14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the United Kingdom release of FIFA 10, the latest football simulator from Electronic Arts, has managed to spark a small war between supermarkets interested in offering the game to customers and specialized videogame retail stores, which are alleging that prices for the game in the bigger chains are affecting their business might even threaten their existence.
It appears that retail behemoth Tesco is offering FIFA 10 for the price of 24.97 British Pounds, which is a significant reduction over the 49.99 price the game is usually sold for. Other supermarkets are offering the same title for 36.99.
Meanwhile, the smaller retailers specializing in selling videogames and accessories are offering it at prices ranging from 37.99 to 39.99 British Pounds. The difference might not seem enormous but the overall difference in size of sales and in purchasing powers between the two types of sellers might increase the impact of the price cut and lead some smaller companies off the market.
Don McCabe, who is a representative of specialist retailer Chips, told Gamesindustry.biz that “It's decreased choice. You just have to look at the amount of suppliers that are screaming holy blue murder over Tesco whose businesses just get driven into the ground by the demands that some of the supermarkets make on them. At the end of the day, the only people who actually benefit from it are Tesco shareholders.”
Another representative of a smaller retailer that focuses on games, Simply Games, has stated that the response of his company is to try and keep its stocks of FIFA 10 low, in case they do not sell, and has also sent some of the employees to the big supermarkets to pick up the cheaper versions of the game in order to resell them.