Game chain sold
Retailer rescued by Comet owners
UK High street retailer Game has been acquired by Comet owner OpCapita.
The Game Group's administrator, PwC, yesterday said it had agreed to sell the troubled company's UK business to Baker Acquisitions Ltd, an entity overseen by OpCapita, for an undisclosed sum.
The move takes The Game Group's UK operation out of administration. Its overseas assets remain under the control of PwC.
Last week, PwC shuttered 277 of Game's stores. OpCapita/Baker assured staff at the remaining 333 UK stores that their jobs are secure and no further Game branches will be closed.
"We are pleased to have reached agreement with the Administrator," said OpCapita Managing Partner Henry Jackson. "We strongly believe there is a place on the high street for a videogaming specialist, and Game is the leading brand in a £2.8bn market in the UK," he added.
OpCapita was one of the first to bid for the retailer. ®
COMMENTS
Re: WHY!?
I still don't see physical media being replaced any time soon, so many areas still have inadequate broadband speeds to cope with downloading 10-30GB for one game - Virgin aren't laying new cable, probably never will, and the fibre replacement of copper is slow and mostly limited to areas that already get >8Mbit connections.
I'm not sure whether Game can cope with the current market though, clearly their business model needs changing since they've been relying on credit rather than capital to get new stock in, but since they're dealing with internet savvy consumers now, they need to keep a closer eye on online pricing trends, rather than having a ton of recent releases on the shelves that you know half of it is easily £10 cheaper if you look online. The preowned market would seem to be viable on it's own, given the spread of CeX stores in the past few years, so I'm assuming that their losses have stemmed from new stock.
Re: WHY!?
My house has this amazing device installed called a letter box. Google it, I think it's going to be the next big thing.
Re: WHY!?
Not everyone can wait in all day for the postman to deliver Amazon packages. I'm at work between 8 and 6 Mon-Fri so my only option is to book the day off or have it left with a neighbour. Now they're lovely people next door but I feel a bit bad relying on them this much. Plus, downloading a game can take several hours at peak times, compared to going into a shop and buying a physical copy that I can play right away.
Re: Game On
I think another reason there stopped being a trade in 2nd hand pc games (or PC games in shops at all) is becouse GAME STOPPED SELLING PC GAMES! Lousy basterds. Wall to wall of console turds, it was like walking into _that_ toilet in trainspotting but for computer games instead.
I hate game, I liked game station, until game bought game station and turned game station into the same turd covered ceaspit game was.
The only chance game have is to set up a digital distribution and ware house model (ala steam and amazon) and use the shops as little more then show rooms for new games.Sure stock some release titles, an maybe one or two copies of some random titles but the rest, "order here"
Not likely. If you make a product too cumbersome to use nobody will use it.
And considering that all the next-gen console stuff is still all rumor I doubt it. Why change something that works?
As for DRM considering all the crap that's going on there already. You need to secure the system not the game.
And yeah I'll stick to physical media until they rip it out of my cold-dead-hands. I can't lend a digital download to a friend while I can do so with a physical disc.
