Video game retailers

[Smitty]

My next console purchase will be a WiiU at some point this year for myself and there's 0% chance of me buying it from Game, that's for damn sure.

[Oh Danny Boy]

Well that went about as well as you can expect from Game i.e. it went terribly.

''Hi, I bought X bundle yesterday, I wondered if I could swap it for this bundle [shows phone screen]''

''That's online only'' [WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE]

''Right, right. So what can I do with one of the games I bought yesterday in my bundle, Master Chief Collection, i've heard it's still buggy. I'd like to swap it''

''You can trade it in''

''I meant what can I swap it with''

''You can't you can only trade it in''

''I must surely be able to get something of equivalent value at least''

''No it's set bundles. You can't have anything else''

I just left in silence.

HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY STILL IN BUSINESS? It's so frustrating! Not only are they completely inflexible, the service from the two guys (one I was talking to, and some manager butting in) was terrible. They both seemed uninterested in me being there. Neither showed any sign of being concerned by my problem. Neither smiled. Neither made me an offer. Neither apologised despite my problem and subsequent frustration - it's surely obvious if a customer turns and walks out in silence they're not happy. But they didn't say 'sorry we couldn't help'. Nothing. Their faces were blank and they obviously didn't care.

They just repeat a lifeless script. I know it's a totally different outfit but compare how you are treated in Marks and Spencer when you just want something simple like the location of the crisps. You're made to feel valued. Service is quick, friendly and helpful. In Game you might as well be choosing options on a touch screen .

It's just terrible. Fuck! And how does it make any sense for them? What, they'd rather I return the bundle and lose the whole sale than give me a similarly priced game? What the fuck is this bullshit?

I think any of us could have told you that was going to happen without you wasting your time.

GAME strangely have an out dated buisness model of keeping their online and retail businesses as seperate entities. I don't know why they continue to pursue with it when everyone else merged both these sides of their business years ago. GAME are completely inflexible on this, they view the two parts of their company as completely distinct, you may as well have just walked in there and asked them to exchange a game from a bundle you bought from Tesco as far as they are concerned.

When I did Xmas temping in GAME years ago, customers always used to ask if we sell such and such at price X that they saw online and we had to turn them down, they must be losing so much business doing this as none of these people bought what we had in store; they just walked out. GAME's business strategy is so out dated and daft that I'm really surprised that they are still around. It's a shame they took Gamestation down the toilet with them as they used to be a damn good store even after Blockbuster took over.

[Smitty]

Gamestation were always better. They'd offer more choice with bundles, take-this-OR-that options and the like.

[Captain Kelsten]

Smitty - tweet about it, tagging the main game twitter, name the store and also tag @poorserviceuk and @wellshituk. You probably won't get a response today, but they will respond. Twitter is really powerful for stuff like this.

[Smitty]

Thanks but it just feels like a pointless endeavour at this point.

I'll just have to hope another company doing a poor job - 343 - manages to pull its finger out of its arse.

[Dig Dug]

I keep pumping money into my local game but only because I feel like it is the best in the country, it's huge, the staff are all sound and I've found games marked lower than they normally would be (got Blazblue CT Extend for a fiver, for example) quite a few of the staff I remember from the old gamestation that I used to get all my gamecube games from back in the day (I can't do it justice just how much I miss that shop).

All the Game stores I've been too in the big cities are normally pretty shit so I can see why most people would hate the shop.

[denisb]

The reason they keep them separate is profit .

online they have to compete with other online retailers as they are fully aware it's nerds like us shopping around.

On the high St its mums and gran looking for the game little Jonny wants they don't think argos tesco etc have the same stuff cheaper

They want a game go to game shop

They want shoes they go to schu

High St shops need to deliver good service to survive the one that do such as John Lewis thrive the ones that don't die

[Oh Danny Boy]

Still makes little sense, people are quite tech savvy these days; even my 80yr old gran has an Ipad. It doesn't take 1 minute to check all the prices of things online. I'm sure most people are informed enough to know that GAME are taking the piss by charging more than online, if charging more at retail than online was an effective business practice everyone else would be doing the same and GAME wouldn't be constantly in the shitter. Savvy businesses know that such practices just confuses the customer and breeds a negative image of the company.

[Shimmyhill]

agreed, the money in retail is absolutely woeful. As a store manager i was on 17K which after tax was just over a grand. Responsible for a store with 8 staff and a 2 million pound turnover. A joke really.

