When the APF (Amazon Private Force) robots become self sufficient and start killing us all, as my face hits the dirt and I see my family and kids getting slaughtered, I'll think "ahhh I should've bought Yakuza 6 from Grainger"...

afgavinstan wrote:

When the APF (Amazon Private Force) robots become self sufficient and start killing us all, as my face hits the dirt and I see my family and kids getting slaughtered, I'll think "ahhh I should've bought Yakuza 6 from Grainger"...

I literally did buy Yakuza 0 from Grainger as it was the only place that had stock when it sold out after launch. It's not my fault!

I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a Grainger Games.

Diluted Dante wrote:

Its a northern thing, like butter pies and racism.

And heavy handed moderating.

Love this place.

It's not all bad, though: I just discovered John Menzies is still going strong. They just won't sell you a newspaper any more.

Grainger Games has shut down a third of their stores as of this morning.

Worksop, Northwhich, Sale, Breeston, Salford, Altrincham, Widness, Stretford, Whitley Bay, Wakefield, Castloeford, Selby, Dewsbury, Hyde, Oldham, Thornaby, Huddersfield, Durham, Washington, Billingham and Chesterfield.

Their website is down and they haven't been fulfilling orders, with staff in stores being encouraged to exchange the value for stuff in store.

Source.

The existing owners are looking to sell a proportion or all of their shares according to articles.

This is a shame for high street games retail and probably indicative of the problems on the high street in general, with lower overall operating costs (and aggressive tax avoidance accounting), online competition is really starting to bite. I had a quick look at their last published accounts the other day (the excitement never ends in my house), and over a year ago they had begun structured cost cutting measures to lower their overheads, they weren’t throwing money all over the place. Director/owner salaries weren’t overly excessive and they didn’t pay themselves a dividend from their shares.

Where they did seem to fall down was their risk register. Whilst they had identified issues such as online competition, they didn’t seem to have any decent mitigations in place, such as diversification, differentiation or any concrete strategy to keep the business a going concern. They didn’t seem to have taken into account the potential for digital to really take off in the past few months as it has (thinking here of cases like Destiny 2 and COD where their digital sales were much higher than expected).

But I suppose, where do you go from selling games?

Yes, and they did the phone/tablet trade in thing too.

The only thing they did do which was strange was burn through £800k in cash during the year, which put them in a poor cash position, but we can see the upshot of that now. No cash, no extended credit at the bank, therefore no money to fulfil orders or pay staff.

Only ordered 2 games from Grainger last week. Got one, the other is suddenly not being sent yet despite being in stock. Was only a couple of quid mind you.

I just don't think there is a large enough market for physical media anymore.

Sea of Thieves is a sign of the times. Many just got it through game pass and those that went to the shop and bought it were treated with what may as well have been a blank disc.

Where people do buy physical sales are being eroded by online and supermarkets.

The market has gone. GAME and to a lesser extent HMV are on borrowed time as well. If there is no new hardware at E3 (very likely there won't be) then GAME are going to be tight again, they have been lucky in the past few years with various VR and console iterations fueling sales.

Yossarian wrote:

I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a Grainger Games.

And it seems I never will.

three1ne wrote:

All these businesses have been badly managed over the years. Don't know what they expected. Constantly clutching at straws. Fucking everybody over on price and treating staff like shit, taking away responsibilities. Fuck em.

Also a valid point.

They can't compete on price. That's a race to the bottom that will be won by the people who don't care, supermarkets and Amazon.

Diluted Dante wrote:

They can't compete on price. That's a race to the bottom that will be won by the people who don't care, supermarkets and Amazon.

Exactly.  We have this same conversation every month in here about how fucking evil Game are, what with their rip off pricing and outdated shops.  

Their shops stink and are outdated because they don't make enough money from selling games to re-invest in the front end of the retail experience.  Amazon can sell games cheaper as they don't have the same overhead costs to profit margins as a high street retailer and robots don't have the minimum wage (until the uprising).  Supermarkets don't give a fuck and have them in stock just to up yer average spend or make you buy a pizza and a bit of booze when fifa comes out.

The one beacon is the upsurge in Waterstones ability to reinvent and start turning profit for the first time in years but then they've also benefitted from people turning off (a bit) from e-readers.  Perhaps there is a place for a sole nationwide retailer turning a modest yearly profit from high street stores but i dunno - i don't see it myself.  Its not the evil people in charge or poor management that have caused Game to fail.  It's market conditions changing around them that they have no control over.  I  mean, we're probably only one gen off disc-less machines anyway.  What're they gonna sell then?  Not much stuff as we recognise as a game shop now, perhaps destination gamer coffee shops with bulk purchases of the scary looking energy drinks that the young guzzle down.