IGN:
This morning, after years of declining revenues and months of struggles with suppliers and financers culminating in a failure to stock new titles including Mass Effect 3 for weeks now, the UK's largest games retailer froze its shares on the London Stock Exchange. Hours later, it announced that it was filing for administration, meaning that the chain's future is now very uncertain. Ultimately an administration firm's aim is to keep a company trading – but closures and the sale of assets are often a part of that process. There's no knowing now what form the GAME chain would take, should it survive – and Gamestation, which GAME Group also owns, also faces an uncertain future.
Sports Direct’s takeover of Game Digital has edged closer as the company revealed on Monday it now owns 84% of the high street retailer, which has applied to be delisted from London Stock Exchange.
Gamer Headlines writes: I’d like to think that we UK gamers are quite savvy when it comes to finding the best deal when buying games. And let’s face it; everything is generally cheaper online from the vast number of websites like Amazon, ShopTo, Zavvi, Game Collection and deal forums like HotUkDeals when comparing prices to high street stores like Game, HMV, Argos or the local supermarket.
Well gamers, it would seem that more than half of all physical games are still sold in traditional bricks and mortar establishments according to last year’s stats.
A lot of stores did. But they saved a few after they found a buyer for the company. Just this week though, they announced they're ditching their pre-owned games department.
I bet most of the consoles sold in high streets and supermarkets are bought by parents (in other words, the uninformed buyers)
Dealspwn writes: If you'd like to play Grid 2 a month early you should get yourself down to one of the Game stores listed below. It's lock in season again and Game have teamed up with Codemasters to let gamers get their hands on the eagerly-anticipated racing title pre-release. There will be a fastest lap competition at each event too, with the winner netting themselves a copy of the game when it's released.
A member of the Codemasters dev team will be on hand to answer questions and offer hot tips to shave seconds of your lap times. Soft drinks and pizza will also be available. Good times. Places are limited, so visit your store, phone them or tweet them to reserve your spot. Venue details and dates follow after the break.
duplicate story?
Last friday my local game
Brand new rayman origins = 7 british pounds
Tonight 21/03/12 = 24.99 british pounds brand new?
The shelves where stacked the prices were up so obviously somethings going on.
I disagree with his contention that this could put a pall on GameStop; from the sounds of things, they're still a much stronger force in the US game market than GAME was in the UK. Not to mention their stock price is solid, they're doing well financially... The author made some decent points, but just because one specialty store goes under doesn't mean the entire industry is on the brink.
How this effects me? It means my favourite retailer (ShopTo) will make a lot more much deserved extra money. I probably used to go into gamestation like once every two months to impulse buy a preowned game.. usually find the cost of it is somewhat higher than I was expecting to buy so ended up ordering online. Now GAME, other than the other week to check out their supposed bargains, haven't been in there in over two years.
Again how does it affect me ? One less contender for those annoying store exclusive pre-order deals