I received my copy of GTA V Special Edition today from GAME. It came in what I can only describe as two sheets of bubble wrap laid either side of the game and fused together. There seems to be a very thin plastic membrane that barely stiffens it, but the packaging offers no protection to your game whatsoever. If it gets dropped or has a heavy parcel put on top of it, it WILL crush any cardboard box inside. It happened to mine - not the worst crushing I've seen, but it folded the ends... and when buying a £60 special edition, I expect it to be shipped properly. So, if you value your games as collectors, DON'T BUY FROM GAME! On top of that, they've been telling me all week that my rewards points are unavailable... and their chat system kept me in a queue for half an hour, then hung up on me. TWICE. Very poor service. It puts me off buying from GAME altogether, to be honest.
i've already been put of buying from them, that said for different reasons, but anything i've ordered online from them has came in a tough cardboard packet (like the kind amazon ship books in) not defending them but maybe they just rushed them out.
That would have been far preferable! I've had this stuff before, can't remember if it was from them, though.
Just to quickly chime in, I pre-ordered Animal Crossing: New Leaf from GAME earlier this year and I gotta say, wasn't impressed with their packaging. It appeared to be shipped in what I can only describe as a vacuum packed or heat shrunk wrapping that conformed very tightly to the box, with absolutely zero other protection. It wouldn't have been quite so bad, but the pre-orders shipped with a promotional figure which actually put a hole in my game box due to how tightly it was squashed inside this sealed package. Very god damn disappointing. As for Shopto, which sabre470 mentioned above, I was impressed when they sent me Last of Us, however my copy of Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix Limited Edition arrived with almost no protection and was actually fairly badly crushed on the cardboard sleeve's corners. Overall I think postage is amazingly slipshot and unpredictable in the UK (but at least it isn't as bad as the US, seriously, I feel sorry for the crap you guys put up with). Fuck knows what the mix-up with the Royal Mail etc. is going to do for quality of service, but I'm dreading the future already.
Lol, you sound like a spammer who's hacked your account! Actually, they're not the cheapest. GTA V is £42.85 from them. That's 14p cheaper than GAME. However.... Sainsbury's £41.79 ASDA £39.97 Tesco £38 or £32 when you also buy Xbox LIVE points or subscription. HMV free when you buy a £200 Xbox 360. Why would I buy it online from a company I've never heard of when I could pick it up in my local supermarket for less AND get reward points? The only reason I went to GAME is because I'm a sucker for special editions of GTA, and it was exclusive to them.
I gave up on Game a long time ago. I loved Gamestation what with their mix of retro and new stuff, you never knew what you might find in one of their stores. After the buy out was announced it looked like they were going to remain pretty independent but soon after, my local Game store closed down and merged with the game station store. That place is overpriced, sterile and desperate. I believe that retail gaming stores in the UK are dead. HMV are trying hard with their pre-owned trade in scheme but next to my local comic book store and CEX they just don't cut it.
Well, this is unbelievable. I also had an issue that my points balance was "unavailable". I've just been told why. I didn't use my card for 18 months, so per their T&C, they zeroed the balance and deactivated my card. They did not contact me to tell me my card was in danger of expiring, nor that they had deactivated it. They don't tell you on the site, either - they just put that your balance is unavailable, like there's an error. As such, I've ordered GTA V for £60 from them and won't get points. I was NOT informed of this when I got my card (I think it was in the Nineties I got it) in person in a store - I don't think the points expired back then. I've never had notification of an updated T&C, although I notice that their T&C was updated yesterday. And, in fact, it is NOT part of their main T&C, it's their Reward T&C, which is hidden away on the website and not linked to from obvious places like, oh I don't know.... the home page or the main T&C page? Call me pedantic if you like, but that DOES NOT say that your card will be deactivated. It says that your POINTS will be ZEROED. That does NOT mean that your card will be switched off. Yes, it says you may request reactivation, but they should actually state that they'd deactivate it. They didn't state it. So I've lost all my old points (e.g. GTA IV) and the points from GTA V. Whilst I appreciate that it's my fault for not reading the T&C more carefully and not ordering in 18 months, GAME could have let me know that my card was about to expire. In fact, it's a very good move, as it persuades people to order again! *EDIT* I think (hope) that you mean large chain stores that specialize in gaming. The indies aren't doing too badly. I think all shops struggle against the buying power of the supermarkets (and the likes of Amazon), though.
I've not seen an independent game store in years, we had a gamestop for a while which gave game some competition, but other than that...
I had loads of points saved up on game before they had financial issues, once the problems kicked in I lost them all, I usually always buy from shopto.net these days, in most cases you get the games a few days before release date and cheaper, I do normally price compare before I pre order though, I managed to get GTA V for £34.99 from Amazon.
