Game over for GAME Group?

On the 26th March, Game Group PLC- the parent company of high street video game retailers GAME and Gamestation- went into administration, with administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers announcing the immediate closure of 277 stores in the UK and Ireland, and the redundancy of 2,104 employees.

Store credit cards are no longer redeemable either, so I can kiss the seven quid I have on my Gamestation card goodbye.

My local Gamestation was unfortunately one of the 277 shut down this week, much to my grievance, as it is one of the very few successful specialist shops in Halesowen town centre. The ignorant or uninformed will no doubt attribute it to inflated mall property rental fees- but I'm pretty certain that high street game retailers face a much larger problem in the form of an often superior alternative.

It's no surprise that GAME Group's troubles have been largely attributed to their inability to compete with online games retailers such as Amazon and Play.com, and let's face it- all is fair in love and stores. I do prefer going to a local game shop and picking up games and/or consoles in person, on the day, and taking them home.  It's good to be able to come away from spending your money with something instantly tangible, and to not have to worry about when it arrives.

But, the often cheaper prices of new and charting games, guaranteed next day and overall convenience factor offered by online retailers is hard to beat- high street game stores such as GAME and Gamestation cannot really compete with that without taking a few hits themselves. Couple that with "ambitious internal expansion" (as stated by PricewaterhouseCoopers in a BBC News article) and other financial difficulties, and GAME Group find themselves just hoping that somebody will buy them out and keep the brand alive.

Furthermore, should GAME and Gamestation cease to exist completely, I can imagine that this would have a serious impact on the sale of used games and consoles. Even now, buying games and games consoles used, or trading said items in for store credit is a lucrative business area, which some bigwig games publishers/developers (such as EA) are looking to stamp out completely in order to make sure that only they will be the ones skimming any fat.

I hope that the over two-thousand staff who have been affect by store closures are not only cared for and compensated accordinglu, but are soon able to find work elsewhere. I hope that GAME Group does manage to rise from the ashes, for the good of high street game retailing in the UK and world wide. I also hope that, maybe one day, Halesowen town centre will get it's Gamestation back. One can hope.