Be Excellent To Each Other

If you didn't know, supermarkets had a bit of a price war with the £50RRP FIFA 10, dropping it to £25. Amazon and other online retailers dropped prices to match, and Gamestation, PC World and others price-matched it.

I'm not convinced this is a good thing.

I'm no lover of GAME et al, but supermarkets only price the game like this to get kids to bring parents into the shops, and they're going to fuck the smaller retailers.
And £25 for a game like that is too cheap - sure, the larger retailers can suck up the cost, but the few indy stores that are left were perhaps counting on FIFA (and other big releases like it) for a good chunk of their takings this much.

This has been touched upon in the FIFA thread itself, but figured it deserved more air.

I mostly agree.

There were (I am told) four petrol stations in Chepstow. Tescos bought one and undercut the others. Two years of brutal price wars later, the last of the three independant[1] stations shut. Tesco immediately raised petrol prices and that's all she wrote.

Having said that, I think most "hardcore" gamers moved the bulk of their purchases to online ages ago, and people browsing for a game to buy at random still can't do that in supermarkets because they don't carry much back catalog (at least, none of the ones near here do) -- and, crucially, they dont sell any preowned stuff. So there's still room for a games shop to distinguish itself, I think, at least on the high street. Of course, with the publishers hostile to preowned sales and pushing for a move to online distribution their days are mostly numbered anyway.

They aren't quite in the same tricky situation as Comet or Currys, where the supermarkets sell all the cheap kettles and irons you could want and bulky white goods are cheaper online (and no less convenient, as the shops don't carry much stock so you need to arrange a delivery anyway). I bought a dishwasher from Currys because I wanted it that day, and I had to work quite hard to find one they would let me take away.

[1] don't forget most petrol stations are franchises.

On one hand £25 is the definitive price for disk based games. So selling a game at that price is a good thing. And should be the RRP. (Rather than the current plan of selling all games at an RRP of £50, losing money on most titles and using your few, but massive successes to offset the losses). The amount of games I at least would buy new at £25 rather than £15 to £20 in 6 months time would be huge.

On the other hand supermarkets trying to kill competition in this way is pretty disgusting. And so yeah I agree.

My favourite example of this is Morrisons advertising at the moment:

"Hello you may remember me as the small one off of Top Gear! Come to morrisions where we've created a dead zombie mock up of the old market street that we priced out of existence. Pretend to get you meat from a butcher and pretend to get your veg from a grocer and wallow in the nostalgia for an age we killed!"

If they actually would make more money this way, do you honestly think these multi-billion pound game publishers, with armies of market researchers, wouldn't already be doing it? I'm pretty sure they know more about the economics of game pricing than you or me, you know.

Though I'm still struggling to get my head around including Asda and the like in my shopping trips for new games, and half the time their prices are laughable, when they do a bargain they do a damned good one.

To extent yes. But I'm not convinced they've got half a fucking clue half the time no. That and I would argue it's akin to an evolutionary stable strategy. To deviate from the market industry standard on your own isn't feasible.

And if you applied that logic to your posts then your post count would be cut in half Mr iPod industry discussioner!

I am not convinced by this, most kids won't know the price of the game, and won't check prior to buying it. As for the rest of it, Game have already killed all the Indy shops. I can't think of a single non-Game gaming shop. Even the PC shops don't bother to sell games. I agree with what you are saying, but I don't think in this arguement, the supermarkets are at fault. There is a gap in the market left by the death of Indy shops, so they are moving to fill it. If I get a bargain in the process, all well and good.

They do, trust me.
We did some research for GameStation a few years back, and the sample they sent through had the previous data results attached to it - they know a lot.

Bobby makes a good point, there are so few indie shops now (who mostly sell exotica and 2nd hand stuff anyhow) that it's probably good that supermarkets can threaten GAME a bit anyhow.



And the music industry knows a lot too (I have friends at EMI fact fans) doesn't mean they haven't spent the last 5 years or so fucking up by running an ultimately flawed business plan into the ground and refusing to adapt.

I'm not claiming to be right, or they to be wrong. But I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt just because they must know best.

Heh. I tend to work from the viewpoint that, when I don't understand a company's commercial decisions, that there's some reason for it I want to understand. Plus I just like arguing.

Adapt to what? I've yet to see anyone propose a working, credible economic model for what the music industry might look like in twenty years. It's very easy to run around saying it's doomed. It's a lot harder, as the CEO of EMI, to find something workable you can guide the company to. And without some plan, what else can you do, except fight to stay alive any way you can?

Nah, I love your comments really, I was just teasing!

I'm just a bit cynical and grumpy at the moment. I guess it comes from being house bound.

