Game Over?

So called video games/computer games have almost always left me cold. I was mysteriously addicted to Galaxian in my younger days, but otherwise I cannot get hooked on them generally as so many do. Why intelligent people hang on these pixel fantasies I have no idea, probably it is the same problem as believing in global warming.

I have tried aircraft shooting games, that should have appealed to me, but it soon seemed essentially the same thing time after time. A few minutes of Angry Birds and I'm happy to hand the device back to a much more dedicated youngster. Nope, repetition it seems, is not for me. Lots of people do buy this junk, but even so the High Street chain Game is slipping under the water.

Perhaps these types of games are not really a High Street product and are more efficiently sold online, where overheads can be lower. But I still smell a rat. Even with 'economies of scale' Amazon seem to present, particularly new  release products, at very cheap prices.

Now, either the manufacturer is offering Amazon some pretty amazing deals, not also available to the likes of Game, or some predatory pricing is likely. Companies like Amazon and Tesco would jump up and down at the suggestion that they do such a thing, evidence not withstanding. But I also think there is probably an arrogance from companies like EA, who try to dominate by product and pressure.

David Cameron sucks up to big business just like any other politician, but the upshot of the shenanigans these people engage in, is a lot of little people, just trying to earn an honest crust get shafted and lose their jobs. I don't mind EA existing; they employ people too and I gather people with addictive tendencies like their products, but I do object to power corrupting.

Online retail was always going to hit the High Street trade, but the two can live together, though not if we turn a blind eye to 'sharp practice' and its less salubrious family members.

Amazonian

Profits down 73% at Amazon. Oops. But hey, the idea is that they spend on the hardware now, to create a large captive client base for 'soft' products later. A little pain now is necessary for the bigger picture to evolve. Which is a great idea if someone else with a broad UK profile and access to a larger library wasn't around.

This means that Kindle will have to compete with other products, which wasn't quite the plan. I think it was supposed to dominate. Certainly the amount of advertising seemed to be aimed that way. Kindle, Hoover, Windows, that kind of thing.

But now is a bad time to take a rather large dent in profits and I don't think it is all Kindle based. Amazon does too much (a common complaint, but still true), but more importantly it's pricing mechanism is driving the company not the other way around. Running a business is about finding smart ways to make a margin, but Amazon have targeted crushing the competition. It isn't working, but so far they are sticking with it. I wonder how it is going? 73%.

There is a similar arrogance at work in our supermarkets. They have acquired a belief from somewhere that they can do what they like (surely not from politicians?) and rather like Banking, seem to be run by some remarkably stupid people. Years ago Sainsbury's used to regularly make the news because offers advertised around the store were not repeated at the till. So when you checked your receipt you found that the half price fish fingers were in fact charged at full price. Just a mistake, the central computer hadn't been updated with the offer, sorry. But it kept happening. So careless. No really, care less.

Tesco launch a massive media campaign about price drops, even getting them to add that this time it is a real price war. Except it wasn't. They had quietly put up the prices, so that they could drop them to much fanfare later. The greedy so and so's even 'dropped' the price to somewhere higher than they were a couple of months before. And rioters who raid their stores go to jail!