Between Christmas and New Year I had the pleasure of shopping at Game. Or, rather, I had to wait while a nine-year-old boy spent an age choosing what to buy with his Christmas money.
I hope you get the drift already. Pleasurable it was not. But that was also because the shop was shabby and smelt of BO.
The queue of disgruntled customers was nearly to the door as one assistant at the till did her best.
What did Archie get? Three used Xbox games. And this was the thing: the section selling pre-owned games for Xbox and PlayStation seemed to be bigger than the one pushing the new.
Anyone, judging by appearances, could be forgiven for supposing that this branch of Game at least, with its preponderance of labels handwritten in black felt tip, was a second-hand shop.
There was precious little sign of anyone buying brand new, big-ticket consoles.
Of course, it can be claimed that Game is not aimed at me. But then again, I’m the one with the wallet who might want to return at a later date to buy games for my son.
More pertinently, where Game’s long-term future is concerned, I will be the one purchasing the new PlayStation 4 or Xbox One console — items I can easily get elsewhere.
If anyone had said then that Game would shortly be issuing a profits warning, I would not have been surprised.
When the bad news came, after the market closed yesterday, the company blamed Black Friday for profits staying flat at £51.3 million instead of an expected lift to £63.8 million.
Apparently they offered deals on new consoles complete with discounted bundles on games that were simply too good: shoppers bought them instead of paying full price in the run-up to Christmas.
In this, Game is not alone. Other major retailers, notably John Lewis and Next, are warning that the industry needs to rethink Black Friday — that the heavily discounted day in late November is undermining vital, full-price Christmas sales.
In making the announcement, Game said that its strategy was to chase as big a share of the new PS4 and Xbox One consoles market as possible because that would deliver future games customers. In which case, if it wants my business, it needs to smarten up its act.
But can it afford to? The truth is that Game has been under intense pressure for some time — it’s previously been in administration — that heavy discounting in its field is commonplace, and it is struggling to keep up with the likes of Amazon, Tesco, Asda and Argos with their deeper pockets. That would explain what I experienced.
Game’s days may well be numbered, once again.
