Play to close down their retail business...what does this mean for UK steelbooks?

[jonpeat]

Sorry if this is the wrong place but as it directly affects steelbooks (especially exclusives) in the UK I thought it would be a good heads up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-20953357

The news saddens me as Play were one of the best steelbook retailers. Their packaging and exclusives were second to none. I just hope someone picks up the baton........amazon I'm looking at you!

 

[mattyt2k11]

dam no more waves bad times gutted for the people lost their jobs, hope something good happens

 

[Nedan]

Sad news!!
Both for all the people that are working there and a tiny bit for me personally.

Hope amazon pricks up on UK exclusives.

 

[jayce20]

Totally agreed.

+1 count on me too that's so sad

Seems no one cares that 600 people are loosing their jobs

I lose my job every two weeks ! who cares ?!

just hope those people will go work for some other branch or something equal as Play.com was

 

[funkydamo]

hmmmm, so rakuten are to open thier own site.
Can we hope that they continue in similar fashion to play.com? with exclusive steelbooks?
surely after 2012s run they wont turn thier back on steels. after all, before rakuten took over play.com had poor packaging a lower quality steels (and at higher prices)
maybe it is as simple as rakuten wanting to use thier own name, and most/all play.com staff might get jobs at the new place.
in any case, its a sad day.
so many greats of british retail are going.
woolworths, comet, now play (and jessops) and hmv struggling. Game coming close more than once to ending.

 

[Chandler_90]

hmmmm, so rakuten are to open thier own site.
Can we hope that they continue in similar fashion to play.com? with exclusive steelbooks?
surely after 2012s run they wont turn thier back on steels. after all, before rakuten took over play.com had poor packaging a lower quality steels (and at higher prices)
maybe it is as simple as rakuten wanting to use thier own name, and most/all play.com staff might get jobs at the new place.
in any case, its a sad day.
so many greats of british retail are going.
woolworths, comet, now play (and jessops) and hmv struggling. Game coming close more than once to ending.

I was wondering if they could end up like a UK Futureshop?

 

[dvdjunkie]

After a bad day in work I heard the news on the radio and felt physically sick! I love play.com and have done even before their exclusive steels. I've found no better site to deal with and they did listen to us ninjas especially with their awesome packaging. Hmv usually only posts small artwork of the front cover meaning that when preordered, we are regulary on the edge of our seats praying for a good treatment with inside artwork etc but sadly that often doesn't happen and we end up disappointed. I can honestly say I didn't really find that with play. They really upped their game this year and I figured the steels were their saving grace! Look at The Raid and Lawless! I am grateful they also made it possible for me to complete my Avengers set!

I will be mourning the loss of play if this does come to fruition but I am still hopeful they might operate their existing exclusive steels through their marketplace under play.com; it seemed to be a good money spinner and will be a good attraction to the site which will surely see it's user activity decline if it doesn't continue with these. I say there is still hope. I will keep my fingers crossed until more is said on the matter! Come on UK!

 

[grow]

It is interesting. The government closes a loophole to generate more revenue and help 'local' retailers. But it doesn't seem to have helped, more businesses than ever seem to be closing. When play closes there will be 600 more people without jobs and I don't expect everyone that shopped there is suddenly going to start shopping locally. Seems the steelbook collectors will be going to other countries for their fix. I see why they wanted to close the loophole, but the result could be the opposite of what they intended. Good ideas rarely seem to work the way you planned.

 

[SteelbookedUp]

Ah man.

This is absolutely tragic news, especially after a monumental 2012, which saw so many great steels released by Play.

No one else understands steelbooks in the UK and more importantly listened to us colllectors like Play did.

I'm f**king gutted.

 

[blumaster]

oh wow this is terrible news. Perhaps a brain trust from the blu-ray division will arise from play's ashes and start a new blu-ray focused site that ships worldwide????

 

[jayce20]

sad days for hobbies in France too, I learned just today that GAME stores are closing one by one and this from end of summer 2k12 ...

Virgin stores are allmost about same ending ...

FNAC should be next, I spoke with some people here and they all agree : FNAC.com is killing'em and so their jobs included

am so pissed I will be no more sure to get mint copies for you ninjas

 

[Jason Bourne]

WOW, I cant believe this is actually happening. What a sad day for steelbook collectors as play.com was top notch. Here I thought they were just getting started with there steel book exclusives.

I hope AMZ UK gets more exclusives (please not HMV!).

 

[Sir Hilary Bray]

Absolutely gutted, for the staff, customers.......especially the good folk on here.....


On another note, I've got about £15 in Quidco generated from Play.com, should I withdraw that right away?

 

[Scarface]

its a sad day for us collectors and to make matters worse we didn't even see it coming, it was just recently we were saying how amazing 2012 was and how likely it would be that play were going to top it this year, just imagine how many great steels we have now missed out on this year and then the years after.

 

[xxquartzxx]

Oh Dear , sad indeed ... lets hope hmv still remain in business and take over from play ...

Hmv are not that bad .. its just that play were better , we all had damaged items from play as well as hmv ...

 

[Sir Hilary Bray]

For me, this has changed steelbook collecting forever?

I don't bother with imports you see, so I'm going to have to resort to using HMV, who are OK, just not as reliable as Play.

Sad day for the forum this........

 

[Dark Slayer]

I hope that the people who will loose their jobs get a new job as soon as possible. Now is the time to just get those last steelbooks from Play.

 

[BluSteel2012]

Absolutley gutted They just went and got awesome packaging for shipping Steelbooks and introduced the Superpoints. I didn't see this coming at all.

Play sold such an array of stuff: clothes, toys, gadgets etc. Their turnover of stock must've been crazy.

Someone should set up a lone Blu Ray site out of this. I'm sure it would still do good business :tear:

 

[SteelbookedUp]

Oh Dear , sad indeed ... lets hope hmv still remain in business and take over from play ...

Hmv are not that bad .. its just that play were better , we all had damaged items from play as well as hmv ...

Have to disagree. HMV are bad. They have no idea about steelbooks or take into account the views of collectors. All you have to do is look at Avengers for example. How did they **** up such a big title? So many printed. God knows what proportion damaged and how many of these are left gathering dust in stores.

HMV must be on it's last legs surely? Stores closing down all over the place.

Good things never seem to last. We've been treated to some glorious steelbooks at some amazing prices and limited print runs.

That's the worst part of all this. Gone will be the days picking up beautiful steels for around £10 and knowing exactly how many of them are printed.

Not sure I'd like Amazon to take this over, given what Amazon Germany have been up to in 2012. Re-release after re-release and some absolutely poor efforts.

I'm not being dramatic with this comment, but this could spell the end UK steels for me in a very large part. I like the exclusivity aspect of steelbooks and dependant on how all of this pans out (who takes it on and how much they are likely to be, print runs etc), may just stick to mainly the Asian market in the future.

 

[xxquartzxx]

Why don't we all chip in and open our very own steelbook on-line shop !!!

Ninja Steelbooks exclusives .. we all know what we want you only have to look at some of the designs that a few members of knocked up in a few mins work ..

we can dream

 

[bigfub]

I love the fact that the media coverage section on Play.com makes absolutely no reference (that I can see) to this

http://www.play.com/campaigns/latest-news