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GAME are likely to fail in the near term, yet the general feelings are people want a specialist retailer in the highstreet. I've been thinking about how I would run a computer game shop. Having just been into GAME, some problems are obvious, I've commented on the GAME specific thread for anyone interested in my last experience. Here is how I would run my shop, I have not considered financing and business models etc into this because I don't feel its relevant, the themes of these ideas can be adapted to work profitably. 1) The shop needs a modern, adult look and feel. GAME is bold and clean but is certainly kiddy. HVM gets very close, black walls, bold pink letters give a 1980's retro vibe harking back to the all important middle-age roots. I would use something more inclusive, not as masculine, certainly not as cluttered as HMV stores. The key point is you want to feel validated when you walk into the store. You don't want to feel like you've walked into a kids emporium, or into a geeky inner sactum where you don't belong. It should feel inclusive, friendly..... 2) I would have "Game Experts" (shop assistants) walking around the floor with iPads. First, they should be actively seeking to assist people, engage with them, ask what games they are playing, what are they after in the shop, what games are coming out soon etc. Second, they can act as stock checkers and till points. The iPads have access to that shops stock. So someone can say what they want, the assistant can check if they have it and what cost, if not they could order it for them there and then and get it delivered too them. They could pre-order games there and then, basically using the online shop for the customer. It is these 'Game Experts' job to inform the casual adults looking for games for their kids that not all games involve shooting aliens. They can introduce them to Viva Pinata, Portal or Stacking on XBL etc. It is for them to suggest to the teenage kids Zelda isn't for kids, why not go give it a go for 10 minutes in the trial booths (below). Why not have price orders? Adults often just want to buy a treat for their kids, what if the game they wanted was £40 but they only wanted to spend £20 - why not register their interest on the website which automatically emails them when the price gets to £20 on their store. They can suggest alternatives for £20. Clearly these staff would be motivated, carefully hired and paid slightly more than they are now. Customers could 'tip' staff. When they have received what they felt was great service, they could register their gratitude by taking the staff's number and putting it into the 'thanks' section of the website, or press the button on a touch panel in the shop. Staff with the most number of 'tips' in the store that week/month/year get bonuses, pay rises, promotions etc. 3) Trail booths. Out back there would be 3-4 small areas for customers to try out games, consoles and the likes of Kinect. Two would be for general use, two would be bookable in 10 minute slots. So if I wanted to try Kinect before I bought it, I could book a booth online for the game I wanted to try, pop along to the store and give it a go. The two general use ones would be available for the floor assistants to send interested customers too, putting any game that customer wanted to try into the machines. I would also have a table, like Apple/Currys, with PS Vita/3DS etc so people can wonder in and play on them. The above Game Experts could ensure kids don't hog them. Maybe I'd love a PS Vita? I've never seen one, never been able to try one, the GAME I went into yesterday had some photos that was it. Maybe if I held one, played a game on one I'd find it was a must have? 4) As a specialist game shop it would be our job to be the reference for that hobby. There should be a decent selection of new games on the shop floor. We know the good games from a few years ago, what we should and shouldn't stock. We should have Assassins Creed 2, Brotherhood as back catalogue, we should have Portel, Team Fortress 2 etc. I'd have a small second hand selection but more out the back. The front of house selection could be swapped around every few days, the full second hand catalogue would be browsable on touch screens in the shop. So if I knew I wanted a second hand copy of Farycry 2, I could check on the system on this touchscreen and simply get a 'Game Expert' to go and fetch it for me. If I wanted to browse I can do that through what is on display and on the catalogue monitor. Similar with new games. Yes you carry more stock, but you then encourage people to come and look around in the store rather than being forced to go online for older titles. Half the fun of shopping is browsing, GAME has taken this away from you currently. 5) As a game shop you should act as a centre for that community. Run workshops on getting into the games industry and have some local designers come around for a chat. Show exclusive preview clips a day before they are announced. Have E3 parties and show a live stream to the MS/Sony/Nintendo conferences, especially when you have new consoles announced Run evening game clubs for people to play Fifa/COD/GOW in leagues. Run competitions for E3/GDC etc tickets. Other ideas would be to have a late night shopping twice a week between 6-8 for over 16s only. Not all customers will want these features. I know I hate being bothered by shop assistants sometimes but at other times it is what you want. I sometimes just want to go in and buy a game I know I want. I wouldn't personnally use the 'community' features but others would. Also, I do not want to appear to be excluding or attacking kids. They are the future of the industry and important, but sometimes I just want to browse, try out etc in peace! JR |
My vision of a new modern computer game shop
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IJ 1,028 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 20 years ago -
Fatiguez 8,930 posts
Seen 3 weeks ago
Registered 13 years agoAnd it will be built with walls of text -
"yet the general feelings are people want a specialist retailer in the highstreet"
I think your idea potentially falls down on your first sentence. Unless you've done some proper quantative research in that area, I don't think that's an assumption you can make. -
disusedgenius 10,677 posts
Seen 16 hours ago
Registered 14 years agokalel wrote:
Plus, more to the point, there's a difference between wanting one to be around, just in case, and actually bothering to use it with any kind of regularity.
