Retail, this is the dodo. Dodo, say hello to retail.

Walk this way, please...

The two already know each other.

This should be interesting since they were the only company selling the N7 edition in the UK...

::edit:: and thats my preorder moved to play.com

Yes, of course, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 gamers are just spontaneously all buying via their respective online store because they have had some collective epiphany that digital distribution is the FUTURE.

Get a grip.

Game and Gamestation's main business in the UK is console gaming and has been for the past half a decade. PC gaming in the UK is pretty much dead. Game have been struggling for years for no other reason than they have made absolutely no effort to remain competitive. Their prices are pretty much the highest in any retail store and you can go into any Morrison's or Tesco and find a game cheaper.

In case you hadn't noticed, Amazon and Play.com were doing more than fine. Lots of Brits buy their games from the latter in particular.

Those aren't retail stores, those are online stores.

I think we may see game close over half its stores this year which will leave most of us with... ummm grainger games if your lucky and live in one of the areas they've reached... and thats it for bricks and morter stores >.<

However they send you boxed copies (too). So it's also not digital download. Let's call them online retailer. Any other suggestions, how to call them?

jamyskis post above pretty much sums it up. Game have consistently screwed over their customers and are still doing it even now. I went onto gamestation's website as they're running a buy one get one free promo on 2nd hand games and funnily enough all the games available on there have gone UP in price from when I looked last month. It's underhanded tactics like that and their insistence that they always charge the RRP that's responsible for their situation. Also their customer service tends to be awful and pushy.

Supermarkets aren't a valid subsitute as they have poor selection but online sites are doing ok. The dodo analogy is unfair as it's humanity that wiped them out in a short period of time whereas Game's refused to evolve and now it's becoming extinct.

I still remember the days of Special Reserve when I was studying at university in Bristol over a decade ago. That was an awesome store, and I think it was the first store from which I ever bought a game online (in 2000).

We are indeed seeing an end to dedicated gaming stores though. Here in Germany most of the brick-and-mortar distribution of games is dealt with by major electronics chains like Media Markt, Saturn and Promarkt and has been for the best part of a decade. We do have Gamestop here, but like Game, they make no effort to be competitive and it wouldn't surprise me if they went under in the near future.

We've also got another franchise chain here (McMedia) but they too by and large make little effort to be competitive and pricing there is decided by individual stores (I used to live in Paderborn and the McMedia there and in Lemgo was a rip-off, but the one here in Lübeck isn't too bad).

The point is that the internet has killed retail stores. A development that started long before DD became so prevalent. I've worked in a comicbookstore during the late '90 early '00 and our biggest competitor weren't other stores but Amazon.

Retail is dying, some faster some slower.

Yes you're right. Retail will die out unless people do pay extra for the service of being served by a human. For some small but beautifull stores I hope this will be always the case.

Eureka! Retail game stores should be combined with brothels.

Eh? Retail still exist? I thought that died like... Five years ago or something. How quaint. Oh well. Long time coming then.

Already happened here, anyway. I have not set my foot inside a game store in a long, long time. I started to think those where things of myth and legend, like the fabled arcades, or Unicorns and Dragons.