Editor’s Choice: I Will Never Buy Games From Tesco
Yesterday, Tesco said that when it comes to games, they are not being treated fairly. They said that by creating a “level playing field” between them and specialist game retailers, Tesco could “keep adding value to the market” and “do things for [publishers] that no other retailer has the appetite or ability to do”. Sounds tempting.
Tesco, one of the largest retailers in Britain with a clear and unapologetic advantage over specialist retailers like GAME, think they’re being treated unfairly. The shop which routinely uses the fact they have a huge company backing them and is able to sell brand new games for a loss, just to makes sales, is the underdog.
With one breath they say they’re getting the hard bargain and it’s unfair, and then with the other point out that they could, if given a “fair” chance, utterly crush every other game seller on market.
The biggest thing we want as a retailer isn’t exclusive content – let’s take this one step at a time – just give us the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.
This all follows Tesco’s push to cover more than food. As their 2010 Annual report says:
With our growing range in-store, customers are recognising the convenience of buying non-food items with their weekly groceries, rather than making a special trip to the high street. Our sales in toys, for example, continue to grow rapidly – up 25% this year.
They openly say they can and will try to take customers away from shops like GAME (which, to be fair, are twats, but it’s all relative). And they want to eventually sell exclusive content to prey those last few pounds out of GAME’s cold dead hands.
And they can do this best by canceriously building shops wherever they like. Shouldn’t fair trade and planning permission stop them if it was a problem? It should, but it doesn’t. Tesco, and other large supermarket chains, are well known to be able to skirt the law when it comes to planning permission, either using their size to ignore the law, or bribing local councils. (Supermarket Sweep, March 2011. pdf link )
They are, and have been for some time, aggressively closing a noose around videogame retail — all specialist retail for that matter — in Britain, and almost without challenge. Now they are trying to sweet-talk publishers into signing their death warrant.
Well they can fuck right off.
I will never buy a videogame from Tesco because I like videogames. I like more than one retailer, I like developers not going out of business, I like choice and I don’t like the idea that one of the greediest and immoral retailers out there could get a stranglehold on my hobby.
Why am I so angry with those who suggest that every little helps? Because when they say “every little”, they really mean it. They will wring blood from a stone if they think they can make a little bit more money out of it. Just look at their track record with groceries.
Due to near total control of the market, the large supermarket chains like Tesco routinely get away with the following (taken from A Review of Recommendations and Remedies to Address Supermarket Buyer Power in the EU, June 2010, pdf link):
- Delay payments to suppliers, creating problems for the latter in financing the gap.
- Engage in retrospective changes in terms of supply, e.g. by requiring retrospective rebates based on the level of sales in the year.
- Require fees to be paid by a supplier as a condition of carrying/stocking the latter’s product.
- Require payment for the location of a good in their stores e.g. on a middle shelf or at the end of an aisle.
Meaning, if games start to be sold in large quantities by places like Tesco: publishers and developers may not get paid on time, or when they are, may not be paid what was previously agreed; publishers may have to actually pay Tesco to have their game stocked (if Tesco are the biggest retailer, they’d have no choice); and be charged more to have games placed in more accessible shelves — the bigger the publisher, the more shelf space they can afford.
I don’t think it takes a genius to realise than in an environment like that, you can wave goodbye to videogames as you know them.
I for one won’t be killing videogames in Britain. I for one won’t be buying games from Tesco.
Further reading: Criticism of Tesco – Wikipedia, Last indie in ‘Tesco town’ loses the fight
Image: indymedia.org
[Ed - This article has been updated to remove an incorrect link to Tesco's ethic's policy]
There are at least 5 Tesco in Liverpool city centre and I pass another 5 on the bus to work. Liverpool is also soon to be home to the largest Tesco in europe (swiftly to become the second largest Tesco in europe as a larger Tesco opens literally up the road, still in Liverpool but a bit more north). We may have already lost the northwest.
Wow.
Tesco is out doing ASDA in evil.
As an American, I’m shocked. I didn’t think anyone could out evil walmart, ASDA’s parent company, in the retail market space.
I hadn’t been into Northampton town for a few weeks, but in that time Tesco had plonked a Metro store slap-bang in the centre.
I don’t want to buy games from Tesco any more than you do, but as a student, when Tesco can sell me Shift 2 – an EA game that requires a code/800MPS to access the online content – on the day of release for under £20 via a trade-in deal, I can’t say no.
Somehow, by the grace of God perhaps, Bath doesn’t have a Tesco yet (though even Waitrose is considered to be a little cheap and standard here, maybe that’s why Tesco have kept away). So sadly I don’t have the option of not buying from them.
I agree with the sentiment though and I do make sure I buy all my games from either GAME or HMV – not a fan of our Gamestation though, the staff are total cocks. I even still buy all my music from HMV for CDs and local independent stores for vinyl. Buy my books at a local place, or occasionally Waterstones. Used to shop in Fopp twice a week too, before that folded. I even ate in their café many times, despite it being more expensive than every chain coffee house.
Sod supermarket supremacy, sod digital downloads (over priced for games, crap quality for music), sod the Kindle (sorry, John) and sod Starbucks (although their orange and lemon muffins are quite good).
