The revelation of a new business relationship has caused me to jot down a few thoughts on the divergent interests of video game retailers, publishers and consumers.
UK high street retailer GAME is closing its three remaining standalone stores as managing director, Nick Arran, exits the company after nine years.
Good riddance in my opinion. Scummy company even before Mike Ashley took over.
I really do feel for staff that will be losing their jobs. But game as a business? Couldn't care for them.
They where a Terrible company 20 years ago. Even more if a terrible company now.
A bit of a rant starts now:
Almost 20 years ago GAME wasn't doing all that good. They where struggling why I I'm not sure as this was before digital downloads where a massive part of gaming. My guess is because they where greedy and places like Gamestation and supermarkets and even at that point the up and coming cex was much cheaper and better place the get video games from than GAME.
I remember the release day of the Xbox 360 for all the wrong reasons. I didn't pre order a Xbox 360 as I didn't want one. Until like 2 weeks before release when I played COD2 on a demo station and was hooked. Lucky enough a family member worked for Woolworths and was able to secure my dad a Xbox 360 Core console. My dad told me this and agreed to get me the Xbox for Christmas.
Because I wanted to see and feel and somewhat be apart of that Xbox 360 launch day. I decided I might as well go in to town and get a HDD drive and a wireless controller ready for Christmas day.
I went into 3 GAME stores as back then we had 3 within 5 mins of each other. All 3 of them had scummy practices going on. All 3 of them had some amount of Xbox 360 core and premium consoles. But wouldn't sell them to customers on there own. You had to buy what they called special buy bundles. That didn't save you any money at all. They just created a few bundles with the not so popular launch games. Like Amped, NBA and Tony Hawks. Depending eBay console you wanted you also had to get them with accessories. For example if you wanted a core console. You had to buy the console + them 3 games + Xbox live + hdd. Or premium instead of the HDD you had to get a play and charge kit.
I simply wanted to buy a wireless controller and HDD. They wouldn't sell me the HDD unless I got the core pack controller. All 3 of them same bundle and same scummy practices. I went to Gamestation and sure they had similar bundles but noting insanely expensive like game. Core pack plus memory card was the cheapest bundle. You needed something to save your game data so it made sense.
They happily sold me a HDD without having to buy a console.
Unfortunately Gamestation was gone a few years later. Because it GAME!! Business was rubbish for them so in a last ditch attempt. They bought out Gamestation to become in a lot of cities the only video game store around. This saved them.
Then after the whole Xbox 360 launch. They did similar scummy practices with the Wii and PS3 launch.
They first went into administration in 2012. I was shocked they survived backed then to be honest as until this very day. They have always been the most expensive. The EA FC games are one of the biggest game releases here in the UK each year. Places like Smyth toys and Asda physical store sold these at £55 on release day for each platform and online stores like shopto and the game collection sold for the same price. But not GAME no no they charged £69.99 and wonder why they struggled.
Amazing news! Digital Foundry has parted ways with IGN and bought their shareholding in the business. What this means is that from now on, all aspects of DF are decided upon by DF.
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Would love to see more DF Retros from John now that they can come up with their own ideas.
I just watched a DF video from John featuring the new Gradius collection. Gradius is one my favorite NES games ! And now at QuakeCon 2025 they just released a remastered Heretic and Hexxen bundle by Nightdive and ID Software. So DF featuring John released a video today talking about the Hexxen and Heretic bundle . Good times.
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I love DF-crew, they are experts at what they do and I'm so happy for this!
I believe in these guys more than anyone else!
I overall don't like podcasts either but these guys make it fun for me at least! :D
Xbox Series X best place to play 3rd party. Oh it must be a glitch or tools because Series X is worse.
I don’t understand why this keeps happening.
Doesn’t sound like an expert to me.
Doesn't make any sense what you are saying. They are experts in their field in my opinion, we don't have to share it. That's ok.
But something doesn't always have to have an explanation as well. If they can't understand why it's happening they aren't lying about it. They honestly can admit that they do nut understand something, usually they reach out to that specific company etc. then to try and get a better understanding.
If you don't like em, don't watch em.
thats great that u enjoy them, but you shouldnt just believe everything these guys say either.
I didn't say I believe everything they are saying. I believe in them more than anyone else in this business because I feel they do not shy away from getting into specifics. Lot's of ppl just try to say something and then there's no source or no explanation as to why. Just saying it for reactions, clicks you name it.
These guys love the field they work in and I can feel that when I listen to them. That might be just for me but I enjoy them a lot.
It's Call of Duty weekend, so it's time to fire up Xbox Game Pass and delve into some great games on the service.
They have been partenered with gamestop for a while now & honestly other than seeing how much they charge for the game at gamestop is the only thing you ever see about them
Good well written article and despite my personal hatred of Game, I think the writer makes a great point. Sadly, I think IGN realize their reputation isn't going anywhere.. haters are still going to come out with "you can't spell IGNorant blah blah" while those who like the site will still go there.
Funny though, I just came back from my local gamestation (now game) store and had one of their staff kick up a mini emo fit. I traded in Black Ops 2 and those cheap barstewards offered me just £20 for it.. fortunately I matched it with cex's price and got £37 instead. Still, it's no wonder they have trade in signs plastered all over their damn store, I feel sorry for all the poor idiots out there who accept their rip off trade in prices especially seeing as they probably sell Black Ops 2 second hand for over double what they offered me.
I don't follow ign anymore, especially when it comes to reviews.