News Gameplay finally dead

DaGaffer

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GAME have finally killed off Gameplay.co.uk Another little bit of UK online gaming history gone. Not that GAME ever really gave a rat's ass about Gameplay anyway, they bought it for the tax write off.
 

old.Tohtori

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You make it sound like gameplay somehow innovated and reforged online gaming. Did it?
 

DaGaffer

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You make it sound like gameplay somehow innovated and reforged online gaming. Did it?

It was a darling of the dotcom boom, bought Wireplay and was a direct rival to BW (and to GAME). At the time it was a massively ambitous company with a ludicrously over-inflated market cap. When it all went titsup, Wireplay (which had been originally bought from BT) was bought out (and is still limping away somewhere, in name anyway) and Gameplay concentrated on ecommerce, and GAME eventually bought it about the time I left (and there's a tale there that may get told one day) and GAME online has used Gameplay's massive tax losses to run itself tax-free for the last number of years. I assume the tax liability has all been used up now, so bye-bye Gameplay.

If someone ever writes a history of the dotcom boom and bust, Gameplay would be one of the UK names that would feature (along with Boo.com, QXL and a few others)
 

Custodian

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The Gameplay online store pre-dates Gameplay plc, which bought that from the guy that started it up in his mum's bedroom in Leeds and made him very rich iirc. Gameplay plc was the bit that bought everything, became the biggest online gaming company in europe (game servers, news web sites, wireplay community, tv content, all sorts), floated to make the owners bazillions, then went titsup. I was there, I was among the first round of redundancies before it collapsed :/
I think a the shop bit was the only bit actually making any money at the time (might not be much profit, but had money coming in) and was sold off for peanuts.
And yes, Wireplay exists in name but doesn't appear to be an active gaming community anymore.
 

Sar

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Christ, just been to Wireplay's forum. It's pretty dead these days, and I'm STILL in the top 3 posters in there, even though I've not really posted with real effort there in well over 4½ years. I finished up being their Q3 server admin, then Pipex ballsed everything up and the servers went for a burton iirc.
 

TdC

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didn't Wij and I spam the shit out of them one time? or was that Jolt?
 

Wazzerphuk

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I must have been in on that, surely. I don't recall though. Maybe I was out. :(
 

MYstIC G

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GAME have finally killed off Gameplay.co.uk Another little bit of UK online gaming history gone. Not that GAME ever really gave a rat's ass about Gameplay anyway, they bought it for the tax write off.
Saw this yesterday. GAME are fucked imho. I don't see 35 store closures saving them, neither do I see "click and collect" doing them many favours. Without credit insurance they are roughly speaking where Woolworths was when it went down.

It's going to take something a lot more drastic to keep the ship off the rocks.
 

Raven

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It's already been sunk. They just don't know it yet.
 

Sar

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Sooner Game die off the better. They've been one of the main high street retailers responsible for the lack of PC retail games on the shelves and the ones they do stock are either ancient or stupidly over-priced, then they cry when they don't get the footfall.

Steam & online ftw.
 

Raven

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Well, how many PC gamers give a shit about the high street? It doesn't make sense for any high street retailer to sell PC games because PC gamers have moved on and either download the game or order them from internet stores The same thing is happening with consoles now that they are properly internet enabled.

Game decided they weren't interested in online retail, just before it boomed. Poor management has got them in the mess they are in. They were a very well known brand 10 years ago, they could have cornered the market if they had any vision.
 

TdC

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yes, we dispensed quite a bit on to the sweetly upturned faces of the jolters iirc. something like 600 posts in an hour or so?
 

TdC

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I can't work that one out. I need pictures or a very visual description.
hmm I realize that I may have said something that could be interpreted in different ways :)
 

Aada

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I'm so happy Gameplay have gone it just mean's it's all a matter of time before GAME finally go down, GAME/Gameplay are overpriced in EVERYTHING they do that includes GAME stores and GAME.co.uk.

Their prices are disgusting and they refuse to change which is why people are voting with their wallets and moving else where, it's just not hardcore gamers either it's their casual folk that are starting to get the message that GAME are anything from £5/£15 more expensive in everything they sell.

