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Razer Game Store Closing Feb 28, Less Than Year After Launch (variety.com)

Posted by msmash on from the realignment-plans dept.

The Razer Game Store will close on February 28 at 1am PST, the company announced in a blog post. This comes less than a year after its launch last April. From a report: The shutdown is part of "the company's realignment plans," according to Razer. "It has been a privilege for us to recommend and deliver great digital game deals to you. We have been extremely fortunate to have you as part of our awesome community," the post reads. "Thank you for the support and making all this possible. We will be investing in other ways to deliver great content and introduce game promotions through Razer Gold, our virtual credits system."

25 comments

  1. Steam keys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They basically were a portal to selling steam keys. Not a bad idea to tie it into their promotions as a gaming hardware brand but I guess it didn't do much for them.

  2. lawsuit incoming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    need to retrieve the Steam or Uplay keys before the closure

    use your discount vouchers before February 28 as these will be considered null and void after the closure

    1. Re:lawsuit incoming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? Also - How many people buy a game key, and then just let it sit and rot without redeeming it?

    2. Re: lawsuit incoming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who knows? I have never bought a game key from these guys so I guess my invisible game key has been rotting

    3. Re:lawsuit incoming... by Ambvai · · Score: 2

      I have about 40 keys unredeemed right now-- mostly from buying bundles and getting things I can't play (anything FPS gives me migraines), already have, or have no interest in. And the last time I tried trading, I realized I spent about 45 minutes for 3$, so nowadays, I just host a giveaway on a few communities I'm in once a year.

    4. Re:lawsuit incoming... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      When I get a spare key, usually a redundant key included with a bundle, I post it on a vintage gamers' group I belong to. Usually, nobody bothers to redeem it :)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Never heard of 'em by Snotnose · · Score: 2

    Maybe that's why they're closing. Question is, why should I care?

    1. Re: Never heard of 'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have never gotten anything but an error from that page. I have no clue what the hell they are even selling.

    2. Re:Never heard of 'em by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Competition is always good.
      Different payment options, different amounts to pay.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:Never heard of 'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That would be great if Steam had been abusing their position as the only real digital game retailer since 2004 but they haven't. New games cost the same $49.99 or $59.99 if you buy it on Steam or buy it anywhere else. Steam also has more a lot more sales with deep discounts than any of their competitors have over the last few years. Sure you can point here and there to a lower sale price on PLATFORM X but in general Steam usually sells games for the same price as any competitor that has popped up and it was their normal price. It wasn't like they were reacting to competition and slashing prices to try and match Origin, GOG, or anyone else.

      I have over 1000 games on Steam. Steam uses almost 200mb ram. Origin uses 200-300mb, Epic store uses 300+mb ram. To keep your installed games updated you have to keep the software running all the time. If you don't you will have to wait for a 200mb to 1GB+ update when you open the launcher and try to play a game. I would rather just buy my games on Steam and not have my system using resources for 10 different game launchers.

      If Steam was screwing customers over and raising prices I would have an issue with them. Their current business model is to basically just sell games for the same price (or lower) than you can get them anywhere else.

      I really liked video streaming 5 years ago. Everything was on Netflix and Hulu. I had 2 subscriptions and could watch whatever I wanted. When networks realized streaming was getting popular everyone wanted to launch their own streaming service for $5 or more a month. Now video streaming is fragmented and if you want to watch all the stuff you used to get for $20 on Netflix and Hulu it's going to cost you at least $70 a month and you have to manage subscriptions to 10 differen't places. So I said fuck it and went back to pirating whatever wasn't on Netflix, Hulu, or included with my Amazon Prime membership. I'm willing to pay for entertainment but I'll be fucked if I'm spending money for subscription services to watch one show on it.

      Most of us don't want the fragmentation in the streaming market like we have now. I certainly don't want gaming to go the same route. I'm not buying the new Metro game even if it does come back to Steam and I own all the previous games including the remasters. They fucked up by doing this, especially at the last minute before release. That developer and certainly the Epic store is not getting my money going forward and I buy a metric shit ton of games. I don't like exclusivity to a certain store even if it's for 6 months. The PC gaming market will just end up like consoles, Xbox vs Playstation with stores competing for certain exclusives. It's not "competition" it's greed by multiple companies colluding to force consumers to do what they want instead of what the consumer wants. That is an anti-competitive tactic by definition. So don't bring out the competition is good for everyone argument because this isn't about competition. Razer is a peripheral company. Why they thought it would be a good idea to open a game store is beyond my imagination.

