Englishmen, where do you buy your videogames?

Diablohead said:
dedicated videogame shops died late 2000's, game only stuck around because they were one of the bigger names, HMV still sell games but they shrunk down a lot since their tumble a few years ago.

gamestation, at.jacarta, EB and other videogame stores went the way of the dodo.
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That sounds familiar but I dunno if it's because of the name or if I actually shopped there. Did they do mail order?
 
Irish but I have the same problem here.

Ever since my local video rental place and local toy shop with a games section closed down I have basically been exclusively buying my retail games through Amazon.

There is a gamestop near by but I am not paying €75 for a new game.
 
Online mostly.
Occasionally I get a couple at Tesco/Asda/Sainsburys etc when there are good deals going on.
I mainly check hotukdeals.com for any deals.
 
I mainly use Amazon, and 365Games. There were 2 stores pretty close to me that both shut down a few years back. Not too bothered, because online prices are generally cheaper in my experience.
 
I generally buy games from Amazon, but will sometimes buy from Grainger Games as I live in the North East where they have a strong presence. I only shop at GAME when they have a sale on, never full price. None of the supermarkets seem to be as competitive as they used to be price wise.
 
Patrick Bateman said:
I recently spent some time in London and to my surprise I didn't even see one videogame-store.

I also visited Harrod's and was surprised that their videogame selection is just a tiny corner with prices that are way too high.

We mostly were near the Tower of London, Piccadily Circus, Trafalgar Square and St. Paul.

Do you just buy everything online or were those just the wrong places we looked?

When I was in London 10 years ago I thought that I saw way more videogame stores.
And those were at similar locations we visited this year.
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I think last time I visited Harrods they were selling a gold plated Xbox One, and I also recall a £200 pair of flip flops. :P
 
Online. Wherever it's least expensive

New:
The Game Collection
EBay
Shop.To
Argos
Supermarket
Amazon

Used:
Ebay
Forums
CEX
Amazon Marketplace
 
Scottish and living in Englandshire. All my pc purchases are digital, Wii U purchases were all made online.

Last gen when I was buying physical for 360 it was either online for new releases, 3for£x deals in game/gamestation (which have mostly disappeared) or second hand in blockbuster (which have all disappeared)
 
redcrayon said:
There are hundreds of HMVs in England, and hundreds of Game stores which are effectively the equivalent of Gamestop. Any reasonably sized town or shopping centre (mall) will usually have at least one and often both.
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There are, but a lazy Google search tells me there's only a couple of HMVs and a handful of GAMEs dotted in and around London. They're few and far between to say the least. I go into London quite often and the only HMV I know of is on Bond Street... I couldn't without Googling have told you where a GAME is.

I'm a PC dude so I basically just buy digitally. If I do grab a physical copy for whatever reason, it'll be online.
 
Diablohead said:
In my area they had a retail store for about 2 years, around the time the dreamcast was still on sale, no idea about a web store back then.
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Yeah, I wouldn't have had internet access back then. I actually meant mail order because that's how I bought games back then; mail order being much cheaper (not counting SpecialReserve) than local chain outlets like Currys and Comet, and to get to the nearest speciality store, like a EB or GAME, I'd have had to go on a long bus journey to Huddersfield.

It's funny you should mention Dreamcast, though. The one game I recall buying from a company with a similar name was SoulCalibur on DC. It was super cheap even though it was a new game *and* they replaced the damaged case double quick and without any hassle.
 
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, videogames can only legally be sold by the Queen or one of her agents in a small number of Post Office branches. In Scotland it's an unregulated free-for-all.
 
This thread makes me miss Game Focus even more. I worked in the area and used to go in there at least once a week. Good selection of retro games and generally friendly staff.

Damn you, internet. You've ruined so many things I used to love.
 
99% online, or when there's a good deal or exclusive, supermarkets, Smyths or Game.

Really, online prices are so cheap compared to anything else, I can't really understand how places like Game keep going.
 
Steam & HumbleBundle for PC
Amazon (sometimes Game or high street) for console - but pretty much Amazon as it's way cheaper (unless someone has a really good deal).
 
spuckthew said:
There are, but a lazy Google search tells me there's only a couple of HMVs and a handful of GAMEs dotted in and around London. They're few and far between to say the least. I go into London quite often and the only HMV I know of is on Bond Street... I couldn't without Googling have told you where a GAME is.

I'm a PC dude so I basically just buy digitally. If I do grab a physical copy for whatever reason, it'll be online.
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True, but I was quoting a poster that said they were astonished to find none in England, not London. I used to go to the Game shop in Hammersmith regularly about three years ago, but have no idea if it's still there. Depends whether you consider 'going into London' to be heading for the absolute centre of it or whether zone 2 counts, I suppose!

Otherwise it strikes me as saying 'there is no x in New York' if you can't find it within a square mile of Time Square. If someone only sees a tiny tourist hotspot of a huge city, they can't really claim something isn't within the city as a whole because they didn't see it. London is huge, with loads of smaller high streets once you head a mile or two outside the centre.
 