Sounds like Belfast isn't the ideal place for gamers! That's a shame. We have two independent shops in our town. One has a healthy stock of new and second hand including retro, the other is a smaller (chain) shop and has a bit of a mix but it also sells Games Workshop and TCGs. There's a retro shop in Canterbury (about half an hour away), plus they have a CEX and that same small shop is opening there, too... but focusing on the RPG side. Both towns have a GAME store and mine actually had a GAME and GameStation. After the acquisition, they kept both going for a bit, but then they decided to close GAME (which had been there far longer). Everyone lost their jobs. Then I guess about a year later, GameStation became GAME! We lost our HMV but Canterbury kept theirs.
Hah I used to live in Canterbury 2 years ago and the level up games isn't that bad, although some stuff they seem to over value. I.e they had a link to the past marked up at 30 odd quid with no box or manual and cart was a bit tatty, it was better when they where in the basement of the music shop everything got a price hike once they moved upstairs. but still they weren't that bad for picking a few bits up if you don't mind paying a bit extra to get it that day. i personally haven't ever seen a retro game in cex or any of the other "mainstream" games shops I've seen some on ebay with the game station stickers on but personally I'm kinda glad as if the gamecube prices are much to go by they have got to realise that if your selling retro in a shop you kinda have to beat ebay prices or atleast match them not exceed them unless your in a place where there is a lot of collectors I.e Canterbury (plenty of students collect them so shops charge more) anyways try complaining to game and act really really pissed off about it see if you get anything out of them edit : oh sorry I forgot its GAME they don't really do customer service
cex only go back to ps2 gamecube and xbox, we have one, and a cash converters, used to have more and some quality second hand shops which were loaded with games, didnt have a gamestation but we had 3 games and an electronics boutique and a gamestop, also used to have an ourprice and virgin megastore along with hmv and a huge toystore called leisureworld. all we got now is game hmv and cex lol so yeah it does suck some times you can get nice retro stuff in cash converters i got some stuff there the other day and cex. but mostly online is the only option or car boot sales and markets
One of the independent stores here in Glasgow was briefly mentioned on the news for breaking the street date for GTA V and selling it for £10 over the RRP
Well, I've had a reply. It's a really strange one. The only thing is, that link she gave had point 26 exactly as I posted above - stating that your POINTS would be zeroed. The condition she quoted stated that your ACCOUNT would be terminated. So how exactly did their terms and conditions not change since the card was introduced? In fact, I am surprised I can log in if my account was supposed to be terminated. Good news, though - she reinstated my account and, as a gesture of goodwill, restored the points that had expired. That's all well and good, but she didn't credit me the points I should have earnt for my GTA V purchase. However, as I'd written separately about the issues, someone responded to my original problem (noticing the points balance being unavailable BEFORE my purchase, but being unable to contact them as their chat system was broken), which had a separate case number. As the lady had already restored my account, he attributed this to problems they had due to their system being overloaded by GTA purchases, and credited me the points for the game! So I now have ALL my points reinstated, as well as my card! Thank you, GAME! However, I also got a reply to my e-mail about the packaging. They ignored my points about the packaging, trying to blame Royal Mail and suggesting I should have gone for the more expensive (and slower!) courier option! Would they have packaged it better? I think not! Here's a photo of the packaging. As you can see, it's very thin - the bubbles are only about 1mm thick. The stiffener doesn't do much - the top had to be tucked under something to stop it folding back over itself. CEX used to have CEX Retro in Rathbone Place, which was excellent. Gradually, they phased out retro until there was basically nothing left. A great shame. That said, I saw a loose Mario Kart for SNES in there about 10 years ago being priced up at £30! Their prices were good on some stuff, not so much on others. They did imports too, particularly Saturn. Some CEX stores might have a cabinet or a few titles behind the counter that are retro, but they generally don't bother now. It's the way they all went - GAME got rid of retro pretty quickly, then Gamestation decided to have key stores only for retro and shipped all stock to those stores. A shame, as I picked up a load of retro stuff in Gamestation very cheap (50p a game, often). Level Up are lucky. I think they're nice guys and usually have a decent stock, so it worked in their favour. Maybe the posh students liked to buy the games there, who knows? Still, other retro shops failed in Canterbury - Lee's down the side alley in the main precinct, and Sound Deals round Northgate for example. GAME, of course, used to be Virgin Games / Future Zone, then Electronics Boutique (who sold brand new Jaguar and Lynx stock in the early 2000s)... and then went rather downhill, sadly. I bought a LOT of stuff in their Canterbury store before it became GAME.
