I would come into game if they scaled back their promotion of second hand preowned games and supported the industry better. Its a small thing. But it pushes me to go to tescos and asda where they seem to discount all the time. Game are so expensive now and I used to love the place.
Start stocking official controllers and the likes.
The whole place just reeks of we're a business and dont really give a fuck about the industry. It should be embracing it instead. The staff are excellent, really passionate. Its the guys further up the tree that have pushed me away.

All staff must wear a Master Chief or Cortana costume, it's their choice which.

This might sound cheesy and you cant put it on a budget request but 'community'?

Staff who know what theyre talking about and are happy t talk to you about games without trying to sell anything, being confident enough to have a conversation with several people even maybe. Have people actually playing games in there, staff or non staff, and talk about what's being played encuraged. Make more of new launches is a great idea, especially with the above, have a couple of people set aside who have read up on all they can about the release and give people a lot of useful information about the game.

What you cant do on amazon is talk to people around you about the game you just bought and while that sort of thing doesnt hapen instantly, fostering that could be what sets actually going somewhere apart and its the one the the internet cant give a shopper,that personally delivered human element

GAME staff in Perth are fine every time I go in. I don't really buy anything in there though, it tends to just be a quick browse before deciding I don't want/need anything on the odd occasion I actually go into town.

Tekken Tag and Farcry 3 for twenty quid each were my first GAME purchases since... erm... the Dark Souls guide maybe. Manager served me and wasn't the friendliest but it was Christmas and it was rammed so understandable. He's been manager there for years and is a pretty nice guy.

Oh actually read the OP. Nah, none of that would interest me.

Maybe if I was 15 again I'd flipping jump at the pre release lock in but now the idea of playing it in a shop with a bunch of other people doesn't sound very enticing.

social media interaction doesn't bother me either. it's just a company.

A demo would be cool an all but I'd still give it the old "Yeah looks good but I'll have to think about it" before going home and buying it for a fiver cheaper off the net.

In the end it all comes down to price and they can't compete.

Frosty wrote:

A demo would be cool an all but I'd still give it the old "Yeah looks good but I'll have to think about it" before going home and buying it for a fiver cheaper off the net. In the end it all comes down to price and they can't compete.

At least you're thinking about it as opposed to going "nah".

Bollockoff wrote:

A demo would be cool an all but I'd still give it the old "Yeah looks good but I'll have to think about it" before going home and buying it for a fiver cheaper off the net. In the end it all comes down to price and they can't compete.

At least you're thinking about it as opposed to going "nah".

I say it's interesting but it wouldn't make a difference to my personal buying habits as I'm already pretty entrenched in games so don't really require demos. 

I don't even download game demos anymore. No need.

Could work for normal person guy/kids though.

Stop trying to force bundles on me, stop trying to ram second hand games down my throat too.  If I've decided to buy a new one, maybe I just want the new one?  I don't care if a sweaty pre-handled copy is £2 cheaper.

Pre-release lock-ins or tournaments etc sound like they're going to attract loads of 15 year olds, which means you might be relying on parents to bring them etc.  I think demo access is difficult as so many games nowadays are so big that you're not going to get the immediate feedback from something unless it's a sports game or fighting game, or something of that ilk.

Social media; absolutely.  I was very impressed that one GAME in Edinburgh replied to my tweets about 3DS XL trade-ins, so that's absolutely essential.  If they had a Facebook page where I knew my question would get answered by someone local who knew what they were talking about, then I'd use it.

The staff are the big thing though.  Right now it appears to be "can I help you find something?" followed by "would you like to pre-order/would you like this bundle/we have this pre-owned?" at the till.  No-one likes that sort of thing unless they're in their 70s buying for a young relative or something, so lesson one to your staff is that at 33, I was probably playing Spectrum games before they were born so they need to not bracket people by age!  