I am sorry but I have to admit that some places, such as HMV deserve to be driven out of the market. They are allegedly Nintendo’s official retailer in the UK and their prices on the 3DS were astronomical. Tesco may well be selling at a loss but for new releases I want to be able to get my game or new console as cheaply and efficiently as possibly. Tesco delivered on this. What is more when I picked up my 3DS I got a copy of LoZ: Spirit Tracks brand new for £10 in a bargain bin. Thank you very much.
If retailers like HMV and Game want to compete maybe they need to start looking in the mirror and thinking, what have we done to make people start leaving us and getting their games at Tesco, after all aren’t they the specialists?
Say what you will about Tesco, but maybe the little man being outdone by the big man sob story is getting old. Life is ruthless as is business. If Game (and moreover HMV) had kept honest pricing, good staff knowledge and a desire to be the leading brand in their field. Then they would not be threatened by Tesco and their increase in market share. The truth of the matter is that they are, because Tesco are delivering where they cannot.
Also, if that is in Tesco’s power to do all that you say, then publishers will back out and just not stock with them. It really is that simple. However, it is more likely that this has happened a few times and Tesco are playing hard ball for people to take them seriously.
You talk of Monopolistic traits like you are living in a whimsical world of perfect competition. I take it you are aware that Game and Gamestation are owned by the same company, yet still manage to create a perceived sense of price wars on the market front in order to push you to the vendor with the higher mark up depending on contractual agreements with publishers and developers.
The truth of the matter is that realistically it is all “corporate” cobswobble afflicting the hardcore gamer “man” but it’s business and trust me, driving down costs per unit is a lot more commonplace in a free market situation than in a Monopolistic or oligarchic market structure.
I understand that Tesco may be subsidizing this venture slightly but then what business model doesn’t do that. It is common knowledge the PS3 and XBOX 360 were sold at a loss in order to attract gamers to their machine. It is a business model which is proven to work, because over time in house publishing will recoup that loss.
Eh, before we know it, we’ll be in living with consoles with day 1 digital distribution of new titles, and then the platform holders will have their way with us directly, and they are salivating for the chance. The days of Tesco nickel and diming publishers to undercut shady retailers will seem like some pleasant dream then.
James, whatever snob in HMV knocked you back on a sale for looking as 12 as you are, still doesn’t deserve to lose his job, along with thousands of others. Tesco only offer the lowest price because they’re looking at the long term; undercut everybody nowmand make it back charging RRP when the hMVs, the GAMEs, the Indies are all boarded up and out.
Theyre cheaper now but every penny that pands in their pocket make them a step closer to raping you for every penny.
Faye,
Is that a serious rebuttal? As long as there is an oligarchic market structure between the big supermarkets price setting will never happen. The back street gaming shops or “indies” will always have a place because they offer services and sales of older consoles that Tesco and the likes (including Game and HMV) won’t go near.
As for people losing their job, well unfortunately that is capitalism. If you aren’t profitable or breaking even you go under. Big companies got to where they are by being efficient and these companies aren’t. In the same breath I am sure you will be saying how electrical retailers on the high street are in threat of dying out because of online shops. Well, to an extent they are, a la Bennetts of Norwich. However when you delve deeper you will see that they went out of business due to inflated prices and poor customer service. Many of their flagship stores and a majority of their stock was in fact bought out by another local retailer Hughes. Who, even whilst facing the same problems, are still turning a decent in store profit.
How would you (any one who takes the time to read this and disagrees) propose we combat this? By paying hugely inflated prices to GAME and HMV in order to stop Tesco becoming the latest big bad? Because at the end of the day GAME and HMV aren’t much different I am sure. In fact I am sure they are licking their lips at thought of being seen to be the underdog and every extra pound you pay on top of the latest release is making them think it’s okay to carry on charging this.
Look at the different pricing structure between HMV online and in store it’s no where near transparent. An extra £30 or so on the 3DS for launch. I understand overheads in store but these are generally fixed costs so their CPU cannot equate the massive difference in pricing.
I’m not going to get into a personal attack on you because my views are different to yours, but I would ask if you were teaching a child to handle a problem, would you suggest to them to sort it out by resorting to name calling and trying to belittle other peoples viewpoints?
Its not a judgement I expect everyone to make but shopping at GAME qnd HMV is a value-added experience; you can have a conversation with them usually, they can help you make a better purchasing decision as opposed to a grunting robot who has been sat in a single place for hours and sees you as more of an obstacle to leaving than a person. And every business Tesco can knock out is yet another market they can sit back and let the profits roll in on.
I’m willing to pay a little extra for something I feel is valuable in a not-money sense; its why I can donate £25 to a cause I don’t really know much about but feel good that I helped someone out or pay £10 a month for a blog I could easily get for free somewhere else.
@Faye Lanks and @James: You both make good points, though I don’t really agree with either of you… only thing I’ll say is that “it’s just business” is an incredibly immoral outlook that shouldn’t reasonably exist. Business is the constant escalation of competition; it doesn’t include ethics or efficiency or rational, it just grows for the sake of growing.
Tesco’s influence is genuinely quite scary.
I was waiting on this James, or Gavin, to make the “It makes sense from a business prespective” argument. In-jokes~<3