Game, Gamestation not stocking Mass Effect 3

What's a "store"? Is that for when your Internet connection is busted?

Who wants to buy games in stores anyway these days? I'm fed up with looking at beat-up covers or limited edition boxes with crunched corners or any type of visible damage, yet still being charged full price (for some reason many stores insist on taking out the contents and then you're forced to watch the store clerk wrestle the contents back in if they don't have sealed copies in stock behind the counter. If you want the stuff mint, ie. you're a collector, you'd better go get your fix elsewhere). I'be bought games through online businesses for the last 5 years now and I've yet to be disappointed. No more high street for me.

Capcom have also told them to sod off as well; http://www.trueachievements.com/n7801/game-and-gamestation-suffer-capcom-setback-uk.htm

@ holtrocks I know it's been a few days but.... I was having a dig at HMV and supermarkets in the UK for not stocking PC games..perhaps a little too subtle? I'm an exclusive PC gamer, pretty much have been since I first built my own in 1990. No need to tell me how the PC gaming market is doing but thanks anyway.

They should refund ALL the preorder money to the customers and do the right thing and close down. They're already dead in the water without EA. Look for Take Two and Activision to jump ship next.

90% of the time I buy my games from stores, I've never had an issue with RRP and most the time I find the staff are pleasant. I just like the feeling of going in, picking it up and chatting about it with people in store and mates on the way home. The mere fact that GAME and Gamestation aren't stocking them is a travesty and upsets me as it looks like the beginning of the end for them. I can live with this, however what I think really cripples the little faith people have in them is retaining peoples money on pre-orders and refusing to give a proper refund for a non-stocked game. Disgusting.

Ridiculous that you're left with store credit. Thank God I didn't pay the full amount at my local store.

havnt gone to game for years suprised its still about

Just orders the collectors edition from HMV. I think they just got the Game shipment.

@Tufty1988 Don't get me wrong I still like going in to GameStation. The people in there are aces. As for GAME it sounds like you've got the best of the bunch. The stores in my town and neighbouring Birmingham just don't make you feel welcome. There's one bloke in my local store who's been there since it opened and he's a real gamer and you can talk to him about anything. A top guy. The rest are tools.

To summarise... just like the music industry before it, the games industry is killing the games industry.

Why are Game & Gamestation is such financial trouble? It could be down to the recession, or bad business practices, but I think partly consumers are also to blame because so many people buy stuff online from tax-dodging companies like Amazon and Play rather than support high street stores. There could also be some nefarious doings by big publishers to kick out the middlemen. We'll see more of this sort of thing in the future... Companies like EA and Ubisoft have everything to gain from manipulating things to speed up the killing off of high-street retailed boxed products and move over to digital distribution. Cuts out the middle man, reduces production and distribution costs, ties end products to individual accounts and therefore also handily destroys the pre-owned market. I've never liked Game anyway. Too.... purple. I liked Gamestation as they gave good trade-in prices, until they got taken over by Game. Now you get pennies, sometimes quite literally; I got offered 10p for a LE version of STALKER Call Of Pripyat the other day! I would support the one independent game seller in my town, but they hardly do any PC stuff any more... they had about 10 new games last time I went in, and half a shelf of second-hand! Recently, I've mostly been buying old games from GOG, and indie stuff direct from the developers... Okay, it's digital distribution, but at least its with a nicer DRM-free independent ethos.

Shameless...if this happened in the States, I'd be demanding cash money. I'd probably get it, too. Being an "open-carry" state, Nevada makes it easy to dispense 10 rounds of 10mm JHP justice, and you Brits would be amazed at how persuasive my friend Mr. Glock can be. LOL All jest aside, this really does suck, and I feel bad for all of you across the pond getting the corporate shaft. I'd be organizing a boycott, but that's just me.

ok this is a quote from the telegraph newspaper ... "Game had gathered all of its suppliers together ealier this month to ask them to support it during its financial difficulties. It is understood they asked suppliers to accept less good payment terms either by cutting prices, agreeing to being paid less promptly or paying the retailer what in the industry is known as a "supplier rebate", or cash payment. Game had thought it had won the backing of all of its major suppliers, and a source said they were shocked by EA's change of heart. The falling out between EA and Game could not come at a worse time for the retailer, which earlier this month said it had struck a crucial deal with its lenders giving it a lifeline, and ensuring it did not breach its banking covenants. "

@Quofan, it was Electronics Boutique who bought out game in 1999 not the other way around mate, but your points are no less valid.

@Quofan, it was Electronics Boutique who bought out game in 1999 not the other way around mate, but your points are no less valid.

so essentually, a business asks people for money for a pre-order, then ups and tells them 5 days before release that they're not going to be selling it and, "oh by the way, we're not giving you your money back"? I don't know about you, but pulling a move like that's gonna turn their business belly-up with a publicity stunt like that, lol.

that's why i never pre order so be old school like me go to store and buy it via cash

Well, I didn't find out until this morning so my chances of getting the PC collectors edition from elswhere is now next to nill as they've all sold out. I'm certainly not going to pay the same price for the download version from Origin. As far as I'm concerned I won't be making any more purchases with GAME and they can stick their £5. I am so incenced that I may now wait until the regular game has been out for a while and the price drops. My blood is boiling!

Why though? Content issues? Rating? Why would they deny the most anticipated game of the year? I don't get it.

Wow, lowest of the low.

Is it legal for a company to take your money for a pre-ordered game, and then to only offer you in-store credit in return for not stocking it?

As much as I detest Mass Effect, I have to admit...GAME are pulling their customers' strings. I haven't bought an EA-name game for a while, but...yeah...GAME and Gamestation pulled a bad move. I'll have to tell my dad to use Amazon more now, and only GAME for the PSN code stuff.