The market is eventually moving towards digital, GAME's prices are ridiculous so the only other option is Amazon.

MS/Sony need to get their shit together for their marketplace prices. Retail is dying quick over here (for games anyway).
 
I generally use Amazon or GameSeek.

If I receive a GAME gift card for Christmas or birthday then clearly I'll use them there but I very rarely buy brand new from there. If there isn't anything I want then I'll chop them in for PSN, XBL or Steam vouchers.

I also use Tesco at times as they can have decent deals and Clubcard point offers too. I preordered MGSV from them and got 500 extra club card points. Which can convert into £20 restaurant vouchers.
 
Amazon or Shopto usually. Shopto mainly for pre-orders as their recent track record of getting games to you the day of release is much better than Amazon's. A few times Amazon have delivered two or three days late.
 
Steam and many online retailers.

For physical games, supermarkets like Asda, Tesco, Morrisons maybe the best for buying a new game easily. Other places like PC World and Argos or HMV. We also have the odd GAME store and other independent shops.

I find it convenient to order physical games online for the last ten years
 
It's funny that you thought Harrods might be representative of where British people buy their games. We all have tea at Buckingham Palace too!

I get mine at Amazon, The Game Collection, and occasionally CEX if they have something at a low price. The more dedicated stores would be GAME and HMV which I find to be very expensive.
 
For new games I use online retailers, the best ones being Simply Games, The Game Collection and Shopto.

Once I've finished I tend to use GAME to price match CEX and then I pick up PSN credit or a game at a decent 2nd hand price. GAME are bad at preowned prices most of the time, so I wait a month or two for them to bring it down.

With the PSN credit I pick up games digitally, I recently purchased up Axiom Verge, Dishonored and Star Wars Battlefront in the January PSN sale.
 
I only buy Collector's Editions from game.co.uk and everything else, online keys from various sites, whoever are cheapest.

I can't even remember the last time I needed to go into an actual brick and mortar shop. They're not needed in this "digital" age.
 
I buy everything online since it is cheaper and more convenient, normally from Amazon, thegamecollection, ebay or wherever else is cheapest.

In terms of physical shops, GAME and CEX are rarely better than what is offered online. Supermarkets sometimes have good deals so why wait for something that you don't know is going to happen.
 
even when a retail store has a 'deal' on it is still cheaper online. unless you're a casual person buying for their kids, there is no reason any UK person should be buying from retail stores, they're all a rip off.
 
Black Republican said:
back when i lived in london i used play.com from 2003-2009

so many good deals, great times
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Ah, new PS2 games for £30-33

Godsend when I was on pocket money :D


In Maidenhead we have CEX and an independent game store, used to have a GAME but it closed down years ago. The empty store was there for like 4 years as well, along with GAME insignia.

Good riddance to GAME, imo.
 
Retail shop- cex rathbone place which is round the corner from tottenham court road station

Otherwise online as the prices in shop, even small independent ones arent great
 
Unfortunately London has lost all its independent specialist game shops in the central tourist area. Game Focus was awesome, but it shut in 2012 iirc, I frequented it during my first year of university as it was 10 mins walk away from the central University of London campus and libraries.

However, several very good independent game shops exist in the surrounding more residential areas of London, of which I've probably visited around 15. I can't really fully recall all the names, but I'll state some rough locations that I can remember down below:

Retro Game Base on Streatham High Road (highly recommended)

A small shop called N1 Games on a side street off in Islington, near Angel Station

A shop on the Uxbridge Road (iirc) in Shepherd's Bush, right opposite the park

Games 4 U just north of Hackney Central Station (I've bought several fairly rare Wii, DS and PSP games here for a reasonable price)

A shop on Kilburn High Road, south of Kilburn Station

Games Arena in the central area of Harlesden

A shop inside the Kingsland shopping centre in Dalston

A shop on North End Road in Fulham, not far from West Brompton Station

A small shop on Burnt Oak Broadway (probably hard to find on Google, I found it accidentally one day), just north of the road with Burnt Oak Station

A shop in central Walthamstow
 
Here is a crazy question. What are the shipping times like? I imagine unless you are ordering something obscure it would be pretty fast
 
Slayven said:
Here is a crazy question. What are the shipping times like? I imagine unless you are ordering something obscure it would be pretty fast
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It depends from what site, but most places it's next day (or at worst case two day). Amazon has started same day in a bunch of the major cities.
 
To browse for fun, there's Game and CEX but I don't remember the last time I bought anything from them (maybe the Ellie Edition of TLOU as it was Game exclusive and just happened to see one a couple of days after release; apparently someone cancelled).

Amazon for me, but mostly Boomerang Online rentals.

I do like browsing indie shops but since I like buying games new, I usually leave empty handed.
 