"yet the general feelings are people want a specialist retailer in the highstreet"
I think your idea potentially falls down on your first sentence. Unless you've done some proper quantative research in that area, I don't think that's an assumption you can make.
For more than just playing some games at lunch, I mean. -
cornholio 89 posts
Seen 10 months ago
Registered 14 years agoSell American candy and energy drinks please... -
I tried to come up for a vision of a new modern video games store, but my mind wandered and I came up with visions of Kelly Brook instead.
Mmmmm Kelly Brook. -
Having a small selection of the second hand stock on the shop floor with the rest in the back's an odd idea. Give people credit for their trade ins, then hide the stock in the store room? do you know how a shop works? -
Nanocrystal 2,575 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 12 years agoIf they can do something about the smell, we're half-way there. -
Fair play to the idea and that. Don't mean to piss on your chips too much. There are some nice experiential thoughts in there. I just don't think it reflects the reality of the future of digital format retail. -
shamblemonkee 17,967 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoWe might say we want a game specialist on our highstreet but GAME and HMV are proving the money's not in it when competing with online.
Adding to your overheads with all the community stuff is'nt going ot help that unless you're making money while everyone's there...
Edited by shamblemonkee at 15:21:39 07-03-2012 -
chopsen 21,958 posts
Seen 11 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoThat kind of set up, experts who have time to go through stuff with you, an environment for demoing stuff at your leisure, nice welcoming environment, basically describes what higher end hi-fi stores do. It describes an intraindustry that has a large mark-up on the products it *does* sell, so that it can invest in the in-shop experience (which does not directly lead to sales).
Games retail operates on a very slim margin. It would be unsustainable. -
I can something like this as a one-off flagship experience on Oxford Street or something, so it would be as much of a destination and tourist spot as a retail environment.
Can't see it working as a normal high street thing. -
chopsen 21,958 posts
Seen 11 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoSomething I *have* thought about in the past was a cafe/bar type place with sofas which each had a gaming set-up. As long as you're ordering coffee/beer/biccies, you can carry on gaming. If you like what you're playing, there's the option of buying a retail box to take home. There is a limited range of games that can be played in-store, but there is "menu." High profile new games and some "classics" with an emphasis on small party/LAN multiplayer type games. There is also a limited hardware line for sale.
The stuff that gets sold is quite limited in range so that less capital is tied up in stock that just sits for-ever on shelves. The revenue on the game itself is slim, and that is supplemented by the sales of food and drink (which again operates on slim margins), promotions run by publishers (at least subsidising purchasing of stock in return for pushing their games at the pods, possibly paying outright for exposure/advertising).
There's an emphasis in making it a pleasant place to hang out. Not a sweaty shit hole, or over-run by kids. This could be addressed by setting an appropriate price point.
After hours there a cocktail bar and team based competitions. -
chasejamie 838 posts
Seen 3 weeks ago
Registered 15 years agoI don't want anyone talking to me that doesn't know me in a shop. -
neilka 24,025 posts
Seen 7 minutes ago
Registered 16 years agoThey should sell beer in there and have lots of tables where you can sit down and drink your beer. Perhaps sell poor quality hamburgers and cottage pies too. They could put the games round the back in a skip in case you want to rummage through them.
Currently seeking investors for this innovative new business proposal. -
President_Weasel 12,355 posts
Seen 3 weeks ago
Registered 17 years agoSteam.
Unless you mean console games, in which case PSN and XBox Marketplace for the nextboxes.
If you do want a bricks and mortar chain, the trick is not to go for a massive expansion fueled by credit. It's still a bad idea though, the market is moving towards digital and GAME is going to push it over the tipping point at least in the UK and maybe Spain. -
1) Game doesn't look kiddy, it's designed to look casual (pink typeface, rounded corners).
2) I find shop assistants annoying enough at the moment, without them wandering around with an iPad, asking me what I am playing (none of their business), keeping me waiting there while they check the stock levels, and expecting a tip for doing their job. Why wouldn't I just order a game myself from an online store using my phone? Quicker and easier.
3) Sure, any future for games stores has to involve the things that they can do and online stores can't. Problems include a) your increased staffing costs, and b) the increased floor space needed. Expect to pay a huge amount of rent for this.
