GAME in serious trouble

Procrastastudy

Typical RTE - 3 days behind :P

PJTierney

Haven't been in town recently since I was doing some work for Konami, but is the GAME store in Limerick (Cruises Street) still open or was that one of the ones shut down?

PseudoFamous

PJTierney wrote: »

Haven't been in town recently since I was doing some work for Konami, but is the GAME store in Limerick (Cruises Street) still open or was that one of the ones shut down?

They've all been closed in Ireland.

PJTierney

That's a shame, GAME's been around for as long as I can remember

Guess it's GameStop, Tesco or Argos for me to pick up stuff now, but GAME was always great for Strategy Guides, Collectors Editions and whatnot.

Sabre Man

I will probably only be buying games online from now on. The other shops are useless when it comes to PC games.

Procrastastudy

While it's nice to see some hope being held out for the various local GAME Stores it reminded me a bit of this:

http://youtu.be/shs7VQhVvxA

Hopefully a little levity. Best wishes to everyone I shall be in to my local in a couple of days bearing gifts - keep going guys. While I shouldnt laugh it was just typical that the Irish stores knew what was going on while the English stores blundered on and then found themselves copying Ireland. The more things change the more they stay the same...

MadYaker

Was a bit sad to find Game in Galway closed yesterday Gamestop are useless. One tiny shelf dedictaed to PC games and thats it.

RiseToTheTop

Steam FTW for PC games now.

norrie rugger

Am I looking at the same Steam as everyone else?
They seem to have some insane high prices there

dpe

norrie rugger wrote: »

Am I looking at the same Steam as everyone else?
They seem to have some insane high prices there

Valve price all their games at a $:€ 1:1 ratio (plus VAT) so Euro Steam prices are stupidly high, and yet they can do no wrong in the eyes of the fanboys. Go figure. (Fortunately for me I still have UK bank account so I can buy in Sterling with a bit of IP jiggery-pokery and its way cheaper. Bit of advice, go to the North and buy a pre-pay credit card like the O2 one; its often cheaper to get download content from UK rather than Euro sites).

Trevor451

Its not valves fault for the pricing of third party games. The publishers themselves decide on the pricing.

Helix

dpe wrote: »

Valve price all their games at a $:€ 1:1 ratio (plus VAT) so Euro Steam prices are stupidly high, and yet they can do no wrong in the eyes of the fanboys. Go figure. (Fortunately for me I still have UK bank account so I can buy in Sterling with a bit of IP jiggery-pokery and its way cheaper. Bit of advice, go to the North and buy a pre-pay credit card like the O2 one; its often cheaper to get download content from UK rather than Euro sites).

cheaper again to buy in dollars

dpe

Helix wrote: »

cheaper again to buy in dollars

Indeed but for most people that means going through something like USunlocked, which is a bit of a pain, whereas getting hold of a UK pre-pay card is a doddle.

norrie rugger

norrie rugger wrote: »

Am I looking at the same Steam as everyone else?
They seem to have some insane high prices there

When using Steam never buy a new release, always wait for the sale. Give it a month or three and you'll pick up titles for a few euro. I got the last Deus Ex a few months after its release for 12 euro

PseudoFamous

dpe wrote: »

Indeed but for most people that means going through something like USunlocked, which is a bit of a pain, whereas getting hold of a UK pre-pay card is a doddle.

I just get one of my American broskis to gift me the game, and I give them the money through paypal.

Deleted User wrote: »

When using Steam never buy a new release, always wait for the sale. Give it a month or three and you'll pick up titles for a few euro. I got the last Deus Ex a few months after its release for 12 euro

I got it for a fiver in the Square Enix sale >_>

dpe

Trevor451 wrote: »

Its not valves fault for the pricing of third party games. The publishers themselves decide on the pricing.

Riiight. So every game from every publisher just happens to be sold at a 1:1 equivalency on new release, even when publishers don't do that at retail. Don't be so naive. Valve issue "price guides" to publishers and have done it since the start, and then happily use the "its not our fault we're only a little development house, talk to publisher" spiel.

dpe

dpe wrote: »

Riiight. So every game from every publisher just happens to be sold at a 1:1 equivalency on new release, even when publishers don't do that at retail. Don't be so naive. Valve issue "price guides" to publishers and have done it since the start, and then happily use the "its not our fault we're only a little development house, talk to publisher" spiel.

