GAME Group PLC Goes Into Administration

British high street video game retailer GAME which has not been doing very well of late has finally gone into voluntary administration. It’s profits have been steadily eroded by strong competition from online-only retailers such as Amazon and Steam and likely keen pricing from the large supermarkets like Tesco and Asda, who are always on the lookout for cheap deals. Only last week, high profile suppliers refused to do business with them. For example, Electronic Arts pulled out, denying GAME the ability to sell the hot triple-A title Mass Effect 3 on any platform, which likely pushed it over the edge. The company also blamed this situation on “over-expansion” due to various acquisitions, such as GameStation in 2007. While in administration, the company, with their 1300 stores, will continue to trade as a going concern.

This reporter would hazard that the core reason that they went under because they tried to price gouge most things they sold. Certainly most things we observed were always priced very high, much more so than would reasonably be expected for a bricks and mortar business and they didn’t offer anything compelling to compensate for this. So yes, no wonder this happened. The full press release appears in the quote below.

Sources: GAME, BBC