GAME is the one stop shop for games here in Englandanialand, and I went there recently looking for one of their super ergonomic mice that they sell.
I walked in and to my left, a demo Xbox 360 machine. To the right, a PS3. Overshadowing these were shelves lined with DS games, Xbox games, PS3 games and Wii stuff. Towards the back of the shop with the back-catalogue DS shit (like those horrible "My Pet" games), was a single shelf lined with pre-owned PC titles.
In terms of hardware; �10 bags to hold your DS in, �20 game pads for all machines, Wii accessories and mousepads. The mice were no longer stocked, nor were the gelled mousepads. No new PC titles could be found, the newest box that wasn't pre-owned in there was Dawn of War Platinum.
The PC cases were a messy mixture of cracked jewel cases and stained plastic covers on DVD cases. We bought the Monkey Island Bounty Pack and Duke Nukem 3D from this place.
The console gaming market is going to be responsible for me getting arthritis. Wonderful.

Or you could buy it online...
Retail is dead. Apart from the occasional 2nd hand bargain, the only way to get anything gaming related at a reasonable price is to buy it online.

The reason I liked GAME's old mice was because they were nicely slick and smooth and fit my hand better than any other. They were also only £2.99.
A fucking Logitech "ergonomic" mouse is in the 10s.
But more than that, they're just not selling anything PC now except the novelty mousepads.

I used to buy (console) stuff from GAME and other retailers, but I've completely moved to digital downloads or ordering from specialized web shops that actually know wtf they are doing. I've never looked back since.

Well, it's not dead in Poland (and probably other central Europe countries + Russia).

Game have a website with free P&P. They do quite a range of mice, but their cheapest is a tenner. Yor best bet would probably be Amazon now.
Yet in many countries it's the only way to get anything now. Including the UK, oddly enough.

I usually use play.com for gaming related stuff they seem to beat both game and amazon for price most the time. Cheap mice on there as well.

Yeah, I buy games through webshops or digitally only. Hardware/accessories through webshops or electronics retailers.
It's very strange. A PC oriented retail chain could do quite well for itself since there's basically no competition.

I lost the cd keys for many games recently (as in I figured it out today)
I only buy 1-4 retail games for the PC, and the rest are downloadable.
That finished today. I can't find my cd key so I can't play the game that I have the dvd for? Fuck that.
Gog, Steam, GG, D2D etc FTWFW.

Gamestation (owned by the same company as Game, essentially the same shop) were freaking awesome when they sold old consoles. I picked up a N64 console from there with like 10 games for a really cheap price. Sadly they got rid of all the old consoles (probably threw them away) before I could pick up a Sega Dreamcast. I used to buy stuff at game all the time due to the massive amount of 2nd hand PS2 games but now I use Amazon all the time.
Also Joe, just get a mouse at Tesco.

I've heard that Europe is the big pc game market nowadays, both for pc game owners and studios.
Maybe it would get too little attention, since most people who go to retail are console buyers.

Are they really owned by the same guys?

I suppose that might be true, in most of the game stores I go to, the PC has about equal space compared to the other gaming platforms, at least for new games.
The used market, on which most retailers make a lot of money, is much bigger for consoles than for PC though.

Yep.
Also, from what I have heard, they are going to merge the two and reduce the number of shops (more large shops rather than the scattered smaller ones you tend to get now).
This should be helpful in Newcastle, since I know of at least three GAME shops and a Gamestation within about five minutes walk of each other.

Game acquired them for several million a few years back.