Just put it out of its misery already. GAME has a good name, is highly recognised etc, but it's not making any money and nor are the other game retailers, and the country is being swamped by established online game retailers, with digital distribution due to take over the market any minute.

Buy it now and it will just have to be killed off a few years down the line.

@masterds64 Fine, it's required by law, but I think it's also required by law to clearly represent what is being sold, and the identifying marks of a Region 2 game are being covered. From that the retailers really ought to play fair and make it very clear to us when a game is not an official Region 4 game. But they're not doing that at all.

And this isn't a new issue, this has been going on for years, I find covering the classificaiton symbols as being deceptive - intentional or otherwise, it is misrepresenting the item and that is unfair to the consumer.

@rekuhsben I disagree. There's been several PSN full release games at sub $20 pricing, Far Cry 2, Assassins Creed.

Sure, in general PSN pricing is much higher than the current retail costs but it seems to be changing, and as the industry moves away from retail items to digital distribution then these changes will continue. By the look of it retail is in a mess and the console manufacturers would be best off withdrawing their support.

So this article discusses the issue from the point of view of the retailers, and the distributors but fails to mention the consumers.

Selling us non Region 4 games is perfectly fine, as long as:-

a) They are clearly sold as such. i.e. we're not ordering what we believe to be a Region 4 game but to receive a Region 2 game. And putting stickers over the UK classifcations systems so it appears that it is a Region 4 game is deceptive and wrong.

If you want to sell non Australian games then make it entirely clear that that is what you're doing.

b) Don't sell games to us as new, but open them up just so that you can put a sticker on the game cover, thereby defacing the item. How do we know that it isn;'t a used copy if it isn't sealed? How do we know that someone hasn't already used the DLC/online pass codes, or that all the appropriate items are in the box?

These game retailers are bending the rules and they ought to play fair to all parties. not least the consumers.

@Takiah Good point on that new retail experience thing. Didn't we all think that was doomed to fail? Do they not have calculators at GAME head office?

Right, we're going to rent the biggest shop floor we can find, and have the smallest range we can get away with, and we'll fill it up with kids that don't have a disposable income playing a games kiosk for free.

Someone really should have got slapped for that one.

@Takiah

I reckon JB should buy GAME. I think that could compliment their business nicely. What do I know. Idle speculation only. I hope someone buys GAME though, and hopefully some of the stores could remain open. I think GAME has an enormous amount of good will and long standing customers that will support them if they get their act together, and if they're able to be price competitive. Maybe the answer is simply that they can't be price competitive in which case we could expect all bricks and mortar retailers to pack up shop before long.

Also, I find it a bit of a shame that there are no other opportunities for the staff to remain in the gaming industry other than in a retail capacity. Maybe the staff could buy-out GAME.

@Takiah Yep, in my opinion retail is a mugs game. I've not worked in retail myself but from my experience most people work in low rated, low paid roles and it's really diffcult to grow or increase your salary. It also is very unstable and a bit of a pain working weekends and what-not. I can only hope that the staff are able to consider their next move carefully and find roles that will suit them.

@Takiah

I suspect that it's not as simple as not enough sales. GAME have had some really silly pricing lately. I've bought several games for $5. Now they have a buy 2 get 3 games, and some of the games cost less than $10. How can they possibly be making money from that. And it's been like that for a while, and again it's not just GAME, several of the retailers have a lot of games marked at really low prices. A good example would be JBs 2 for $40 listings - which include Deus Ex and Dead Space 2. Both of them for $40. Bargain. Even more so if you buy when they have a 20% off sale. How can they possibly be making money from that. Especially when they have free delivery. It's nuts.

On top of that GAMEs trade in prices has been kooky. I was able to trade in several new release games for more than they cost me to purchase, and then more recently they've been giving such low values that it hasn't been worth giving them the games.If I look at GAMEs shelves they've remained the same for the last 2 years or more. The same pre-owned games are always there, and for largely the same price (too much), they're just being circulated, then they have a handful of new release games - really a pitiful amount, and then several bargain bin games, which I'm grateful for, but where is the range? If you go into EB or JB you get everything you could possibly want.Other than the obscure titles.

I suspect that GAME have focused too much on trade ins and people have wised up and decided not to spend $80 on a second hand game that they can buy new for half the cost if they import. I can't feel sympathy for them as a company. If they'd just focused on giving us a good price for a good range of games and not tried to sell us this whole buying used games at high margins then they might have survived. They were following a greedy business plan and got burned.

I'm sure we all feel sympathy for the staff, but I don't think management deserve our sympathy. They've been screwing things up for a while. - erratic trade in prices, false price matching strategies, poor stock of new games, absurd marketing stunts As much as I can understand your plee for people to buy in store, people won't do that when they're aware of cheaper, online alternatives. Give GAME $10 more, pfft, it's a business not a charity.

I do think you're right in saying that the problem isn't just reserved for GAME, but it does seem that the gaming retail market, in Australia, has been hit massively hard. Sanity closed their gaming department, so did Myer, DSE are in the process of doing so. And the mass retailers are just a mess - K-Mart, BigW, Target still haven't figured out how to mark their prices and Toys r Us are just horrendous in regards to pricing.

IMO EB Games pricing aren't too bad. Yes their full retail prices are generally too high, but on par with the mass retailers, and they're pre-owned games are generally obscene prices, but then so are the pre-owned games at GAME. A game could be $20 new at GAME or $50 pre-owned. Hello? EB generally have frequent sales covering a significant proportion of their stock and generally the prices will be good or very good. I often see very good prices on their website but then don't get to find the game in store, as they all sell out. That being said EB do have horrendous customer service and GAME is far and away superior to EB in regards to their staff - they're generally nice, down to earth people that clearly love games and are happy to support their customers.

This game looks interesting and fun. If I were in the habit of buying full price games I'd get this, but I'd much rather wait for it to become a budget price, unfortunately that seems to take forever with CoD titles.