The state of UK Games retailers.

[Raz]

I know we've touched on this in other threads but I thought due to the steady spiral towards administration we're seeing from the GAME Group It'd be pretty interesting to have a discussion about the state of the games retail industry in the UK.

The reports from the Entertainment Retailers Association is that video games have become the largest entertainment industry in the UK, slightly ahead of video and way ahead of music which makes the current situation of GAME Group rather strange. They hold pretty much a monopoly in the UK as a specialised retailer in the largest entertainment industry, why do you guys think they're failing?

Source for the ERA without having to pay for membership: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17458205

It's not going to go down really well for gamers in the UK if we lose stores like GAME and GameStation, but at the same time it might let independent retailers break through, or the one thing I'd really like is for tabletop game retailers to move in to selling video games. Imagine going in to your local game craft store like Games Workshop and buying the latest game and hanging around to play a couple of games of 40K?

Well, just my thoughts.

[Dazz]

Games retail is supplied by supermarkets, and I would presume that it includes downloaded content from the likes of XBLA.
Not to mention all the rage in buying games from Amazon these days...

I honestly am not surprised that they're going into administration, when the only reason I've ever bought anything from them is because I buy something on a whim and it just happens to be there...

It's sad to see so many jobs go, including many which are filled by people I know. But I won't say that it's a shock.
Next up, Waterstones.

[Raz]

Games retail is supplied by supermarkets, and I would presume that it includes downloaded content from the likes of XBLA.
Not to mention all the rage in buying games from Amazon these days...

Well, there's figures to suggest that 70% of all video game sales are still physical media so lets take Steam, XBLA and origin out of the picture.

Sure you still have supermarkets and online retailers like play and amazon, but for a specialist store to have completely lost the loyalty of the community which it serves? That seems to me that they've forgotten that their customers instead focusing on the bottom line.

If even the novelty of getting a popular game at midnight on launch isn't enough to drive sales to GAME stores.. well, it speaks volumes, really.