
I should play that last one when I've got free time.
Art of Rally is good. I fire it up on the Switch when I have a few minutes to kill.
Money well spent.
Has Brian Cox got a terminal disease or something and looking to get his affairs in order ala Bruce Willis? He's put his name to a lot of shit lately.
He's lent his voice to five games over the years. This is not out of character.
I wonder what character Brian mains?
Heichachi would be a safe bet. Or maybe he's really into Marshall Law and Paul Pheonix's attempts at running a small business.
Got an email today informing me GAME as a company will not be accepting any trade ins at any of their stores as of 16/02.
Surely the beginning of the end.
Trade-ins (which I then used on PSN credit) was the only reason I entered Game stores.
They're done, I doubt they last the year.
Why would you want to pay full price for a console/game in store?
I haven't bought a game at retail in .... well, since the PS5 launched. Even that was a used copy of Demon's Souls.
I don't even remember when the last time was for me. It must be close to 10 years if not more.
I'm going through my backlog of games I've bought and never played and I'm now at Horizon Zero Dawn. I'm having fun, but surely at some point they have to realize that filling the map with collectibles just for them to be there is just not good game design. Granted, I don't much care for collectibles and 100%-ing etc myself, but I don't mind them being a thing, I just don't get what the point is if all of them are a case of "go where I show you on the map to pick item"?
Last edited by Adramelch; 17-01-2024 at 08:29 PM.
Services giving away stuff for free has covered off some of the games I've been tempted to buy. Plus I've been really, really lucky with getting review codes of games I'm actually keen on. Just looking at my digital libraries is a bit terrifying.
524 on PS4/5 (Even without the review codes, that's probably 200+ PS Plus games.
Probably 6 digitally on the PS3
61 on EGS
71 on Steam
Oh, and 5 XBLA titles. And that game Fry Crayola made
I’m in that game Fry made. I say “oi oi” as you pass me.
Surprised you didn't win awards for that.
What was that game of Fry's called?
Rasternauts. You can still buy it on itch.io for like $3.
Outrageous that I didn’t.
There is hardly any games in Game anyway, last time I went in with my nephew it was wall to wall tat.
There's like a couple of shelves for the main platforms and then the rest is FuncoPops and their dead, dead stares.
I needed to buy a battery recharger and had no idea that GAME was now in a corner of SportsDirect and House of Fraser
Mine is too. Tucked away at the back. It's gone from a decent sized shop with a team running it, to one bloke on. Maybe a second for when he needs a day off.
It's a shame, but Amazon will drive everyone out of business.
I don't think it's just Amazon that have had their pants down. Physical sales of all media are declining unless your a pervert like me who hoards it and annoys me wife.
Game seemed unwilling or unable to adapt to that, continuing with laughably high prices. They needed to find a niche to evolve into but they bet the farm on funkopops and being a shit alternative CEX without the second hand media.
Their online shit was laughable.
£5 delivery fee, even for click and collect? Shambolic.
What I still cannot understand is the premium the consoles put on digital games. It should be cheaper to sell it digital, not more expensive.
If they sold your AAA game for say £45 digitally when physical copies are £60-70 they'd do much better.
Games were 70 quid in 1998 made with 10% of the people working over a shorter period of the time and you think not having to burn a DVD is worth a 20 quid discount?
And then they'll sell digital deluxe editions for £10-£30 dearer. I still think the services side of things is more damaging. "I'll wait til it drops to £30." is now "I'll wait til it's on Gamepass.
In my mind they were a solid £40 until just around this gen released and they went up towards the £60 or so we have now.
And yes I do, considering they also wouldn't have to pay for any shipping, the people to staff the stores that sell you the games and the cost of renting the store itself. They should be cheaper than their physical counterparts and then not being so is mind boggling.
Playstation doesn't pay for GAMES staff. They do pay for the servers that you download a 120GB video game they spent 200 million dollars developing.
I probably paid around £45 for a copy of Silent Hill back in the day. The idea that pricing largely stayed that for 20 years (whilst the cost of development ballooned) is wild.
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