Game UK - Why these guys are ruining your consumer experience on Steam in the UK. - Games

[QUOTE=mobrockers2;31937581]Or maybe he isn't a GAME employee at all?[/QUOTE] He did link his twitter page, either he genuinely is a GAME employee or someone took the time to make a new account, seek out the Head of PR for GAME UK's twitter page and then make an unprovocative post that can't possibly be for trolling purposes. I'd take a guess and say he's probably legit.

[QUOTE=Riutet;31937674]and then make an unprovocative post that can't possibly be for trolling purposes. [/QUOTE] That's how they get ya.

They are already one of the leading video game retailers in the UK. Why can't they just be happy with what they have?

[QUOTE=squids_eye;31937885]They are already one of the leading video game retailers in the UK. Why can't they just be happy with what they have?[/QUOTE] Don't make money by passing on opportunities to secure more money, could be they fear their potential future redundancy. That is, if the OP is true.

If the OP is true I'd like to say I was boycotting game for being shit, but I've not set foot in their stores for years due to shit pricing and being a waste of time for a PC gamer. If I get games I get them on steam, if it's not on steam or too expensive I get it from amazon, looks like skyrim will have to be the latter.

[QUOTE=Mericet;31937668]His twitter account is that of Neil Ashurst, "Head of UK PR for GAME and Gamestation".[/QUOTE] Because it's obviously so difficult to slap a twitter link on here.

This is fucking bullshit, although it doesn't affect me as I'll never even [b]dream[/b] of having a good enough pc to play Saints row, or Skyrim.

[QUOTE=Riutet;31938734]Don't make money by passing on opportunities to secure more money, could be they fear their potential future redundancy.[/QUOTE] It isn't good business to make people dislike you. If they think that they are losing sales in PC games they should either improve the way they sell them or concentrate on different areas of the market like consoles.

[QUOTE=squids_eye;31939988]It isn't good business to make people dislike you. If they think that they are losing sales in PC games they should either improve the way they sell them or concentrate on different areas of the market like consoles.[/QUOTE] You mean like, how they already do concentrate on selling consoles and games?

Whoah, check out the new GAME webstore layout: [url]http://www.game.co.uk/[/url]

Still getting the maintanance thing here.

This is hilarious I will generally buy new games at online retail as it tends cheaper than digital distrubution, this just makes me wait want to till it come on steam at a better price, nice strategy game.

[QUOTE=squids_eye;31939988]It isn't good business to make people dislike you.[/QUOTE] Works for Activision.

[QUOTE=Riutet;31941763]Works for Activision.[/QUOTE] And EA, and Ubisoft. [editline]25th August 2011[/editline] Also about Homefront, I remember a Valve employee made an official statement, [URL="http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1753041&page=7"]here[/URL]'s the thread. [QUOTE=TempestWales][URL="http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23117046&postcount=99"]Link[/URL][QUOTE=Augusta][URL="http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23117046&postcount=97"]Link[/URL] There was an initial error with purchasing in the UK, which is now fixed. Apologies for the inconvenience.[/QUOTE] Bullshit! An initial error? and initial error gets fixed after 2 hours, 12 hours, 1 day maybe 2 but not [B]FOUR[/B] MONTHS. In the slightly modified words of John McEnroe, "You cannot be fracking serious!". Just have the balls to say what really happened. I don't think you do, and neither does anyone else for Brink and the other games whose publishers done deals with the high street devils.[/QUOTE]

PC game distribution is going online almost entirely, I wish retailers would accept it. I can't remember the last PC game I bought in a shop, probably Monkey Island 3.

[QUOTE=SGorilla;31942692]PC game distribution is going online almost entirely, I wish retailers would accept it. I can't remember the last PC game I bought in a shop, probably Monkey Island 3.[/QUOTE] Mine was The Orange Box years ago when I didn't have a credit card.

last game i bought instore was the origonal world of warcraft.

[QUOTE=Dr Bob;31940676]Whoah, check out the new GAME webstore layout: [url]http://www.game.co.uk/[/url][/QUOTE] [img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22254898/jing/2011-08-26_0042.png[/img] download PC accessories today!