I was always stunned about how poor the wages were in game, i worked in retail for a while at PC World and the wages were much better - store managers were on 40-60k with bonuses and as a sales guy you could earn loads with commission - as i recall even the most basic wage was 13k!

The online price v instore is annoying but loads of shops do that and the way around it was the click and collect, i have done that in halfords, curry, argos etc while in the shop and paid the better price but for some reason never thought to try it with Game - do they do it?

I am not really sure what Smitty is getting worked up about with the bundles, its pretty obvious they wouldn't swap it out at full value as you didn't pay full value for it hence it being a bundle - again annoying that online is better but if that was the case just buy it online!?

It is nice and easy to knock Game for this but its generally the same - buy a TV and soundbar bundle that every retailer is doing and none of them will give you full value of the soundbar against another product in the shop if you ask them to do it - or simpler ask Tescos to change out something in their 3 for 2 offer and see how far you get, even Waitrose who are otherwise great to deal with but will not change out 'bundles'

Anyhoo, i only came in here to say i spent yet more money in there - someone said smash bros was 50 quid in there, was 40 or 50 for some special version so same price as everyone and even online

[deerokus]

I was sure they didn't do click and collect. Google gives a page for the service but if you click through.. it is an infinite redirect loop. Maybe they tried it and stopped as too many customers were using it to sucessfully save money.

Edit: ah, they did used to do ot.. But it's not real click and collect, argos-style... rather they posted the game to the shop instead of your house, so wtf was the point of that?

[tnman]

HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY STILL IN BUSINESS? It's so frustrating! Not only are they completely inflexible, the service from the two guys (one I was talking to, and some manager butting in) was terrible. They both seemed uninterested in me being there. Neither showed any sign of being concerned by my problem. Neither smiled. Neither made me an offer. Neither apologised despite my problem and subsequent frustration

Well by that point they had taken your money. I can understand the lack of customer care but really don't agree with it. A lot of people are saying that GAME stores go after the mums etc, but surely a lot of mums would want to do the same as smitty? They too will remember this lack of care and won't go back at other times. It doesn't make sense that they have a continued presence and act this way.

[angel]

I knew this bundle was online only, they basically made a mistake selling it in the first place. TBH smitty you got a good deal you shouldnt have, I would look on the positive side.

[sandman]

Not all stores have the same prices online as in store. Even dafter is when you can click and collect from store in an hour at a significantly cheaper price than "instore". See pets at home for example.

[Rob Rymond]

I spent five years at GAME head office and as far as I remember we always left at 1pm on Christmas Eve.

This year according to someone on my Facebook they've advised staff that 2-3pm is when they should be leaving.

The company always had this mentality of being stingy and self-serving, while at the same time trying to convince you it was doing YOU a favour. Looks like if anything it's gotten worse.

This is earlier than most shop floor staff who will be leaving at 7pm or later. And the Boxing Day hours are just ridicolous this year. 6am starts is plain greed. I remember Boxing Day originally was 11-5, then a year later it was 10-5, and then 9-6 and then 8-6 and now even longer.

Also as Head Office was 'shut' on Sundays, we had zero customer service support. If a customer had an issue that needed dealing with they were told to come back in the week. Pathetic for a business operating 7 days a week.

[sandman]

Still makes little sense, people are quite tech savvy these days; even my 80yr old gran has an Ipad. It doesn't take 1 minute to check all the prices of things online. I'm sure most people are informed enough to know that GAME are taking the piss by charging more than online, if charging more at retail than online was an effective business practice everyone else would be doing the same and GAME wouldn't be constantly in the shitter. Savvy businesses know that such practices just confuses the customer and breeds a negative image of the company.

and yet here they are, still going. I don't know if anyone else has realised, but B&M retail is back this year in a big way. Going into any Game in the last few months has meant queuing at weekends to buy anything, often for 15 minutes or so. For every customer that leaves pissed off ( and Smitty is a fool for thinking he could change his game ) 50 leave absolutely satisfied with their purchase.

Game aren't going anywhere. They have seen off all the completion (at least in the south) with even the supermarkets barely bothering with gaming anymore. If anyone is hanging on by a thread on the high street it's HMV. But even they seem to plough on.

