Game goes titsup in Australia

Competition from online retailers has claimed another casualty in the high street with the demise of the australian incarnation of chain store retailer, Game. PricewaterhouseCoopers was yesterday appointed voluntary administrator of the UK-owned gaming company, which has over 500 Australian employees and 92 stores nationally …

[Anonymous Coward]

"The company is intending on honouring certain pre-orders placed on the Diablo III and Max Payne new releases but will refund customer deposits"

strange... according to other gaming news sites, the GAME stores that didn't receive copies of the games didn't deliver the games nor are they going to refund the pre-order deposits!

although, Diablo III developer have decided to help out the gamers who lost their pre-orders as well as their deposits ( source ). The developer have promised to re-fund the "deposit" amount placed on the pre-order, if the gamer buy the digital copy of the game and still have the receipt slip of the deposit placed.

[Oliver Mayes]

I read the same thing, I've also heard that several competitors are offering the games at a big discount for anyone who pre-ordered at Game and didn't get their copy.

[DrXym]

I really wonder who these people are who preorder games. It's not like the game is available for 1 day only, or only available in a limited number of copies before being gone forever. I suppose there is some merit in doing it if the price were attractive, there was no money down and you could cancel if you wanted but that's not the case at all for the likes of GAME.

[Anonymous Coward]

V3

I have the same curiosity as to why people pre-order new hardware. I work on the assumption that:

Version 1 —of anything will be full of bugs and missing elementary features, because the engineering bods had to rush it out to meet the impossible launch date, trumpeted to the press by marketing departments and CEOs

Version 2 —Will squish most of the existing V1 bugs and add the missing features. However the new stuff will now be full of bugs, as it was rushed out to meet the deadline trumpeted to the press by marketing departments and CEOs, boasting about the new features.

Version 3 —Will be pretty good, as the engineers will finally have had time to fix everything. The press and public will howl with derision, because there are no new features.

That's the version I usually buy.

[Greg J Preece]

@DrXym

I tend to pre-order games only when there's some kind of pre-order bonus involved. For example, my pre-order of Child of Eden meant that I (eventually) got it for £15 with a free t-shirt, which is a reet bargain. My pre-order of Ghost of Sparta got me the game for a mere £16.99. Otherwise, I don't bother.

[Drem]

Benefits of pre-order

I rarely care enough about a game to preorder it.

With Diablo III, my wife and, eventually, I decided that we were certain that we both wanted to play it.

Pre-ordering with Game initially lead to a bit of a worry that we weren't going to get it when they ran into trouble, but we'd not put down a deposit, and it's now shipped, with us paying just under 25 quid.

When Game looked like it might have problems, I added a second preorder with Amazon. Amazon's preorder system guarantees that you will get the lowest price that they offer it for after you place your order. Again, no deposit. I ordered at about 30 quid with them, and paid just under 28.

If I try to buy the game today, I'm looking at about 35 quid online, and likely closer to the rrp of 40 instore.

It'll be a while before it comes down to 25 quid again I suspect, and even before it comes down to 28. Until then, I feel I've 'won', and even at that point I may well still feel that any extra I paid was worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Benefits of pre-order

I suppose the people who buy the yearly pass of World of Warcraft are the ones who get the real discount on Diablo 3... I believe it's free if you do that. Specially if you still actually play World of Warcraft. Either way, I pre-ordered mine last year for £23 and got it this morning.

I couldn't imagine going on to Battle.net and paying £45 that Blizzard want for a digital copy, or so a friend suggested to me this morning was the retail price. Not sure if it's actually that high, but since most publishers are muppets... I wouldn't instantly discount that being the real price. Even with a pre-order discount that's about £15 more than I'd pay.

[Thomas 4]

@DrXym

In my case, I pre-ordered Diablo III. The reason was twofold:

1) I wanted to play on launch day without having to waiting 13 hours to download the game.

2) I wanted the Collector's Edition, which *is* limited in quantity, with all the various cds, books and digital bits present and correct, something, unlikely with a second hand copy.

What actually happened was I ordered it through Amazon and from what I can gather the wretched thing still hasn't even left the damn warehouse yet. -.-

[Inachu]

THE POINT IS....

The idea behind preordering games if they know they weill be a hit to hard core gaming fans then They will be the first to get into the game. By getting first onto the online game will mean being also the one with the best armor.

With the best armor you get into deeper more hard core areas faster. You then become elite of the elite while good ole mary jane down the street taks her sweet time and does not get the best item in the game because she joins late..

[Anonymous Coward]

Englican or Ameriglish?

"...meetings have been set, one in the 23rd of May ... the other is scheduled for June 19..."

Blimey, Reg! –Can you make up your mind one way or t'other, whether you're an English or a 'Merkin rag. It's annoying enough having an article with 'centre', 'colour' and '£££' sitting cheek by jowl on the same page as one with 'center', 'color' and '$$$', but now we seem to be getting both dialects mixed in the same sentence!

[ukgnome]

Re: Englican or Ameriglish?

Strictly speaking both are fine.

It is a popular misconception that one is an american spelling. Of course the wholly depends on which dictionary you subscribe to, and so the wordsmiths have a similar issue and usually label color as american.

[-tim]

Re: Englican or Ameriglish?

I have a book that was published in London in 1686 and one of the first best sellers. It has color and the U is no where to be seen.

[Tankboy]

Re: Englican or Ameriglish?

Smart people can sort it out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Englican or Ameriglish?

Nothing to do with smartness. It's more about fighting a rearguard action against the 'Merkinisation of the English language. But if you're happy to be assimilated, then go for it.

[Winkypop]

The once great malls now stand empty as silent sentinels.....

...from the days of old when people actually went to the shop.

[Wombling_Free]

Over to you, Sherlock

Hmmm, couldn't see that one coming!

[P. Lee]

IIRC

They were selling CoD:BlOps for $126 AUD on release. I could be wrong, it might have been MW3 with CODBLOPS at $99.

I wonder why they went out of business?

Actually, I'm not sure its all their fault. They have a totally undifferentiated product with no physical substance. Who thought that would ever be a good retail opportunity?

[Nick Woodruffe]

"uk stores to remain open and fully staffed"

I would prefer to see "remain open and fully stocked". Oh well back to play.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Titsup?

Surely since this is happening in "the Land (Upside-) Down Under" that should be "titsdown" instead? ;-)

[Steven Roper]

Re: Titsup?

From where I'm sitting, looks to me like you're the one that's hanging upside down mate!