Get staff who know what they're talking about and make sensible, serious recommendations.  Sure, hordes of people will just flood in to buy CoD, but when I'm picking up something esoteric that's your opportunity to try and point out to me a few things I might not have considered.  The stores might need redesigned to fit that though, as it's normally an assembly line at the till, so even if the guy notices that I've bought something wacky like Tenchu Z and realises I might like the older Hitman games, he doesn't have the chance to pull me aside, show me, and talk to me about them.  I will react favourably to someone who's smart enough to talk about Alpha Protocol because of what I'm buying, but not to someone going "DO YOU WANT TO PRE-ORDER COD AND FIFA" because they're the next big releases.

The fact you have the people there in front of you is what makes you different from online.  You can make recommendations and think about what people might like by assessing them there and then, not running an algorithm on a website that says "people who bought X like Y.  BUY Y."  Sure, suggest pre-owned to me, but be open about it; I was impressed once where a guy in Gamestation said "I'd normally not recommend it, but the pre-owned version of this is on offer so you'll actually save £8 rather than £2, and if you're tempted, I'll make sure I find one where the DLC code hasn't been used?"  And off he trotted and came back with one with the code intact and unused, and even offered to fire it up on their test machine to make sure the disc worked.  

Right now it seems it's mostly full of disillusioned people pushing the shit bundles that management want, and half the employees seem unsure of what they're selling.  If you can't tell the difference between the various models of DS then you shouldn't be working there.

Bollockoff wrote:

I'd love to see demopods which we could unlock (staff in the stores I worked didn't have a key for the units so we couldn't change the games) and try and demonstrate different titles on a day to day basis, indy games days maybe. It'd blow my mind if I walked into a Game and saw someone giving a demo of Anarchy Reigns.

We can unlock ours. To be honest all the stores I've worked at have been able to. One of the problems with it though is not being able to show games rated above 12, except at midnight launches/lock ins. Anarchy Reigns is indeed awesome, but we can't show it through the day.

Elmlea said what i wanted to say

As Elm stated, the Edinburgh one are good on twitter. I'd say I've really lucked out- my Game store is exemplary - the manager always comes to talk to me when I'm in (I do spend a whack of money in there, and bought my WiiU and so on in there) , they help constantly with purchases and chat with me about stuff. So them.

n0face wrote:

Game need to stop trying to sell me extra shit, I don't want the guide or the season pass or any other stuff I didn't ask for. Aside from that change the colour scheme, one thing I've always liked about hmv was the darker colours.

... or do show me the guide, but in the environment I suggested above.  Let's wander over to the seating area with the coffee machine like you get in a car dealership, and have the guy sit down and explain to me why there might be advantages to buying the guide or an accessory or whatever.  Keep some magazines there so he can show me proof, reviews, opinions.

Basically, don't ambush me at the till when there's a queue of 12 behind me.  I'll either make a snap decision to say yes then be angry with you because you sold me shit I don't need, or I'll quickly say no because of the situation and miss out on something that could have made the game's experience much better.

I was ambushed with the Skyrim guide.  I bought it, but wasn't happy that I had bought it until a fair bit later.  If the guy had the time to sit somewhere and say "here's what I like about it and why I personally recommend it;" and show me the character creation advice, then pick a non-spoiler story and show the useful bits in the walkthrough, then I'd be VERY impressed and go with it.

Also, make your bundles worthwhile.  The guide getting a 10% discount when bought with the game is pointless.  Instead, give me a useful thing like a £5 credit to my reward card, or triple the loyalty points for the purchase.  There were plenty of times I paid £5 more for something from Game online rather than Shopto et al because the double reward points made a genuine difference.

I think the idea of informing and enthusing your customers with knowlegable enthusiastic chat might not secure a sale that day, but creates a great deal of goodwill that pays higher dividends in the long run

To be honest, I don't think there is anything Game can do now that most online stores guarantee launch day delivery or earlier if you are lucky with some reliability now. 

They offer the game for less money, get it to me potentially before release day and they don't try and sell the stupidest shit to me at the till in the most unsubtle manner as I am paying.

I think Game should probably be looking at a different type of service. Maybe if you guys could do certified console repair in store or something for a reasonable fee, iunno. 

This post has been entirely unhelpful, except for making me realise I never have to go Game again becasue the internet is now more convenient for getting my games on launch day.