Fucking hell, £14.99 for Battefield 2?!?! [editline]26th August 2011[/editline] And the only game I ever bought outside of steam was the half life 2 episode pack (included ep1 and ep2, no hl2)

[QUOTE=Dead Madman;31949873]Fucking hell, £14.99 for Battefield 2?!?! [editline]26th August 2011[/editline] And the only game I ever bought outside of steam was the half life 2 episode pack (included ep1 and ep2, no hl2)[/QUOTE] Yes it's terrible. [img]http://f.cl.ly/items/1A400N413Y2X0r3M0s12/Screen%20Shot%202011-08-26%20at%2008.48.51.png[/img]

I think Blur was another game GAME refused to stock for similar reason.

I did a bit more research into myself I think it would come under refusal of sale and potentially abuse of dominance in the competition act. However, it's a very tricky issue. Due to te fact it is online sales and game do not have a dominance in the online download Market as they do the highstreet market it may not be a dominance issue. There can also be a defence in the fact that the publishers hold copyright to the games so can lease sale to whoever they choose. It's a very tricky line depending on what market this could be attributed to. The only proactive thing you can do is to complain to the office of fair trading and if enough people do, it will be investigated. Source: spoke to people that know about this legislation. [QUOTE=Teddi Orange;31902880][B]Minor Update:[/B] When reading this article please don't think this only applies to preorders. I've seen a few places thinking that this is the case. This actually affects the ability to buy the game on Steam for at least up to a month [I]from release[/I] as well as preorders. In the UK we have a gaming store called Game (UK) and for as long as I can remember they've been around for years now (my earliest memory of first seeing them was when I was roughly 4) and they've never been that great, but they were okay. Now for many years most people went to Game to buy their Console and PC games. When it comes to consoles Game really have quite a thing rolling, even their smallest stores have their walls lined with console games and often even basic peripherals. Often they have demo console machines everywhere with the latest games on that you can play and their second hand baskets (or bargain bins) often have plenty of games in there, albeit not the best. What's fairly sad is that Game have never really been a PC supporter as such even with an evergrowing market. For years now they've kept the PC games (usually) in the back of the store with a small segment and usually their "top 10" of games. What's even worse is that these "top 10" games are built off Games' own sales figures. This means that games such as The Sims 3 and the vanilla version of World of Warcraft remain in the charts regardless of what new releases come out. This alongside selling PC games that are ten years old (no, seriously, you'll find games from 99-2001 easily) it doesn't make for a decent consumer experience and as thus a large portion of people that buy PC games don't buy them at Game. Now since roughly March this year UK Gamers have noticed that many games on Steam are "not available in your region" and it's left many wondering why this is occuring. The first game to be officially affected by this was Brink ([URL]http://store.steampowered.com/app/22350/[/URL] ) including any DLC pages related to Brink. Thankfully thanks to a minor bug with Steam many PC users were still able to preorder Brink up until roughly two weeks before the games launch when Brink suddenly became unavailable with no response from Valve or Bethseda (as they were publishing it) as to why this was the case. Some time around the start of this year Game started talking to multiple publishers regarding their games being on Steam. This was somewhat out of the blue and surprising however their Goal was effectively to gain some monopoly or power over Steam. Heck their message was a pretty straightforwards one. They basically want (at least) one month from release date where the game cannot be purchased by those in the UK on Steam.. And this applies to all games released by that publisher. This [B]doesn't[/B] include the time the game is up for pre-order either. If the publisher doesn't agree to (what I presume is a bluff as other publishers haven't done this) then they'll supposedly refuse to stock and sell that publishers games via their stores. What makes this worse is that UKers can't even place a pre-order on Steam for that game. We can only look at media related to the game (not including demos) [I]only[/I] if they have their own pages. Lets take Space Marine for example. Searching for Space Marine in Steam from the UK results in this - Trying to access the Steam page directly results in this - Although thankfully, if any UKers want to try the Space Marine demo, you can by clicking here - [URL]steam://install/55410[/URL] Steam is the [B]only[/B] online outlet affected by this. You can go to Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate or even other smaller outlets (such as G2Play.net) that let you put the keys on Steam and that'll work. I'm actually starting to wonder if this sort of thing is actually illegal (anti-comp laws etc) and so I'm starting to do some research into the issue, although I'm not a lawyer so any support anyone feels like giving would be great :v:. This really isn't fair on us in the UK because at the end of the day, it's Games own fault that many people don't want to buy their games from their stores. If they weren't so stupidly priced or daft about making the consumer experience actually worthwhile they would probably find that people would possibly start even buying from them again. I can provide some insight into which publishers and games are affected by this below (I'll keep the list updated as time goes on and if anyone else knows any other games affected, PM me or post below) - [B]Publishers that have agreed to this - [/B] - THQ - Bethseda [B]Currently affected titles I'm aware of - [/B] - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/55150]Space Marine[/url] - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/55230/]Saints Row the Third[/url] - [B][url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/72850/]Skyrim[/url][/B] [B]Games that have been affected by said actions - [/B]- [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/22350/]Brink[/url] (confirmed, one month) - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/55110/]Red Faction: Armageddon[/url] (confirmed, unknown duration) - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/55100/]Homefront[/url] (confirmed, unknown duration) - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/50620/]Darksiders[/url] (confirmed, unknown duration) [B]Titles thought to have been affected but are currently unconfirmed -[/B] - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/43110/]Metro 2033[/url] (unconfirmed, unknown duration) Effectively I'm trying to spread the word and knowledge that this is what's going down and this [I]really[/I] isn't acceptable. I'd appreciate it (and I'm sure many others would) if you spread the word and hopefully we can see if they (Game UK) are really allowed to do this. It's a slippery slope if this isn't stopped soon or else we may end up with many games eventually not even making it to Steam due to stupid things like this. Sources thanks to [url=http://www.facepunch.com/members/89152-cheesedelux]cheesedelux[/url] (Give this woman a [img]http://www.facepunch.com/fp/ratings/heart.png[/img] or a game that we UKers can't buy :v:) - [url]http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41746/Retail-threatens-Steam-ban[/url] - [url]http://www.computerandvideogames.com/308337/bullying-retailers-reject-steam-enabled-pc-games/[/url] Not so much a source but still contains a tidbit of information - [url]http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1930156[/url] [B]Edit:[/B] It appears that [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/43110/]Metro 2033[/url] which was released in March 2010 was the first game on Steam to receive this treatment. I can't confirm this myself at the moment so if anyone could get me more information on this via a PM or otherwise, that'd be great. I will add however that it seems that THQ weren't putting this into full effect until this year. These are the franchises(?) owned by Game UK - [url]http://www.game.co.uk/[/url] - [url]http://www.gamestation.co.uk/[/url] - [url]http://www.gameplay.co.uk/[/url] If you look at their games categories in general (special offers etc) you'll notice that there's a disturbing lack of PC games for a vendor that is attempting to effectively partially boycott Valve and Steam. [B][U]Update 24/08/2011 14:02 GMT[/U][/B] Space Marine is apparantly available on the Steam Store all of a sudden. ( [url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/55150[/url] ) As is Saints Row the Third ( [url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/55230/[/url] ) Currencies are USD ($), not GBP as they should be (£) Both of these games are by THQ. Skyrim is still unavailable as it's being published by Bethseda. [B][U]Update 24/08/2011 14:14GMT[/U][/B] Games are once again unavailable to UK users of Steam. [B][U]Update 25/08/2011[/U][/B] Eurogamer ask Game for comment - Game deny everything - [url]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-25-game-denies-forcing-games-off-steam-in-uk[/url] Interesting comment by Game - Hopefully not a misquote [img]http://www.bbservers.co.uk/screenshots/Screenshot-2011-08-25_15.39.02.png[/img] Full Article - [B][U]Update 25/08/2011 17:00(ish)GMT[/U][/B] Head of PR for Game / Gamestation Neil Ashurst has posted [url=http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1119494-Game-UK-Why-these-guys-are-ruining-your-consumer-experience-on-Steam-in-the-UK.?p=31936428&viewfull=1#post31936428]here.[/url] (unverified if this is him though).[/QUOTE]