Must be driving you barmy! I was bad enough at 4 weeks.

Well my INSIDER SCOOP SNOOP AGENT works in the finance side of things. And talks at length about how the people at the top would resist the formulation, experimentation and implementation of any new idea or business model at all. Whilst gradually firing everyone who suggested that putting their fingers in their ears wouldn't solve the problem.

It's the lack of fighting and rigidly sticking to broken industry that he says is the problem.

He says he's never worked in such a blinkered industry in his life.

But as you say, what do I know.

Scratching. At. The. Walls. Insane.

Can't buy games online - they never get delivered properly.

Can't go in CeX - gives me a headache and is full of my clients.

Can't go in Game - I just can't, on any level. Price, stock, salesmanshit, clientele, GAME Radio.

Can't go in Gamestation beacause they bought up half the retro hardware in the UK then used it as landfill to clear space for CUNTING IPODS. Also, always full of scummers. And god help you if you are in any way 'different' and work in a branch.

That leaves Blockbuster, which is never brilliant stock wise but always seems to be run by at least one knowledgeable, friendly person happy to make you some very good deals once the know you are serious about your hobby. And supermarkets, which don't know what sticker to use half the time. Halo ODST? Stick the £10 sticker on it, it looks like Halo 3 after all. Sainsbury's usually has 80% stock overpriced and the rest underpriced.

I'll pay the extra to go to a 'games shop' when I can hear myself think, I can't smell the other customers and they generally stop giving me the opinion that they are trying their hardest to make me not want to go in there.

What's so £50 about Fifa 2010 anyway?

It is certainly a hard one.

Especially since even online entertainment retail has massively consolidated even in just the last 18 months (now it seems everything is ran buy The Hut).

It would be a lot easier if more publishers sold their more niche games directly at competitive prices.

Basically, there are two issues going on here:
1) Supermarkets trying to capture marketshare so that they can put other retailers out of business, to reduce competition, and maybe put up prices in the long run.
2) Supermarkets getting a bigger share of the games industry market impacting how games actually get made.

On issue number 1, for us (or at least me) I don't think that matters, I know how to shop around, and I know how to use the internets to buy games, so I will probably do alright regardless.

However, issue number 2 is a different matter. Supermarkets are not going to be interested in selling games which are not likely to sell. They want the harry potters and the fifas and the call of dutys. That's fine, and they generally do a pretty good of selling those games.

However, the bigger supermarkets get in the games industry, let less retail space anything that isn't a guaranteed hit is going to get. That is only going to make publishers even more cautious. Bye bye money for anything that isn't a WW2 themed FPS racing game starring James Bond guitar hero.

It's all the same stuff that has applied to books, music and film too.

Good points by LewieP there.

That's the worst thing about games shops and always has been. The stale smell of rancid burger meat emanating from the fat, pallid, sweaty, chips 'n' kebab diet teens lurking around the place looking distinctly unwell is enough to put anyone off.

Back to supermarkets though, and it's the same with books, dvds, music and just about anything else you care to mention that can be piled high and sold cheap. The power - and not just purchasing power - of companies like Tescos is phenomenal and is seriously detrimental to the high street and independent retailer, unless those independents are specialists in one thing or another.

Doesn't Walmart have an impact on how games are made in the US? As in, they can't make anything too naughty in case Walmart doesn't stock it?

As for indie shops, I'm all for them. But I've known too many indie shops whose business model was of the 'high prices' and customer service of the 'buy something or get out' varieties. My local indie back in Canada was neither of these and so got a significant portion of my allowance back in the day, and is STILL in business 15 years later.

Again, right up until the next generation of XBLAH, Steam, GOG, Impulse, and PSN make physical media obsolete.

Yes. Publishers that want to sell games in Walmart allow them to censor their games.

Also, for years in the US, PC games came on several CDs (environment be damned) instead of one DVD because a very small number of people would try to return games that came on DVD when they only had a CD drive. Even at a time when no PC built with a CD drive would be able to run those games.

But the same thing happens in the UK. Exclusive game content for specific retailers?

physical media won't be obsolete for a long time. Pretty much all music still gets a CD release.

Also, entirely digital distribution brings about it's own problems.

It will be very interesting to see where the games retail industry is in 10/20 years time.

I detest digital distribution. I feel like I've spent money on something when I hold a physical CD or game in my hands. Plus I'm a hoarder, so I like shelves of stuff that are alphabetised and rare.

Don't worry about it! If Tesco wind up monopolising and charging £50 for games, don't buy them. They'll soon drop back down. As for GAME, etc. Boo-hoo. They've been ripping us off for years with their trade-in prices. Fuck them.

