Probably only 2 copies in the UK

Dinostar77 wrote:

In CEX earlier and they had a copy of PS2 game
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army £82.

Flipping heck thats expensive

Yeah that was expensive even quite shortly after release. I remember waiting for it to drop below something like 49.99 in HMV and it never did. Someone traded it in whilst I was at game years later but another staff nabbed it. He did sell me his vanilla P3 on ps2 though for £5.

Pop into game with the boy. He wants a Lego mini figure. Might as well order switcher 3 while I’m here. Neither staff no anything about it. They look it up release date tbc .. looks up a bit more ... it’s already been delivered! We can pre-order it for you. Great. That’s £5. What? Oh it comes off the purchase price. You’re alright I’ll see you Tuesday.

I went into GAME when the Wii was contemporary and asked if they had Metal Slug Anthology and they didn't know what Metal Slug was.

That kind of put me off.

They have literally become irrelevant for me. I used to buy the odd thing there but I think Mario Maker 2 special edition is the only thing I've bought from them in like 5/6 years.

hylian_elf wrote:

I seem to recall one particular day I went in and there was a massive staff change. Most of the guys I knew were no longer there. Dunno if it was some mega company change.

Did that maybe coincide with the time they went bust?

When I worked at game (about 360/wii/ps3 launch time) I worked with some pretty knowledgable people. My manager, a real stand up guy, didn’t give a shit about most of the classic or more obscure stuff we talked about and helped people with the more ‘mainstream’ shooty stuff we weren’t fond of. I was the guy who managed to secure preorders for stuff like tatsunoko vs capcom and Demons souls from people, and my mate was a PC guy who also liked mostly classic stuff.

Lots of great recommendations between us and we would regularly tell people (who asked) honest opinions on things, or advise against particularly awful games if we knew they wouldn’t like it. Also used to give refunds on truly terrible games even when they brought in the dreaded stickers to stop returns. Especially when some kid spent his birthday money on something like sonic 2006, and he came in the same day heartbroken. We would just let them pick something else most of the time.

Good times there, probably one of my fave jobs.

Back in retail I only ever hired people based on their product knowledge, you can train a monkey to work a till, can’t teach it passion.

cosmicjellybean wrote:

When I worked at game (about 360/wii/ps3 launch time) I worked with some pretty knowledgable people. My manager, a real stand up guy, didn’t give a shit about most of the classic or more obscure stuff we talked about and helped people with the more ‘mainstream’ shooty stuff we weren’t fond of. I was the guy who managed to secure preorders for stuff like tatsunoko vs capcom and Demons souls from people, and my mate was a PC guy who also liked mostly classic stuff. Lots of great recommendations between us and we would regularly tell people (who asked) honest opinions on things, or advise against particularly awful games if we knew they wouldn’t like it. Also used to give refunds on truly terrible games even when they brought in the dreaded stickers to stop returns. Especially when some kid spent his birthday money on something like sonic 2006, and he came in the same day heartbroken. We would just let them pick something else most of the time. Good times there, probably one of my fave jobs.

My kind of GAME shop.

In earlier times some staff were at least interested. I remember one guy's eyes popping when I explained the virtues of the copy of 10 player Saturn Bomberman he had sitting in his pre-owned section. (Foolishly I didn't buy it as I already owned a copy - I didn't anticipate the madness of todays prices).

Lol. I wouldn't work for them on principal.

Dinostar77 wrote:

Youre a good person cosmic. Especially helping kids out. Was your manager ok with you doin that?

Oh yeah, he was the reason we enjoyed working there and gave us the freedom to make our own (decent, within reason) decisions. We were mostly young students, it was a tiny store and we had Blockbuster, HMV and CEX all down the road. He realised good service and repeat customers was the only way to get by. It genuinely worked too, the place was rammed constantly till it closed down.

Edit: over time things obviously changed, as they changed managers around, started trying to drill insurance (which we would only really recommend to parents buying DSs for their clumsy kids) and cut out hours. I left about a year after all that, and it was a shame how much had changed, but with the stresses of retail we understood. Made sense when we heard they splashed all the money on European retail stores that made no money...

Looks like Fopp on Byres Rd is finally closing down and giving up. Sad times, again. After closing down twice before and being saved by campaigns from the locals each time, this one looks like the real end.

I'm gutted.

Checks out, yeah. Remember the planning permission applications with two-storey restaurant use? The landlords think they can get more rent.

poprock wrote:

Checks out, yeah. Remember the planning permission applications with two-storey restaurant use? The landlords think they can get more rent.

Aye, we definitely need another fucking restaurant in Byres Road...