Games Industry reported earlier this week that the British retailer GAME has entered administration. The news comes after months of unrest, and the refusal of several major publishers to ship their latest products to the retailer. More details are included after the jump.
Though the company has officially announced that it is has failed to find a way to continue as a solvent business, the 600 UK stores owned by the company will continue to do business while a solution to the situation is being sought . However, around half of these are expected to close In total, the company has around £180 million worth of debt, around $285 million.
GAME has been facing problems for several months now, with major publishers like EA and Microsoft having refused to stock the retailer with their latest products over concerns for their creditworthiness. Activision and Nintendo also pulled their support in recent weeks, forcing stock prices for parent organization The Game Group down to less than half a pence per share.
Several organizations have expressed their interest in acquiring GAME stores, though no party has publicly announced it was seeking to acquire the organization in its entirety.
Shame about the job losses but GAME(and Gamestation) shops in the UK are quite rubbish, the prices, the shops themselves and sometimes even the staff.
Prices online on sites like Amazon and Play.com are so much better and when you in the shops the same rubbish music is played through the shop when music from games should be randomly played, instead to help set the mod for games, might even help people make choices what game to play.
Should have Soundbyte radio on, if your in the shop browsing for a while or working there I think it’s just a nicer game tone in my opinion.
And many times the staff just don’t have a clue what their talking about with games when I’ve asked or heard people asking for help with what games or consoles to choose.
I hope the best to the workers and shops but maybe this will make ’em change their style.