Yeah, I can't pretend I lost any sleep at getting myself a massive bargain with Fifa yesterday. There's no way anyone could ever make me agree that a game, any game, is "worth" say £40 and that it's acceptable to be priced at that.

£30 is the absolute maximum in my mind, of an acceptable price.

That's twice what I'd pay. I'd go to £20 only if absolutely, chemically vital that I have a game immediately. Which isn't likely.

£25, tops for me.

But then again, I rarely buy games.

I'd pay £40 maximum for a game with no extra controllers/add-ons, but for a FIFA update? No chance.

Depends on the game. I've pre-ordered a lot of stuff this autumn/winter ranging from 25-35 each.

I still stand firmly against pre-ordering as harmful to the quality of games. It puts unnecessary pressure on developers to rush the game out.

I don't preorder as I like to wait for the reviews and stuff.

Yeah, I was ignoring the fact this is a FIFA update. I feel in this case, EA will have been well pleased, as no one was going to pay 50 for it?

I wish I still believed nobody was stupid enough to, but there are some.

I'm sure there are. I'm sure that some people only buy football games as that's their passion, so fiddyquid a year seems good value to them.

I used to be like that. I'd buy each PES update on the PS1 and eventually PS2 at full price on release day and sometimes book that day off to play it. However, this was when each game was better than the last one... wouldn't dream of it now though.

Yeah I've only ever pre-ordered once and it was for a Wii, Wii Sports and Zelda TP. Which I then locked up till chrimbo.

No wait I also pre-ordered Pokemon for the GBA.

Otherwise never.

I did pick Mirror's Edge up on the day of release though. But thats cos I got a demo before hand.

Toys R Us are now doing FIFA for £24.95

I'll get that there then.

Also, there's no such thing as pre-ordering. It's ordering, or buying it then and there. A shop either has the product in or it does not. That the release date (which is never, ever strictly observed anyway) might be a contributory factor to the shop not having it in is irrelevant.

Such linguistic cuntery is typical of a business that is happy to call second hand games 'pre-owned' which in turn leads to other misleading terms such as 'value bundle' 'sale' 'game of the week' and "4 for £20". Anyone who goes into a shop and asks to pre-order, or fails to take the piss out of the till monkey if they say it, wants their teeth smashing.

We, as a nation, pretty much have the games market we deserve.

Yeah, I've only ever preordered one thing, and that was something I knew was genuinely going to be scarce, it was a Wii, and I only preordered and paid in full because it was the only way I could be guaranteed one at launch. I asked the manager of where I got it from to personally guarantee it for me because all the other retailers said that they couldn't promise me anything.

Wait, what? People who searched for months to get a copy of Wii Fit when the first batch sold out might disagree with your "preordering is pointless" stance there. Or people like me, who ordered Uncharted 2 from Amazon six months ago for £32, being a good fiver cheaper than anywhere else now.

Eh? Release date pressure is real, but it has nothing to do with the number of pre-orders. It's not like Game ring the publisher up and say "5000 orders now guys!" and the publisher rings the dev and says "right, that's it, you have one more week".

I guess retailers pushing preorders do add to the front loaded nature of games sales. Which in turn adds to the importance of release dates, which might make some games get rushed.

It's tenuous, but there is a connection there.

Oh come on, you don't think there's any extra pressure from the company knowing that they'll have thousands of pissed off people who've already handed their money over demanding to know what's going on? Fuck, I get shit at work if someone spends a fiver on photocopies in advance.

Couple of years back, at Christmas, when the Wiis were in short supply, my brother in law deduced that the stock updated on the website at about 2am. He then bought the whole stock. He split the packages up, and sold the console and Wii Sports on Ebay, making enough for us to get one for Christmas and about 40 games for his family and come out about 800 quid up. Smart guy, him. Good electrician, too.

This used to be me, too, until PES went rubbish and dull around 2007. Mind you I booked Friday off to buy and play Fifa, but thankfully it's turned out to be 100% worth it. Or 110%, as a footballer would say.

Why do you think they'd know? Why do you think Game, say, would release this really commercially sensitive information to anyone? You should see how guarded Thomas Cook are about, say, how many bookings they take per day.

Also: who pre-orders games more than, say, three months in advance? And when does a game suffer serious delays closer than three months from the launch date? Rarely.

Nope, just ask anyone who pre-ordered Duke Nukem Forever.

I think the slight is not against the concept but the linguistics. An order is not of fundamentally differing characteristics just because the product is not yet available in the shops, it remains an 'Order'. But a 'Pre-order' is nice bollocks marketing speak to make you feel exclusive when you are making your order months before the game is available.

That said, I may go into MaccyDs in a bit and pre-order a big mac before they finish serving breakfast.