Monday 17 May 2010

Two become one

I forgot to mention this when I noticed it a couple of weeks ago: Watford has lost a GAME store.

It was announced earlier this year that GAME was closing down a large number of its stores, and this would result in an even larger number of redundancies.

When this news broke the reaction on some of the more moronic comments pages, i.e. Eurogamer, was generally predictable. Most thought that the company sucked. However, amongst the bile there were a few that mourned the loss of jobs (I've experienced redundancy - it's fucking horrible) but more interesting was that in many towns there were several outlets within close proximity of each other.

This is the case in Watford. The original Watford GAME (sadly the one that has closed) was within a few hundred metres of the newer store, which is inside the main Harlequin shopping centre. It's also almost opposite the Gamestation which, of course, is also owned by the GAME group.

It makes sense to keep the Harlequin branch open because it receives the most traffic (one of the reasons I dislike going there) but the other store had some history behind it. It was (forgive me if I get the order wrong) originally a Virgin Games Centre before becoming the rather nondescript Future Zone. The manageress of VGC (I make the distinction because it was unusual at the time) stayed to run FZ. It then became the daft-sounding Electronics Boutique, which was a big US chain although I didn't know it at the time. (I was to cross paths with the EB manager when I went to work at Borders. I had the nagging feeling I recognised the deputy manager and I only found out the truth when he casually referred to his previous job one day.)

GAME soon came along to swallow EB (at least in this country) and bar the ill-advised and short-lived 'Trade-in' design storefront (large awful-looking sign in the GAME orange-yellow trade-in colour) has remained the same until recently.

It would be wrong to say that the GAME store itself held many memories. I can only recall the purchase of my Elite from there and that was recent. I actually have more fondness of the store in its previous incarnations (as my recollection of the different managers proves). However, it's sad to see that particular part of the high street vacated, especially because it's extremely unlikely that it will be replaced another gaming store. Hopefully, the most recent staff there managed to find employment elsewhere.

1 comment:

Bobsticle said...

It is a shame but I guess even without the recession would've been on the cards.. Take over the opposition then close 'em down.. it makes for a lot less competition..