Britains biggest video gaming store goes into administration

Sexperienced · 2012-04-02T01:26:25.000Z

http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2012/03/more-than-2100-jobs-lost-in-game-administration.htm

Game Group collapses into administration putting 6,000 UK jobs at risk

Professional services firm PwC has been appointed administrator to the video games retailer, which has 609 stores under the names Game and Gamestation.

More than 2100 people lost their jobs yesterday as retailer Game went into administration and immediately closed 277 unprofitable stores.

The closures represented almost half of Game’s 609 shops in Britain and Ireland, and around 40 per cent of its 5300 total employees. Administrator PwC is urgently seeking buyers for the rest of these outlets, as well as the firm’s international network of 663 stores which employ 4,000 people.

Game is like our version of Gamestop.
so whats to blame? i’d say Internet shopping and casual gamers who now prefer the ipad and iphone to consoles.

Taito · 2012-04-02T02:03:21.000Z

Never heard of Game, but it sounds about the same as USA’s Circuit City and Borders shutting down. And I hear Best Buy is in danger.

What’s worse about brick and mortar retail losing to online is, B&M retail is really just losing to Amazon.com. One huge company is taking over shopping in the Western world. And Amazon could put away the smaller online retailers if it gets bad enough.

Endaeias · 2012-04-02T02:30:52.000Z

You should take in consideration that GAME Group PLC also owns Gamestation. They bought it from Blockbuster (except for the few small shops that remained “Blockbuster Games”). So yeah, this is probably going to hit you guys hard as fuck. They’re both big chains over there.

Taito: It would be like if Electronics Boutique/Gamestop/Funcoland went into bankruptcy.

Don_Barracuda · 2012-04-02T02:38:10.000Z

I thought Game was Electronics Boutique

Sexperienced you’re a few days late on this, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17575500

Taito · 2012-04-02T03:13:47.000Z

Taito: It would be like if Electronics Boutique/Gamestop/Funcoland went into bankruptcy.

Doesn’t UK have Gamestop? Although I guess Game had a bigger presence.

Sexperienced · 2012-04-02T05:52:48.000Z

Doesn’t UK have Gamestop? Although I guess Game had a bigger presence.

No we dont, Game is the biggest gaming retailer in the UK by far, the only other company that comes close is CEX but they mainly/only deal with second-hand games and dvd’s.

Sexperienced · 2012-04-02T23:53:20.000Z

I thought Game was Electronics Boutique

Sexperienced you’re a few days late on this, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17575500

in the news its funny when they say Game was literally bought by Opcapita for £1. Its true, but they dont mention the £40 million pounds worth of debt that goes along with it .

Iduno · 2012-04-03T00:05:41.000Z

TBH I’d say Game is to blame for this, I mean towards the end who the **** was meant to be their target audience?

The ones near me didn’t stock anything even slightly obscure unless you pre-ordered it and all the big titles were usually cheaper elsewhere, with neither variety stock nor prices to boast about the only thing they really had going for them was the pre-owned section and CEX has been moving in on that pretty well lately.

Well that and that there were simply too many stores in the first place, I mean who thought it was a smart idea to have multiple Game stores along with Gamestation stores (owned by the same people) all within walking distance of eachother in the same city center?

The_Duke · 2012-04-03T00:17:49.000Z

Can’t stop progress for better or worse.