Game store closed

wheresmybeaver

via the Irish Times

I suppose the writing has been on the wall for quite a while, but it was still a sad moment passing the shuttered Game store on Patrick St this morning. I know it wasn't a local independent store or anything, but it was always my first port of call for gaming, until the internet arrived of course.

I very well remember buying Theme Park for Windows 3.1 on 2 (3?) floppy disks here many years ago...

Anyway, back to Angry Birds!

gimmick

I thought it was only UK stores that were in trouble? Obviously not. Ugh.

Buceph

I remember going in there to buy Magic: The Gathering Cards, and them never having 5 pence pieces so they'd always, "have to owe you the 5p, sorry."

OPTEC

i'm just annoyed because now i have 60 euro from trading in all my games on store credit that's now useless. This may sound stupid but would northern irish stores accept them

aidan_walsh

OPTEC wrote: »

i'm just annoyed because now i have 60 euro from trading in all my games on store credit that's now useless. This may sound stupid but would northern irish stores accept them

The company as a whole is pretty much gone.

Owen

I remember when Vic Barry from Red FM worked there. Bought my first 3D Graphics Card there, a 3DFX, and went home to marvel at the semi transparencies of the water in Quake.

Course now that the one one in Douglas is gone too, it means the stupidly hot red head isn't around any more either. Boooo.

Ludo

Owen wrote: »

Course now that the one one in Douglas is gone too, it means the stupidly hot red head isn't around any more either. Boooo.

What game in Douglas? There wasn't one there. Are you confusing it with GameStop which is in Douglas Court?

Owen

Ludo wrote: »

What game in Douglas? There wasn't one there. Are you confusing it with GameStop which is in Douglas Court?

Bah, meant Mahon.

deRanged

Owen wrote: »

Bought my first 3D Graphics Card there, a 3DFX, and went home to marvel at the semi transparencies of the water in Quake.

huh. bought my first 3D card there too, but it was a 16 meg Voodoo II, and I spent a lot of time firing a shotgun at the water in Turok 2 and so on

Thats crap news, I remember when the place opened. Bought loads of stuff in there over the years. Used to get loads of mega drive games there back in the day.

minidazzler

The one in Mahon Point is still open I think? Use the store credit quick as you can though! It will suck if they close, I love Game, far superior service to GameStop IMO, and much prettier staff :pac:

Ludo

minidazzler wrote: »

The one in Mahon Point is still open I think? Use the store credit quick as you can though! It will suck if they close, I love Game, far superior service to GameStop IMO, and much prettier staff :pac:

Already closed from what I read earlier and sit-in in progress there and in the Patrick Street store.

minidazzler

Ludo wrote: »

Already closed from what I read earlier and sit-in in progress there and in the Patrick Street store.

I can't remember the last time I looked in there probably during the week, that sucks that the staff are being fcuked over.

TanG411

Didn't expect to close so quickly. I bought a game there last week, but was in a rush so didn't have time to browse thoroughly. Planned to go in today.

Only two months ago they were looking for part-time staff.

wheresmybeaver

ThinksAmoral wrote: »

Didn't expect to close so quickly. I bought a game there last week, but was in a rush so didn't have time to browse thoroughly. Planned to go in today.

Only two months ago they were looking for part-time staff.

Although the future in the industry is quite grim, stores such as Patrick St and probably Mahon point were still doing well enough to need extra staff. Usually in these situations we would see a management buy-out or some sort of continuation of profitable stores; it's a bit unusual that every single Irish store was closed?

EyeSight

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

Although the future in the industry is quite grim

i would think the gaming industry is growing? piracy only seems to be a large issue with PC games(which they barely stocked)

Either way i am sorry to see it go, i bought most of my games there. I don't see why people shop at gamestop, they are usually the most expensive store and their "sales" are a joke, you can usually get discounts on preowned DVDs but nothing on any game released in the last year or so

my tip is to go to HMV for games now, they're usually cheaper especially with newly released games

wheresmybeaver

EyeSight wrote: »

i would think the gaming industry is growing? piracy only seems to be a large issue with PC games(which they barely stocked)

Either way i am sorry to see it go, i bought most of my games there. I don't see why people shop at gamestop, they are usually the most expensive store and their "sales" are a joke, you can usually get discounts on preowned DVDs but nothing on any game released in the last year or so

my tip is to go to HMV for games now, they're usually cheaper especially with newly released games

The gaming industry is doing great, the issue is the bricks & mortar games retailing industry.

It seems to be generally agreed that the current generation of home consoles and portable consoles will be the last to use traditional media (ie discs or cartridges that you physically buy), and games in future will be sold as downloads over the air / via broadband. The new PSP already does this. Most PC games are now also sold via Steam and the like, without any phsyical media. And I believe a big part of Game and Gamestops business model is buying and selling 2nd hand games - with no physical media, there's nothing to resell. They may carve a niche for themselves dealing in small amounts of physical media for classic consoles, but that'd be about it. Even then, downloadable content and network gaming means a lot of resold games are missing certain features that were only available to the first-buyer.

Bit of a bummer, but that seems to be the way it's going.

deRanged

the staff are staging a sit-in protest now.


sit in protest in GAME on Patrick st. cork. by Brian Clayton, on Flickr

Diabhalta

Owen wrote: »

I remember when Vic Barry from Red FM worked there. Bought my first 3D Graphics Card there, a 3DFX, and went home to marvel at the semi transparencies of the water in Quake.

Course now that the one one in Douglas is gone too, it means the stupidly hot red head isn't around any more either. Boooo.

I know which one you mean.. She had really nice hair, but didn't look very smart though.