Just going to remind people of a old link [url]http://www.gamesradar.com/uk-retailers-threaten-to-ban-steam-claim-that-service-is-killing-the-pc-market/[/url] Nov 11, 2010

I had no idea Game owned Gamestation. Gamestation used to be pretty good for PC games - they had a huge section near the front, and I even found Wolfenstein 3D for less than a quid. Now PC games are relegated to a shelf or two at the back. I started going to CEX for old games instead, but I bought an Age of Empires collection that claimed to have the first two games and their expansions for £6, but on opening there was only 1 cd and it just had vanilla AoE 2. PC game shops are dying :(

Not even PC World do many PC games anymore over here.

[QUOTE=icemaz;31953661]Not even PC World do many PC games anymore over here.[/QUOTE] They sell mainly console stuff, even their stupidly priced PC Components section has been getting smaller (in our two local superstores which are fucking huge, about a minute to walk from one corner to the other, there's about 2 shelves for PC components and another two shared between PC games and accessories, compared to pretty much a quarter of the store for the console stuff)

Gamestation used to be good before it was taken over by GAME. I remember the rather large amount of PC games they had on their shelves, I used to only use a PS2 and a PSP at the time unfortunately. They would often have a look at what they had in stock in the store at the time if you phoned them so you didn't have a wasted journey. GAME used to be pretty decent back then, although not as good as Gamestation, although their prices were usually stupidly high on the PC games. They, on the other hand pretended to look for the game in stock but would shuffle round for a couple of seconds and say, "No, we don't have that game." despite the fact that you could tell that they made no effort whatsoever to look. Gamestation now is a joke, their PC section has one small section with the top 10 on, and a few other games, mostly Sims 3 expansion packs. They used to have a good section of PSP games, but not any more, just two small sections, one for new games, another for second-hand games. I don't know whether they bother looking whether their games are in stock anymore, I haven't bought anything from them recently. My brother took a PSP to trade in on three different days, each time they didn't have any money in the till to trade it in; my mother phoned them once and asked them whether they had any money at the time, all she was told was that they wasn't going to check because someone else might come in in the meantime. I hate looking in Gamestation with their huge shelves for the stupid Nintendo consoles and Xbox. GAME's PC section seems to consist of their top 10 games, and a load of rubbish like Crime Scene Investigation, Hotel Giant, Truck Simulator, Forklift Simulator, Digger Simulator, Garden Simulator(Lol) and I could go on. I can't remember what my last game I bought from them was, although it might have been Truck Simulator.

[QUOTE=sval24;31951337]I did a bit more research into myself I think it would come under refusal of sale and potentially abuse of dominance in the competition act. However, it's a very tricky issue. Due to te fact it is online sales and game do not have a dominance in the online download Market as they do the highstreet market it may not be a dominance issue. There can also be a defence in the fact that the publishers hold copyright to the games so can lease sale to whoever they choose. It's a very tricky line depending on what market this could be attributed to. The only proactive thing you can do is to complain to the office of fair trading and if enough people do, it will be investigated. Source: spoke to people that know about this legislation.[/QUOTE] Well the main question here is if retail and DD markets count as seperate or actually the same. I'd say that they would probably be legally the same as both essentially offer the same service and the same laws apply to both. But even if they were seperate markets, if anyone would exert their own market dominance to seriously underman another it would be a breach of monopoly laws. Actually on further consideration it might actually be better if they were counted as seperate markets. Since if DD and Retail count as the same, it's quite possible that game - or whoever else is behind this - could argue that they in fact do not have market dominance and as such cannot be fully in breach of monopoly laws.

Before GAME bought Gamestation, our local store had EVERYTHING. SNES's, SNES games, rare Dreamcast titles, Boxed N64 carts, retro consoles (Like the Atari 2600), Saturn disks... It was a brilliant place to browse (Even if they were pricey). Now it's just another GAME, stocked to the hilt with Wii and DS games. Little else. CEX is my favorite store now, but they lack retro stuff.

An interesting read, but I do have a question: Does this block/timelock affect the rest of Europe? If it does not, then this is a reversal of what Eurobros had to go through with DE:HR being region locked, and probably in violation of some EU laws.