Mass Effect 3 Not Stocked In GAME or Gamestation

News is just coming out that GAME and Gamestation won't be stocking any of EA's March new releases, including Mass Effect 3, with SSX being the last new release available to the retailer until further notice. Eurogamer were informed of the news by staff, who received a company wide memo this morning, and confirmed the news with individual outlets. Pre-ordered titles will be refunded with in-store credit, as opposed to cash, in a move that looks to suggest worrying times ahead for the GAME group. EA have updated the Mass Effect 3 official site with the following message:

The Mass Effect 3 N7 Collector€™s Edition will now be available at the following retailers: Amazon.co.uk Play.com Zavvi.com ShopTo.net For customers who have pre-ordered the N7 Collector€™s Edition please re-order your copies through these retailers. For further information regarding the Mass Effect 3 Standard Edition with the N7 Warfare Gear in-game weapons pack, please check this page later today. If you have placed a deposit for a pre-order or are uncertain that your existing pre-order will be guaranteed, please contact your local retailer. Your local retailer is doing everything possible to make this process as smooth as possible to ensure you get your copy on launch day.

Is this the beginning of the end for GAME and Gamestation? The demise of Borders a couple of years ago proved that no company is too big to fail, and the situation at GAME has a lot of similarities with what went on with the former bookseller: the fist major step to ruin was the withdrawal of retail insurance from publishers, which swiftly lead to administration in that case, and the bosses at Borders echoed the defiant sentiments of the memo that was sent out to GAME employees:

€œWe committed to only stocking products on which we could get the right credit terms, regardless of the title or the supplier. We will not stock products if the terms are not right for our business €“ we will not sacrifice long-term credit requirements for short term sales opportunities." €œAs a result of us taking this position €“ a position that we believe is critical to our long term health as a business €“ we have taken the very difficult decision to not stock EA€™s March releases, including Mass Effect 3. €œAs a specialist retailed dedicated to games and gaming, it is never easy to make a decision not to stock a title, particularly one with such a strong fan base. But it is imperative that we treat every supplier evenly, that we stick to our commitments, and tar we didn€™t sign up to payment terms that will hamper us further in the future.€

There will be some positives to be found in the memo, with the suggestion of "long term health", but as a former Borders employee who worked in a UK store right up until closure, I would be inclined to believe that something is rotten at the core of the business. That assumption would seem to have legs given that on-going issues saw the company unable to stock Ubisoft's launch titles for the Vita until yesterday, as well as The Last Story and Tekken Prime 3D. GAME are said to be locked in crunch talks with publishers (as Borders were), in the hope that they can resolve future issues: and the outcome is likely to be other publishers following EA's lead and tightening their terms of supply to a degree that it is no longer financially viable for the retailer to take them. Difficult times ahead I think it is safe to say. Solutions don't present themselves easily in these circumstances, and unless GAME can count on an injection in revenue (the kind that might have come with a mega launch for Mass Effect 3 for instance), or investment, they will rely on publishers being a little less cut-throat. And that plainly isn't going to happen. Hopefully, this is no more than a defiant gesture by GAME, proving that they won't be pushed over a barrel financially for any title or publisher, and not the death rattle of the company. And who knows, the likely pick-up in sales for competitors HMV might actually save them as a result of this latest development. But then, that all seems a little too romanticised for this particular cynical ex-Borders employee... UPDATE: Mass Effect 3 will also be available to buy from HMV and Blockbuster as well.