MrT-Tar said:
Unfortunately London has lost all its independent specialist game shops in the central tourist area. Game Focus was awesome, but it shut in 2012 iirc, I frequented it during my first year of university as it was 10 mins walk away from the central University of London campus and libraries.

However, several very good independent game shops exist in the surrounding more residential areas of London, of which I've probably visited around 15. I can't really fully recall all the names, but I'll state some rough locations that I can remember down below:

Retro Game Base on Streatham High Road (highly recommended)

A small shop called N1 Games on a side street off in Islington, near Angel Station

A shop on the Uxbridge Road (iirc) in Shepherd's Bush, right opposite the park

Games 4 U just north of Hackney Central Station (I've bought several fairly rare Wii, DS and PSP games here for a reasonable price)

A shop on Kilburn High Road, south of Kilburn Station

Games Arena in the central area of Harlesden

A shop inside the Kingsland shopping centre in Dalston

A shop on North End Road in Fulham, not far from West Brompton Station

A small shop on Burnt Oak Broadway (probably hard to find on Google, I found it accidentally one day), just north of the road with Burnt Oak Station

A shop in central Walthamstow
Click to expand...

Thank you for this list. I might try out a few when I'm back in London.
 
Patrick Bateman said:
I recently spent some time in London and to my surprise I didn't even see one videogame-store.

I also visited Harrod's and was surprised that their videogame selection is just a tiny corner with prices that are way too high.

We mostly were near the Tower of London, Piccadily Circus, Trafalgar Square and St. Paul.

Do you just buy everything online or were those just the wrong places we looked?

When I was in London 10 years ago I thought that I saw way more videogame stores.
And those were at similar locations we visited this year.
Click to expand...


Its very sad that 10 years ago if you walked along oxford street, you could walk into;

2 x HMVs, Virgin Megastore, GAME, Dixons, WHSmiths, Argos a GAME concession in debenhams and probably a few more i cant remember.

Now literally only 1 HMV exists on oxford street where you can buy games and i think that's so sad.
 
The U.K. Has a long and troubled history of game shops.

We had EB many moons ago, but EB bought GAME and later then became GAME in all locations.

Then in about 2002 the supermarkets got huge, started selling games at 25% less than GAME and the normal RRP of videogames.
Game pricematched Nationally, this crushed independent stores who couldn't purchase games at cost for this price and then they all started to close.
The internet meant that it was easy to get import games without the middle man of your independent store , so they lost a revenue stream, Nintendo got all shirty and wouldn't supply you with new titles if you were selling imports and then when you went to buy them from Nintendo's distributer, it was cheaper to walk in to Tesco and buy your stock.
The 360 came out, everything was 60hz and all games were released at the same time, importing became almost totally unnecessary for a whole generation.
The indies shrivelled and died altogether.

Gamestation, were the 2nd biggest Game shop and were owned by Blockbuster. Blockbuster was dying, so sold Gamestation to GAME, who now had a monopoly on the high street with a store in every village and hamlet across the land.

Fast forward a few more years and the supermarkets carried on selling Videogames as loss leaders and GAMEs insane operating costs from it's 3billion stores in prime high street locations meant that it wasn't feasible to do the same. GAME made more cash on preowned Game sales than they did on new games. By this point the small franchise operation of CEX now had stores in all major cities too, putting pressure on GAME's pre owned game sales. Jersey and Guernsey VAT tax dodging had now become commonplace, with play.com being joined by Tesco and various other large retailers, who used these loopholes to keep retail pricing even lower than a company based in the mainland UK.
Sony invented the Online pass to curb preowned sales and EA quickly followed suit. The App Store generation was also buying Xbox Live arcade games and smaller online specialist retailers had emerged from the ashes of the online retail industry that was left behind , after GAME had purchased Gameplay.co.uk years earlier.
GAME hit the rocks , their credit rating plummets and several large publishers refuse to give them stock without pro firms payment, which GAME refuse/couldn't do. Game then can't stock several large AAA releases from both EA and Capcom and this further pushes them into the red.
GAME go into administration and all stores close temporarily, the business is bought by an investment firm who reopens just the most profitable stores.

GAME now are watching the pennies and aren't so aggressively matching supermarket and online pricing, cimbuned with overall consumer trends for online shopping and digital purchasing GAME begin to struggle once more, with a reduction of boxed discs in circulation , their preowned stock is reduced, leaving them with another profit hole.
Game issue a profit warning in the run up to Christmas but is then hit with am unexpectatady huge surge in online sales through it's website on Christmas Day. The story continues......
 
LewieP said:
Please forgive the self promotion, but I tirelessly watch over the UK market, and chronicle all the best deals across all formats on my website SavyGamer, might be of some use.

Outside of the occasional good price on a new release at a supermarket, all the best deals are online/digital.
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Is it something you do for fun or is this a business to you?

I don't see any ads on your site. What do you get out of doing this?
 
PSN, eshop, steam and if I really have to amazon. Brick and mortar game stores are dead. If you have to go to a shop, just head to a super market, it'll be cheaper than GAME.
 
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