GAME management told to prepare for administration 'within weeks'

[dbgtz]

Acquiring Gamestation was a HUGE mistake That said, I'm not convinced GAME can be saved or amount to anything special. HMV is barely surviving and its main competition was Game Group Plc, so it doesn't speak wonders for either retailers. Online retailers like Amazon.co.uk are the way forward, with supermarkets like Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda as the choice for buying a physical game. Consumers are lazy sods these days, they prefer convenience shopping than going for exercise or the experience. It could amount to be a good store, but I can't help but be cynical.

Speaking of which, does anyone remember when GAME opened their online store? I strangely preferred it over Play.com and Amazon at the time.

Acquiring it wasn't a mistake, having multiple GAME and Gamestation stores open in a near distance when clearly it wasn't profitable was the mistake. I doubt we'll ever see a true transition to purchasing online anytime soon if I'm honest, there's always going to be some room for retail. I also liked the Game online store, Amazon is really badly laid out in my opinion and Play.com just got really crap.

[beth]

i heard on the radio earlier today there's a bit of a tax change on importing certain things from the channel islands where a lot of the online big factories were operating from (to take advantage of this loophole) which should make prices a little bit more competitive for game and hopefully give them a bit more of a chance.

[GommeInc]

Acquiring it wasn't a mistake, having multiple GAME and Gamestation stores open in a near distance when clearly it wasn't profitable was the mistake. I doubt we'll ever see a true transition to purchasing online anytime soon if I'm honest, there's always going to be some room for retail. I also liked the Game online store, Amazon is really badly laid out in my opinion and Play.com just got really crap.

Isn't that the mistake? Acquiring both even not at close distance is just competiting with yourself - there's no price differences and no major floor layout differences. They had the power to close their stores but incompetence struck upper-management. They should of dumped the Gamestation store brand in favour of, for example, an in-store brand of service (e.g. an area for enthusiasts, which many experts and Game Group themselves have labelled the Gamestation brand). Specialist stores like GAME simply do not work at the moment, not because of the type of store but on a politico-economical level where the price of renting and letting these stores is simply too high. Plus they neglected offering new, exciting games and their online store which should of been focused more on than their acquisitions and international expansion.

Hopefully OpCapita completely change the way Game operates. The store-style, layout and service was pretty lousy, and Christ knows why they were focusing on pre-owned games when a healthy balance of new and old would be nice. They could give a third of the store to a department called Gamestation where enthusiasts can play new and old games on consoles, and possibly sell old and new games which are rated highly. There's quite a lot of work to do either way, and quite exciting if the mix is done right

[Neil]

Isn't that the mistake? Acquiring both even not at close distance is just competiting with yourself - there's no price differences and no major floor layout differences. They had the power to close their stores but incompetence struck upper-management. They should of dumped the Gamestation store brand in favour of, for example, an in-store brand of service (e.g. an area for enthusiasts, which many experts and Game Group themselves have labelled the Gamestation brand). Specialist stores like GAME simply do not work at the moment, not because of the type of store but on a politico-economical level where the price of renting and letting these stores is simply too high. Plus they neglected offering new, exciting games and their online store which should of been focused more on than their acquisitions and international expansion.

Hopefully OpCapita completely change the way Game operates. The store-style, layout and service was pretty lousy, and Christ knows why they were focusing on pre-owned games when a healthy balance of new and old would be nice. They could give a third of the store to a department called Gamestation where enthusiasts can play new and old games on consoles, and possibly sell old and new games which are rated highly. There's quite a lot of work to do either way, and quite exciting if the mix is done right

I'm not sure what's wrong with your local store but the GAME and GameStation stores in my area were very much stocked with the latest releases, the only times I've gone into a store to pick up a recently released game and couldn't because they had none was SSX, which was the last game EA sent them, after they sold what they had then that was it.

They focus on pre-owned because it makes them more money, simple as that really, they really need to work something out so publishers/developers get a cut to make it a little fair but money is the reason pre-owned is the focus, it's a business and they are trying to make money, they failed because they were stupid enough not to compete with online stores and supermarkets, if GAME stocked Mass Effect 3 I could go get it now for £38-40, for £25 I could go to Tesco, a 3 minute walk from my GAME store.

I don't fully believe much of the problem was too many stores, certain towns shouldn't of had too many, I had 2 GAMEs and a GameStation all in the same general area, I live in a fairly big town but not so big to require so many stores, even then there has been 2 GAME stores as long as I remember, GameStation has been here since at least 2007, I don't really know so I really don't believe it's all down to the amount of stores, I spoke to the manager of my local store about a year ago and he said himself that the online side of GAME worries about competing with online services while the brick and mortar GAME only worries about other game shops and supermarkets, I feel that's a stupid attitude and that's what needs to change, less stores will also help of course but if they don't try and get better prices then they'll just go down again, I could order just about any game from Amazon and get next day delivery for less than GAME would charge.

