UK Retailer GAME Could Close For Good This Monday!
GAME as we know it likely no longer exists and the best employees can hope for is that it will be replaced with an entirely new brand name on Monday.
Updated:MCV reports that GAME as we know it likely no longer exists and the best employees can hope for is that it will be replaced with an entirely new brand name on Monday. Game management have presented suppliers with four possible outcomes for the company after a period of consultation between the key suppliers and a hired financial specialist. Whilst MCV details all outcomes, it is looking likely the worst will happen and the store will drop into Administration and no longer exist by Monday but may be granted a brief stay of execution by the forming of a brand new company out of the remains known as GAME. The GAME Group (GMG) would be removed from the Stock Exchange and would be funded by current bank lenders. MCV also suggests this would be the end of Gamestation outside of a few well performing stores. "If everyone commits it's great news, MCV was told by a source close to the negotiations. A GAME with 300+ stores is what we'll all get, which is basically where they should have been three years ago during the peak. There's no need for two, or even three, stores in the same town or city. "They get a chance to reduce debt, keep trading and work out a plan for a new owner without so many financial and lease millstones around their necks." Original story follows... GAME will have to say goodbye as soon as this Monday (26th March '12) if it cannot find anyone to bail them out of their current predicament. Ever since its fall out with the mighty game developers 'EA' over a shocking lack of credit insurance, GAME have been on incredibly thin ice. Thanks to the argument EA pulled all copies of Mass Effect 3 just weeks before the multi-millions selling release hit stores. ME:3, which sold over 900,000 units on its first day of release in the US alone, has now gone on to outsell Modern Warfare 1 and 2 COMBINED in its opening weeks. This is very bad news indeed for the British video game scene and obviously everyone that works at GAME. Regardless of this almost hopeless circumstance the executives of GAME are holding on to the scrap of hope that the chain will be saved at the eleventh hour. Which is this weekend, less than four days away. GAME have been holding discussions for the last 24 hours with publishers in the hope that anyone will take a leap of faith with the once reputable company. The elephant in the room that GAME are trying to distract everyone from is their lack of credit insurance. Which means that if they were to go bust then all of the publishers that have stayed would be left with nothing for the product that they are trying to sell. Something that none of them really want. Despite the almost undeniable end that is fast approaching employees of GAME stay positive. With one member of the GAME family hinting at a possible last minute deal with American giants Gamestop, a company which saw over $30 million in profits last quarter. But even if GAME was to survive, or if they were bailed out at the last minute, there would be a drastic decrease in the amount of stores, which currently stands at just over 1300 worldwide. So this weekend, whilst you enjoy a day away from work or school, take a moment to think of GAME and how, when you wake up fresh and early next week, it may no longer exist.