@bowweezzell oh they'll stock their games all right... trade in for £5 and they'll sell it on for £20 - £30 giving non of the money to the people that made the game.

@theBLOBlizard Hope you used my discount code I posted that gives you £4 off the collectors edition at Zavvi!

Let me get this straight, they've got no money, few loyal customers & the way they're going to combat this is by NOT stocking games from the largest publisher on the planet and not stocking the biggest game of 2012 so far!?! Also, every forum thread I've read so far says people got emails from game telling the about this, but I didn't! So I only found out about this yesterday & everywhere is sold out of the N7 edition :-(

Everytime you go into a Game/Gamestation the upsell is relentless. I find it very ironic that on one of the rare occassions I do preorder from them I am told a week before release "Oh very sorry but we won't be stocking it." Utterly disgraceful. No doubt this will be one of the last few nails in Game/Gamestation's coffin. I for one will not be taking them up on their relentless upsell ever again.

Having worked for Game several years ago, I never buy anything from them anyway, bunch of corperate bumholes. The day they close due to no 2nd hand game sales will be a happy one. They are also behind smaller game stores closing, which were always much better. @Quofan Edited... Nvm not awake enough to think at the moment, lol. misunderstood.

@PlatinumPaladin I have to disagree with you on that one I'm afraid. The Game and GameStation stores here in Liverpool and the Game store in Belfast (two cities I move between because of university) have had great customer service. The retail assistants know what they are talking about and you tend to find a mix of people who are better suited to different genres. Whenever I've had a question about something, or I want a new game but don't know which one, they have been very helpful and have tried catering to my needs as a gamer, and not as their needs as a customer.

@commando1992 You do get it back in cash - I just got the e-mail yesterday and it states that you get it back in the same method that you paid it with.

Ok, so why aren't they selling Mass Effect 3?, can someone explain it to me, because this article didn't.

well that is very stupid

No harm done. Just ordered it from Amazon instead.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

They cancel the preorders of what is (imo) the biggest release of this quarter (if not the year) a week before release and won't even give people back their money in cash? What a bunch of hacks.

Personally can't stand Game and hope they go under. When they took over Gamestation, evidently they decided to remove the retro gaming sections from the stores, which was the primary reason I went anywhere near video game retail stores. Now I can't expand my library of SNES and N64 games at reasonable prices :( Though in saying that, surely EA have some reason to prop up video game retail at least in the UK? A pretty sizeable majority of the games in Game stores are made by EA. That's probably another reason I don't frequent those hellholes....

This is what happens when you deregulate business to an extent that they can swallow their largest competitor (electronics boutique) and just a few years later do the same to the only other competitor (Gamestation). The monopoly backfired, because mergers are very expensive in the short to medium term, and must have buggered them. Digital and online transactions may be on the rise, so if that's the case, why would you financially cripple dedicated Games retail by monopolising the market and inflating prices? As far as I understand it, Game is in serious trouble, and unlikely to get out of this.

It should be noted I haven't actually pre-ordered this game yet, but I have seriously lost a lot of respect for GAME recently, and unfortunately GameStation by association. You used to be able to go into either store and have a good chat to them about games because they knew what they were on about. Now you've got rectumhole managers that would rather you didn't talk to them, bull sh!t policies, and crap customer service. In today's world of ever increasing online shopping, they really need to get their acts together becuase there's nothing special about them anymore.

found out about this news late and had the n7 edition pre ordered at game, looks like iv been screwd over by GAME again.... fool on me going back to them i suppose

My condolences to any fellow ME fan affected by this.

marketing suicide... it has to be said

this is sad sad news. game were really good for pc games even better than steam. they had skyrim on sale for £20 a couple weeks after it came out while steam wanted £35 for it. hopefully i will get my £5 copy of spec ops the line before they shut for good

@ApocaLeepse I hope that's the case. If the report linked to Gamesindustry.biz is correct, the refund will be in store credit only, with an additional reward point bonus for the trouble. In the US, at least, there might be a legal issue in not giving back the money and only offering store credit.

WTF

I had a look at that £5 offer they gave me and you need to spend £5.01 in order to redeem it. Couldnt find anything for that price but i had £3.40 on my reward card so that added up i managed to buy kick ass the movie form them for £1.59. Kinda made me feel a little better :)

I'm really sad now... :(

@Adap7ive - Game are giving customers a refund and 5 pounds on a reward card as a sign of good faith. They are actually refunding their customers, but a lot of news sites seem to be thinking that Game are just giving customers £5 on their reward cards and not giving them a full refund.

I understand that the company doesn't want to refund £5 to every reservation holder--it's an expensive decision; but I question the legality of breaking a contract and refusing to give back the money. I'll be following this to see how that works out.

Words cannot describe the anger I have right now. Not particularly at Gamestation (where my pre-order was logged) but at the situation. I've been out all day and have only just been notified of the news. Like Jherpen01, I too have had this ordered for months and am massively disappointed to find all CEs sold out at all retailers. Having just completed the fourth book and starting another ME2 play-through to reacquaint myself with the story, this is such a kick in the teeth. I've logged my interest with Amazon to let me know when it becomes available again but I know that this is a pointless exercise. Hopefully my local Blockbuster will be taking in a copy and I'll get lucky. Good luck to all those who have missed out too.

P.S - I feel bad for those people who have to preorder elsewhere now, especially those who had preordered the N7 Edition and now may not be guaranteed one. Blockbuster still have a few N7 editions left however, so for anyone affected reading this, you might want to check there.