[angel]

I must admit their online service is first class. I've used it 3 times, good prices and superb delivery. Its just the stores that are poor

[Eighthours]

Two days ago in GAME, I saw a pre-owned Forza 5 with a sticker on it saying 'ONLY £49.99.' How are these guys still in business? Everything is so much more expensive than it is everywhere else!

[dumpster]

Back in the day, Game bought thousands of copies of Supersonic Racers for Ps1, to make bundle deals. It was a new release Micro Machines clone.they paid next to nothing for them.

Then, managers got the bright idea that the game scanned at £39.99 and the company had a 10 day return policy.

Sales of ps1 bundles went through the roof as managers started offering ps1 with any game at all of your choice for the same price as the supersonic deal. Customer buys the deal, then exchanges supersonic. The problem was that the store paid full price for their new stock, and nothing much for supersonic.

Up to maybe 2 years later, all stores had hundreds of copies of Supersonic Racers in stock that they could not shift, and they had exchanged the latest top quality titles to get them in.

These days, Game higher management will sack you in a heartbeat if they see you doing anything remotely dodgy, and I believe this has happened recently where multiple managers got fired over offering sweeteners and deals that their area manager suggested would be OK. If I worked there I wouldn't do anything that could be construed as unusual, they fire people left and right.

[angel]

GAME treat people like dirt though, thats why they get disgruntled and do all those things.

[angel]

[Kryptonian]

On Games website it even says you can return bundled games and they will pro rata a refund which to a normal person implies there is some flexibility to swap the title you don't want:

http://www.game.co.uk/en/info/Returns-Refunds?storeId=10151&identifier=Returns-Refunds&brdcrmb_trail=Help&langId=44&catalogId=10201

When I brought this up with them (also about MCC as it happens) they just refused to implement that policy and I ended up just coming away too. I should have taken it further but at that point I just couldn't be bothered.

It's like Plums with Sony at the moment in that other thread, when you go through all the official channels and only get ignored you feel powerless.

I had a similar thing with EA this week and ended up getting hold of Peter Moore who sorted it out. I imagine the equivalent guy at Game would give a fuck.

[Kryptonian]

(and Smitty is a fool for thinking he could change his game)

Bollocks. Their own website as detailed above says you can return bundled games and makes no mention of them offering stupid trade in prices. They are just either incompetent or arrogant, not giving a shit about customer service.

Currys happily let me swap a bundled game for an extra pad once. Currys of all places! When they have better customer service than someone you know they're in trouble.

[Gabe]

On Games website it even says you can return bundled games and they will pro rata a refund which to a normal person implies there is some flexibility to swap the title you don't want:

http://www.game.co.uk/en/info/Returns-Refunds?storeId=10151&identifier=Returns-Refunds&brdcrmb_trail=Help&langId=44&catalogId=10201

Am I going blind, because I don't see where it says that? It says things bought in a bundle can be refunded separately, but then full-price is charged for all the remaining components.

[Super Craig]

And that's for online purchases.

[Kryptonian]

Ah, I did buy mine online and it does say that you can return online purchases in store.

I know it says you would be charged more for the rest of the bundle but as I said it implies they can refund bundled games unless they expect you to just give it back for nothing? If they are happy to accept it as a return I don't see why they wouldn't swap it? And I assumed they would have had the same policy for instore items.

If nothing else it shows that their policies are confusing and not consistent?

[Super Craig]

If I had to guess, they won't swap it because they're getting the bundled games at a discounted rate so that they don't lose money on it. The fact that the RRP might be the same means nothing if they can't shift the swapped games.

Allowing you to return a part of the bundle isn't contradictory. If you've bought a 3 for 2, they're not going to let you return the free one and cheat the system. Same for other types of offer. That's standard for retail.

It's shit if you don't want some of the games in the bundle, but I don't think that it's reasonable to just expect them to swap it out.

[Kryptonian]

In smittys case its swapping one game for another in an otherwise identical bundle though which is hard to understand as a customer when they won't.

My experience was that they would let me return MCC but they wouldn't give me any money for it bizarrely. I kept it

[Dig Dug]

Are they really opening at 6am tomorrow? That is mental. I bet I'll go at 8am or something and it'll be packed.

[Boozy The Clown]

Nipped in to my local to check the sale this morning, noticed The Crew had gone from £25 last week to a new sale price of £35.

[Down by Law]

Best thing to do would have been to buy the bundle, go to the back of the queue then trade in the MCC getting them to price match CEX and you would have got about £25 for it. Or just punt it on the forum for about the same amount.