4) Well, yeah, having a huge back catalogue of stock taking up space out back would be nice. It's not very profitable for the amount of space it would take up, but it's nice.
5) Again, cool, focusing on club stuff. But the money side of it isn't as flexible as you think- where is the floor space and staffing costs coming from to make all these non-profitable activities happen? You'd probably make more profit on selling cokes and coffee than you would from the games sold on these nights.
My opinion would be, if I was mad enough to consider a similar business model, to base it all around the building. You need to be out of a shopping centre (so you can set your own hours, run evening events and avoid ridiculous rent and contracts), and own the mortgage on the property or plan to pay it off quickly rather than rent it.
Divide the business into 3 parts. Game shop, community/club, food/drink. Each needs to be profitable on it's own, so that any two parts can support the third in the lean times. Get some comfortable sofas in, and charge a couple of quid for tickets to come down and play in the leagues on huuuge screens every single night. You'd effectively be running as youth club attached to a shop, so you'd need to get the staff CRB checked etc.
All of that might work, in the right location and not counting games retail as it's only source of cash. Even then, you are looking at £1m+ to set it up plus finding the right building for sale, with no guarantee that it would actually work.
Running events and not charging for entry, considering the floorspace and staffing costs, is madness.
All in all, it's a ridiculous amount of work, and a huge amount of risk.
Edited by redcrayon at 15:45:24 07-03-2012 -
shamblemonkee 17,967 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoimo what's needed is;
minimal overheads
to be quick and as easy as online
comparable priec to online
the only way i can see a store meeting any of those is for it to adopt an Argos type model.
You reserve a copy of the game online, or just go down and order it through a touchscreen POS, the POs can also act as an info centre, minimal staff.
the games are distributed electronically to each store and a copy is burnt / put on encrypted solid state media as requested. you get given an unlock code to enter which is verified with the makers/publishers when you register at home. -
nickthegun 87,711 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoYouve basically just described the perfect place to go to, doss about all day and then order online.
This is one of the problems with enthusiasts making business plans. Theres an games cafe type thing thats opened in oxford that is also a comic shop because they like comics. They have had to capitalise PCs, consoles and a stock of comics and all they are going to get is people coming in and treating it as a library. -
My idea for the future of game shops is somewhere with fantastic customer service, great prices and fast delivery. I believe several of these shops exist already, making my idea somewhat redundant. -
Low prices, lots of stock, doesn't smell/have death metal playing continuously. The end. -
BinaryBob101 27,756 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 12 years agoVideo games. -
skuzzbag 5,950 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 17 years agoMy idea of a future game shop is I walk in and it doesn't stink of sweat.
Then a gaggle of 20 something females (possible Japanese and scantily clad) surround me and drag me of to a private room reserved for executive game testing. -
warlockuk 19,519 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 17 years agoThe idea, while nice and flowery... would shut down in no time.
Blerk wrote:
Racist.
Low prices, lots of stock, doesn't smell/have death metal playing continuously. The end. -
Dougs 100,414 posts
Seen 5 hours ago
Registered 18 years agoSounds to me like you just want Apple to do (slightly more retro/darker) games stores... -
nickthegun wrote:
Exactly this. It would have been an idea that may have worked maybe 15 years ago, but the vast majority of people aren't going to give a fuck that you have a nice store with demo units and friendly staff, they're just going to order wherever's cheapest regardless, and that'll be from the places with the least overheads or other revenue streams (IE Amazon or supermarkets).
Youve basically just described the perfect place to go to, doss about all day and then order online.
This is one of the problems with enthusiasts making business plans. Theres an games cafe type thing thats opened in oxford that is also a comic shop because they like comics. They have had to capitalise PCs, consoles and a stock of comics and all they are going to get is people coming in and treating it as a library.
Plus, no-one's going to tip shop staff. No-one. At all. That doesn't even happen in the States, and there's a much bigger tipping culture here than the UK. -
One day when I win the lottery, I'm going to open Books, Beans and Bytes. It's a bookshop/coffeehouse/game shop.
It won't make any money, but it will mean that i can sit around all day reading books, drinking coffee and playing games. All my stock will smell of coffee, which should help mask the scent of nerds from the people who just want coffee. All my books will be Sci fi and fantasy which should keep the people who just want coffee away from my most valued customers.
It will lose money hand over fist, but because I'm only going to open it when I win the lottery I won't care. -
Similarly, when we win the lottery, my wife wants to open an American diner hang out joint specifially for teenagers. I swear she lives in BTTF/Peggy Sue Got Married/Happy DaysLand. It would be a nightmare controlling that scum.
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