There has been a lot of news and rumours about GAME as of late all pertaining to the future of the company. We reported recently on the rumour that the company would be ending their sales of physical media altogether, a rumour that went on to be debunked by GAME. Still, we think that that idea had to come from somewhere, and the latest news doing the rounds makes me worry about the future of one of our favourite gaming institutions.
According to Eurogamer, Game is ending in-store pre-orders within a matter of weeks now with the change coming into effect on the 1st of August. No new in-store pre-orders will be taken from staff as the tills simply don’t have the facility to offer that service anymore (more on that in a second). If you’ve got a pre-order for a game that is dropping after January 31st, 2025, then you’ll be getting a refund and no game/product heading your way.
As for the tills, a staff-member working at GAME has been recorded as saying, “Going forward the tills will only be able to sell and return products. No trade-ins, no rewards, no pre-orders, no Xbox All Access, no ‘endless aisle’ (the ability to order to store).” It seems that the store is become more and more like the other stores in the Fraser’s Group and not the gaming monolith that it used to, with bespoke services that made us go to GAME in the first place now being eradicated completely.
Speaking of other bespoke services, the GAME Wallet is also coming to an end. That means no more digital wallets for customers and no ability to add store credit or gift cards to their accounts as of July 21st.
The Beginning Of The End?
Back when the rumours about game stopping selling physical media first came out, GAME quickly responded saying “This reporting is categorically not true. GAME continues to support the physical gaming market, offering a wide-range of physical games, hardware, software, accessories, and digital gift cards, in stores and online.” That quote was given on June 24th, yet not a month later at the time of writing we find out that GAME are no longer offering their in-store pre-order service. So, how much truth was there in that original rumour?
If the GAME tills are being stripped back and there’s no option to pre-order in-store, then what comes next? In my mind, the Frasers Group is slowly taking everything that we loved from GAME and morphing it into a completely different store entirely. With no in-store orders or the GAME wallet, then what reason is there for us to keep going into the store? You won’t be able to go into the shop to pre-order the new Switch or the new PlayStation either, which means you’ll be probably heading to Amazon or Argos if you’re here in the UK, or GameStop or BestBuy if you’re in the USA.
If you read the article that I wrote on Game back in June, then you’ll know how much this company means to me as a gamer who went there every weekend as a child. It’s sad to see more and more of the company being stripped away and, on a personal level as well as in my role as a game’s journalist, I find the whole thing very disappointing and sad to read/discover. As always, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for more news as and when it drops and update this article over the coming weeks!