On the upside, I'm really glad someone took over, I love having a local game shop, the problem with online is you have to look for what you want, I could go to GAME and see something I'd like while browsing and take it home right then, I don't have that same luxury, I don't get to look at the back of the box and I don't get to pick and choose from heaps of games that are available, of course it is possible and probably cheaper to go to Amazon but who really just looks though all those pages of games?

[GommeInc]

I'm not sure what's wrong with your local store but the GAME and GameStation stores in my area were very much stocked with the latest releases, the only times I've gone into a store to pick up a recently released game and couldn't because they had none was SSX, which was the last game EA sent them, after they sold what they had then that was it.

They focus on pre-owned because it makes them more money, simple as that really, they really need to work something out so publishers/developers get a cut to make it a little fair but money is the reason pre-owned is the focus, it's a business and they are trying to make money, they failed because they were stupid enough not to compete with online stores and supermarkets, if GAME stocked Mass Effect 3 I could go get it now for £38-40, for £25 I could go to Tesco, a 3 minute walk from my GAME store.

I don't fully believe much of the problem was too many stores, certain towns shouldn't of had too many, I had 2 GAMEs and a GameStation all in the same general area, I live in a fairly big town but not so big to require so many stores, even then there has been 2 GAME stores as long as I remember, GameStation has been here since at least 2007, I don't really know so I really don't believe it's all down to the amount of stores, I spoke to the manager of my local store about a year ago and he said himself that the online side of GAME worries about competing with online services while the brick and mortar GAME only worries about other game shops and supermarkets, I feel that's a stupid attitude and that's what needs to change, less stores will also help of course but if they don't try and get better prices then they'll just go down again, I could order just about any game from Amazon and get next day delivery for less than GAME would charge.

On the upside, I'm really glad someone took over, I love having a local game shop, the problem with online is you have to look for what you want, I could go to GAME and see something I'd like while browsing and take it home right then, I don't have that same luxury, I don't get to look at the back of the box and I don't get to pick and choose from heaps of games that are available, of course it is possible and probably cheaper to go to Amazon but who really just looks though all those pages of games?

All the GAME and Gamestation stores I know of are tiny, with far too much space allocated to stocked pre-owned titles - but I do seem to visit old towns which simply do not have the space for large stores It was pretty vulgar and an eye-sore to walk into a store with pre-owned titles chucked into the middle and a limited stock on new games, especially when they cost a great deal more to buy compared to online retailers like Amazon and Play.

They cannot really give publishers and developers money from their pre-owned sales for legal reasons. Besides, this would not help them if done privately between developers, as is the case now. A law would have to be re-written to force stores that sells used goods (e.g. cars, games etc) to give a percentage to those that hold any copyright or ownership of the product, which would be a false economy and more harmful than good. GAME would of died sooner if they did this

The reason I said all these stores was a bad move was because it seems to be one of main reasons for bankruptcy. The cost of renting buildings is pretty disgusting, and anyone who has read Mary Portas, and any retailer theorists articles about the physical retail environment, would know that this is such a big issue and one of the reasons physical selling is becoming difficult. Obviously if this was the only reason it wouldn't be difficult to overcome, but because GAME did not allocate appropriate funding towards e-commerce, they fell flat on their face when they could of been good competition against Play.com and Amazon. I remember when GAME won the rights to sell special editions of games to sell in-store and online, but now that achievement has been handed over to Play.com.

Like I said though, it would be great if GAME does amount to something now - they really need to overcome this outdated business model and focus on grasping e-commerce and a more streamlined business model. The number of stores did not help, because they're expensive to maintain and keep. One store is enough per major town or city (with two for larger ones), and where the demand is actually there rather than chucking a store in a town or shopping area without research or fore-thought. This has benefited shops like Tesco, Asda, Greggs and others. Every other retailer is getting the picture that more than one store is unsustainable in these times and only worth-while where market research has been done, and it's time GAME saw this too.

[Chippiewill]

GAME simply isn't needed in this economic climate or changing landscape to digital distribution. It certainly is not needed in the four stores form that it was in my city a couple of years ago (These stores were all five minutes walk from each other mind you, one of the GAMEs currently has a Gamestation - NO JOKE - less than twenty metres away, and these are proper size stores not the mini kiosk type things they've been setting up). In my opinion GAME needs to drop their physical presence (Or at least the ridiculous scenario where they need multiple stores within walking talking distance of each other), try to coast on online orders for a while and hopefully get some kind of digital distribution platform up so they can ride that as it takes off, the next-gen consoles won't do physical game media much so I hope they're not dumb enough to hope it will.

[Samantha]

The nearest Game Station near me closed down and so did a few others in surrounding towns. I noticed having going to GAME on Monday that they have merged game and game station together which I think has been a long time in the making as I still didn't understand why they had two stores. Having said that i didn't know that they were the same until a few months previous.

Least some hope is there and help is on hand afterall.

[dbgtz]

Game now stocking Mass Effect 3, I assume now they'll have all EA titles again.

[Technologic]

One of the game stores in the trafford centre has shut down