      Competition is great for consumers. In this case consumers didn't want to buy games from a company that makes mediocre gaming peripherals but charges premium prices for them.

    4. Re:Never heard of 'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They sold hardware, mining blockchain-curencies to users. Users would get credits for the time, their machines would be generating money for Razer. With those credits, the users were able to buy games on Razer's store

      Gamers seem to be less gullable, than the beancounters at Razer thought

  4. Epic Game Store and Origin hopefully next by sinij · · Score: 1

    Epic Game Store and Origin hopefully next

    1. Re:Epic Game Store and Origin hopefully next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Origin won't go down until EA collapses.

      Epic Games Store is a bit different since they are bleeding money for "exclusives". They don't seem to produce as many games, so they may not be able to justify their own service.

    2. Re:Epic Game Store and Origin hopefully next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't wait for Steam to die actually. It's a horrendous piece of software. It's aged, it's heavy and 99% of its functionality , i don't need. Unless they add some "Steam Lite" client which would include only my game library and offline play, i'm done with that platform.

    3. Re: Epic Game Store and Origin hopefully next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gog.com drmfree all the way.. I do not buy drm steam games anymore

    4. Re:Epic Game Store and Origin hopefully next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their code exists in literally half of PC titles

  5. EVERYBODY, ANNOUNCEMENT : SNOTNOSE DOESN'T CARE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yet craved attention enough to make this all about him caring or not, and felt a need to say so. Let's all waste a moment and glance over at the attention starved retard that purportedly needs to tell us it doesn't care. Wonderful.

  6. Have they closed down SoftMiner yet? by Misagon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Razer is one of the least respected computer peripheral manufacturers. Not only do they have a reputation for mid to lower-than-par quality of some of their products, and for requiring their Razer Synapse software to run on the Windows host to enable many functions on their keyboards and mice.
    They are infamous for using ambiguous and misleading marketing, misusing terminology to mean different things than what is industry-standard, thus making their products appear better than they really are. In other words: more bullshit than substance. Sometimes right outside the edge of fraudulent territory.

    The worst thing, though, might be Razer Softminer: A cryptocurrency mining app. It mines real cryptocurrency for Razer (it is unclear which), and in return the user would get credits in Razer's rewards program.
    Considering that Razer caters to the gullible in the first place: often kids with gaming PCs, but who are not paying the energy bills, you could say that they are encouraging kids to steal from their parents on their behalf.

    --
    "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    1. Re:Have they closed down SoftMiner yet? by Voyager529 · · Score: 2

      I don't mind the build quality of the BlackWidow keyboard I used to have. The USB cable wasn't too keen on the 90-degree bend I got stuck doing as a result of using it with a laptop, but the Cherry MX Blue keys were the selling point, and they were true to form.

      I don't mind Synapse in isolation, but my big gripe about it is that it requires an account. It's not possible to create macros for the macro keys without an account for 'cloud syncing', and that wasn't terribly well stipulated before purchase...so I swiftly set the Windows Firewall to deny any-any from the Razer executables once the account was made; unsurprisingly it worked just fine in offline mode.

      When I decided to do my macros on a mouse instead of a keyboard, I went with the Corsair MMO mouse; their iCue software is a bit hefty at >200MB, but it has all of the functions I needed and no account necessary to use them. I've gotten three more for friends since.

    2. Re:Have they closed down SoftMiner yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like their "first water cooled smartphone" which used a standard heatpipe.

  7. news n information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  8. Typical Razer product. by Chas · · Score: 1

    Gets introduced, works okay for a while, and then just stops working after about a year...

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  9. They had no enticing reason to go there by ezelkow1 · · Score: 1

    They started out somewhat strong with an interesting discount concept. Offer games at a discount somewhat close to other third party stores that sell steam keys, but then for any of their 4 'promo' games you also get a 10$ voucher back that you can use on anything 20$+. It was a good way to get people to keep coming back.

    Only problem is after a couple months they stopped offering any real discount on games and did things like 2% off NBA/Wrestling game of this year. When comparable stores already offered 20% off. There became no reason to go to them for months and they only started offering good discounts again a few weeks ago, probably when they realized they were going under

  10. Toaster would save razer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if they finally released the toaster it would save razer