High Street chain collapse sweepstake

WillPS · Thu 22 Mar, 2012 12.48

bilky asko wrote:
Dr Lobster* wrote:it does seem amazing that game managed accumulate such debt.

and whilst i do feel sorry for the smaller companies that inevitably lose money when a company like this goes tits up and inevitably is at the bottom pile for getting their money back, the surely the suppliers of companies like this really have failed due diligence by continuing to give credit to them in the first place? who on earth would lend cash to a company already 200m in dept? only an idiot surely? it seems at least some suppliers refused to deal game in the end.

but it's not as though their plight has been a great surprise and the business model of having several shops selling the same thing in the same town, sometimes almost next to each other, is beyond stupidity, given that the bricks and mortar is one of the largest liabilities for the company.

i remember in the good old days though, before the recession, game used to be packed full of bo stinking teenages, not like that anymore. last time i walked past there was just a handful of people browsing.

shame really, if they had expanded into high performance gamer PCs, tablets, and other gadgets they might have been able to survive.
That last paragraph probably shows why HMV has lasted longer.

So people are actually buying that stuff from HMV?

Alexia · Thu 22 Mar, 2012 22.14

It's a shame iTunes is device locked. A great idea would be terminals in HMV where people could walk in, plug in their iPod, and download a song that way.

Sort of like the opposite of a smart photo printer.

Jake · Thu 22 Mar, 2012 22.30

Alexia wrote:It's a shame iTunes is device locked. A great idea would be terminals in HMV where people could walk in, plug in their iPod, and download a song that way.

Sort of like the opposite of a smart photo printer.

Might've worked a few years a go, but we've reached the stage where people can purchase straight from their devices, no need to plug into anything.

Gavin Scott · Fri 23 Mar, 2012 11.16

Well I think you're right about media, but I don't think its the end of the road for them in terms of physical product.

There will always be a marketplace (and a significant one) for a value-add retailer. Its hard to imagine that people need advice on buying a music or movie player, but they do. And its not as if its not an evolving sector. The average consumer knows what they know up to a point - they understand how to program a video, but don't know what makes a good DVD player; or they have a cracking DVD home theatre but got confused when BluRay and HDDVD came round.

That's a simplification perhaps, but tech can be locked to a generation in a way that means the consumer (certainly affluent ones) would prefer to be guided into a new system or format, especially when new formats are big ticket items.

I think this was the tack that "Black" took - a higher-end customer experience which was about selling at a premium in consideration of having value-add expertise.

Beep · Sat 24 Mar, 2012 00.07

Gavin Scott wrote:Well I think you're right about media, but I don't think its the end of the road for them in terms of physical product.

There will always be a marketplace (and a significant one) for a value-add retailer. Its hard to imagine that people need advice on buying a music or movie player, but they do. And its not as if its not an evolving sector. The average consumer knows what they know up to a point - they understand how to program a video, but don't know what makes a good DVD player; or they have a cracking DVD home theatre but got confused when BluRay and HDDVD came round.

That's a simplification perhaps, but tech can be locked to a generation in a way that means the consumer (certainly affluent ones) would prefer to be guided into a new system or format, especially when new formats are big ticket items.

I think this was the tack that "Black" took - a higher-end customer experience which was about selling at a premium in consideration of having value-add expertise.

And Black are still going strong! Albeit as 'Currys - PC World - BLACK.'

bilky asko · Sat 24 Mar, 2012 00.15

In a year or two when physical media is completely redundant

A year or two? What a load of tommy rot.

It'll be much longer before Microsoft or Sony could handle potentially millions downloading a new game on the release date without a huge disaster.

Anyway, I think we will have invented enough new features that internet downloads/streaming would not be enough against physical media for a good while yet.

lukey · Sat 24 Mar, 2012 00.47

bilky asko wrote:
In a year or two when physical media is completely redundant
A year or two? What a load of tommy rot.

It'll be much longer before Microsoft or Sony could handle potentially millions downloading a new game on the release date without a huge disaster.

Anyway, I think we will have invented enough new features that internet downloads/streaming would not be enough against physical media for a good while yet.

I don't think gaming is quite the best example of the virtue of physical media. If there's any truth that the next Xbox will have no optical drive, it's perhaps only notable for being completely plausible. Shovelling tens of GBs to a lot of people isn't itself the problem, and I can imagine a transparent P2P model being used to support it (think Spotify, UX-wise). The market will be a bigger issue than the infrastructure I imagine, and if the platform holders no longer have a distribution chain outwith their control, I can anticipate a few regulators getting a little antsy...

Where I *do* anticipate optical media will have a place for a good while is with TV/movies, because there's still a huge quality gulf between streaming services and Blu-ray. As usual, I'm probably wrong seeing as so many people are happy to watch TV in a 320x240 smudge plastered in Korean subtitles. But, I don't really expect this is something that will dramatically improve over the next couple of years, going by the miserable rate at which our infrastructure has come together so far...

Alexia · Sat 24 Mar, 2012 02.15

I think some of us tech-savvy people get carried away sometimes with the importance, nay significance we place on our cutting-edge adoption of the latest methods of storage and delivery. We are very much in the minority. Vinyl is still around despite its obsolescence and is a preferred medium of choice for a lot of indie record producers and of course audiophiles. Although I can't see people having the same romanticism for CDs, they still have their place - certainly in terms of backup and secure storage. I'd much much rather have my pics and vids safely stored on a CD-R or two than in "the cloud" thankyou very much. Also, returning to the independent music scene, it may now be fashionable to post your music online for all the world to listen to, but I bet people still mail off CDs to record companies. They certainly still sell them at gigs, which is the best place to sell music IMHO. Why take the chance that the excitement of hearing the music will have worn off by the time the person gets home to their computer to download it? As for movies, well, they are a social experience are they not? They deserve the proper hardware designed for the job. Sure, you could cram a compressed copy of the latest blockbuster onto a USB chip and take it round your mates, but what about the special features? the surround sound? the interactive menu and the trailers? Nah... stick with the DVD/BluRay. Take them round your mates. Swap them. Rip them if you must. Put them on the shelf, alphabetise them. Do all the things humans have been doing since libraries were invented.

Physical media and "online" media will co-exist for a long time yet, and it will take a long time for human nature to change enough before our desires, natural tendencies and similar behaviours alter in favour of clicking and downloading over buying a disc off the shelf.

bilky asko · Sat 24 Mar, 2012 18.30

lukey wrote: I don't think gaming is quite the best example of the virtue of physical media. If there's any truth that the next Xbox will have no optical drive, it's perhaps only notable for being completely plausible.

The rumour is that instead of an optical drive, a solid-state system will be used - i.e. cartridges, a physical medium.

JAS84 · Mon 26 Mar, 2012 11.53

That sounds too retro to be true. Optical media is cheaper to produce, that's why they ditched cartridges in the first place.

DVB Cornwall · Mon 26 Mar, 2012 11.55

End Game ....

RNS Number : 0590A
Game Group PLC
26 March 2012

GAME Group plc ('GAME')

Appointment of Administrators

Further to our announcements of 21 March, the Board of GAME has completed its discussions with lenders and third parties without resolution, and has therefore today appointed PWC LLP to act as administrators for the Group. This decision is taken after careful consideration and ceaseless interrogation of every possible alternative. The Board would like to thank the teams of GAME and Gamestation colleagues around the world for their exemplary dedication, passion and professionalism.

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26-Mar-2012 @ 11:53