Steam are making massive profits on new releases, they sell new titkes from anywhere int he region of 40-60 euro while in stores the same titles retail for 35-35 euro.

It's not big a deal for me as I will happily wait a month or two for the next sale and pick up the big titles for a fraction of the normal price.

jill_valentine

Notorious wrote: »

I share your pain, except we can shut off our lights and we tend to knock off the music at a respectable hour.

Fight on brother (or sister)!

lol, sister.

We can shut off the internal lights and music, but we're in a shopping centre, and we've got no control over theirs. They both stay on late and come on early.

We've invested in some earplugs since though, you'll all be pleased to know.

super_furry

Is the stock still there in the shops being occupied? Passed Dundrum and noticed it was cleared out?

marco_polo

Trevor451 wrote: »

Its not valves fault for the pricing of third party games. The publishers themselves decide on the pricing.

It suits both parties really, ultimately it is up to the publisher to set their tier one region price, but I think there seems little doubt that Valves pricing guidlines gently nudge them in the €1=$1 direction.

Steams real problem is a horribly inflexible pricing regime for the European Tier one region, which basically makes absolutely sure that the euro price covers the highest VAT rate in the Zone (and more as the max allowable VAT rate is 25% in the EU).

After VAT comes off the sale the remainder is divided between Valve and the publisher as usual. So the the lower the VAT rate in the country of purchase the more money Valve and the publisher make, and the stronger the dollar the more money they make. Wins all round for everybody except Euro consumers.

These are one of the few publishers that have actually bothered adjusting their euro prices. The whole thread is worth a read as it gives you an idea of what goes on in the background.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=29754012&postcount=59

jill_valentine

super_furry wrote: »

Is the stock still there in the shops being occupied? Passed Dundrum and noticed it was cleared out?

Yes all the stock is still here.

It's been packed up in a show of good faith, but it's going absolutely nowhere. If and when there's a resolution, we want to be able to just hand them the keys and walk straight out, without giving them any excuse to cast aspersions on our intentions.

The downside of this is that it's not the 24/7 xbox party you might all think it is.

Varik

jill_valentine wrote: »

Yes all the stock is still here.

It's been packed up in a show of good faith, but it's going absolutely nowhere.

I take it you mean you're not sending it off, rather than keeping it "hostage".

jill_valentine

Of course. We have all the stuff almost ready to send away, but no couriers have attempted to collect it.

ShadowHearth

jill_valentine wrote: »

Yes all the stock is still here.

It's been packed up in a show of good faith, but it's going absolutely nowhere. If and when there's a resolution, we want to be able to just hand them the keys and walk straight out, without giving them any excuse to cast aspersions on our intentions.

The downside of this is that it's not the 24/7 xbox party you might all think it is.

get your play station out so! :pac:

sorry, i could not ressist

Guy:Incognito

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

Steam FTW for PC games now.

They know how to charge too. I fanceid getting FM2012 the other day. They are lookign for €50 for it.

jill_valentine

Incidentally, I'm sorry for not being totally forthcoming about my perspective previously in the thread, but the situation was still developing and I wasn't sure if it was a good idea.

Out of interest, this thread is how I found out my job was gone, which should give you some idea of why I'm quite so angry about how this went down.

Notorious

jill_valentine wrote: »

Incidentally, I'm sorry for not being totally forthcoming about my perspective previously in the thread, but the situation was still developing and I wasn't sure if it was a good idea.

Out of interest, this thread is how I found out my job was gone, which should give you some idea of why I'm quite so angry about how this went down.

Same here, I didn't want to mention anything about working for Game, but that doesn't matter now. The internet is how we all kept up to date with the position of our jobs.

jill_valentine

Slightly off topic, but there is a little Bob The Builder kiddies coin op thing a few feet away from the shop that plays a tune every few minutes and it's making me want to stab a JCB in the face.

Sierra Oscar

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

They know how to charge too. I fanceid getting FM2012 the other day. They are lookign for €50 for it.

Blame the publishers to be honest - they set the RRP on Steam.

Guy:Incognito

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Blame the publishers to be honest - they set the RRP on Steam.

I rarely buy on steam either way, was just pointing it out. A physical copy can be got on play for €20 iirc and in shops for €30 or under.