Their Marketing Director or whatever her title got interviewed by Eurogamer at the PS Vita Launch one of the questions asked was ''why are GAME so expensive compared to other retailers and why don't they match prices'' and she basically said that GAME have never and never will compete like that and will keep their loyal customers.
 

Zarjazz

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738.strip.gif
 

Wazzerphuk

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When I bought SCV the other day it was £3 more expensive in GAME than it was in the HMV shop. The HMV shop is *next door*.
 

DaGaffer

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Their Marketing Director or whatever her title got interviewed by Eurogamer at the PS Vita Launch one of the questions asked was ''why are GAME so expensive compared to other retailers and why don't they match prices'' and she basically said that GAME have never and never will compete like that and will keep their loyal customers.

GAME are that expensive because that's the only way to make a profit if you support the costs of running a 600-store chain in the UK. Its as simple as that. Its also why strategically, GAME, like every other specialist retailer selling a commidity product, was always doomed to fail, the issue was simply when, and how much value could be extracted from the business over what time-frame.

Don't be fooled; senior managers at GAME have always known this; about the strategic weakness of specialist commodity retail, about the threat from general retailers (supermarkets) who can work at lower margins, about the threat from dot coms (Amazon, Play) who can work at even lower margins, about the threat from digital distribution, about the threat from disintermediation as the console players engage with customers directly. All of it. The bet that certain people made 8-9 years ago was that it would be easier to stoke the share price in the short term and eventually flog the whole business, than it would be to invest and engage in the transformation from a physical retailer to an online delivery provider. They got the "flog the business" bit wrong (although not for lack of trying) but in other respects, the people who made that decision back then were absolutely right because they made an awful lot of money and have all left laden down with pockets full of cash and no longer have to worry about it. Not such great news for the people still working there, but I'm afraid the writing was on the wall a long time ago for anyone who cared to look. One lesson I took from the experience; don't get more emotionally invested in the business than your boss, it will always end badly for you.
 

Deebs

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GAME are that expensive because that's the only way to make a profit if you support the costs of running a 600-store chain in the UK. Its as simple as that. Its also why strategically, GAME, like every other specialist retailer selling a commidity product, was always doomed to fail, the issue was simply when, and how much value could be extracted from the business over what time-frame.

Don't be fooled; senior managers at GAME have always known this; about the strategic weakness of specialist commodity retail, about the threat from general retailers (supermarkets) who can work at lower margins, about the threat from dot coms (Amazon, Play) who can work at even lower margins, about the threat from digital distribution, about the threat from disintermediation as the console players engage with customers directly. All of it. The bet that certain people made 8-9 years ago was that it would be easier to stoke the share price in the short term and eventually flog the whole business, than it would be to invest and engage in the transformation from a physical retailer to an online delivery provider. They got the "flog the business" bit wrong (although not for lack of trying) but in other respects, the people who made that decision back then were absolutely right because they made an awful lot of money and have all left laden down with pockets full of cash and no longer have to worry about it. Not such great news for the people still working there, but I'm afraid the writing was on the wall a long time ago for anyone who cared to look. One lesson I took from the experience; don't get more emotionally invested in the business than your boss, it will always end badly for you.

This. I remember the pain and heartache when the Senior Management at the time decided that there was no future in online and shutdown many aspects of GAME.net. Those people are mutil-millionaires now after selling off their stock and getting +1 million quid payoffs to leave. Makes me sick. Even when Senior Management get it completely wrong they are rewarded for their fuckups. The investment in online has only come in the last few years but even now it still leaves a lot to be desired. Won't say too much until I have received my money (obv not millions!)
 

TdC

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Even when Senior Management get it completely wrong they are rewarded for their fuckups.


my current cunning plan is to allow bonuses and nice watches to be given out, but ONLY if the plan implemented by the manager in question has shown a demonstratively measurable benefit to the company and is still effective 5 years after implementation date. until criteria met, they get nothing.

ofc, this prolly means that in my fictional company there will never be a senior management person, strengthening my ongoing thought that they are -with extremely few exceptions- all money grubbing cunts who have no clue at all what they're doing.

bitter much? yes, yes I am :)
 

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