Game & Gamestation: GAME credit woes

[djtickle]

Just got back from pickin up my FF13-2 preorder at GAME that my wife deposited for me before Xmas! The place seem'd depressing! Normally there are multiple TVs on staff roaming about and music playing.... the place was in silence!!

Not sure if they cutting staff wages to try and save money? and even electricity!? Seem'd crazy! They had empty self's and didnt seem to have alot of stock in apart from the 2nd hand stuff in the middle of the store.

The chap that served me was nice enough, but did mention that they had no FF13-2's (Standard or Limited) to sell apart from pre-orders, and none of the special edition guides to sell either just preorders. They just had the standard guide to sell :/

So does seem that they aint getting as much stock as they used to. I was a little broken inside, even though I dont buy much from them cause of the high prices it was always worth a browse and I always grab new consoles from them.

[Lebowski]

It is sad if we loose our main retailer on the highstreet but I think the golden age of game stores has passed, take my local town bradford as an example its a town on its arse full of pound shops, empty retail units, and skint shoppers yet it has two Games a Gamestation and a cex . Surely it can't be profitable to be running three tired looking badly stocked stores per town. Go back to basics have one store per town and give people a reason to go into the stores.

its not as if game and gamestation offer much in the way of diffrence these days, it used to be the case that you could walk past a gamestation and see a treasure trove of retro items in there Windows. I used to love the thrill of finding a rare retro bargin, but those days are long gone and now gamestation is just a game clone with its same crap trade in prices.

If things stay the same on the highstreet we will be forced to queue up in cex next to the toothless smack heads trying to sell there latest haul of stolen goods. And you never know cex might start selling new games again too.

[EvilBoris]

Just went iNto gamestation. No stock of MGS.

The guy said stock 'is a bit tight'

Has it already begun?

[Adrock]

Game need to realign their business model towards gamers as well as the casual gamer who picks up AAA titles. AAA releases will guarantee big figures every year but the return customers are going to be gamers who actually buy the products regularly.

They have relied too much in recent years on Modern Warfare and its ilk. Its perfectly fine to push the boat out on those kind of things but supermarkets can do that too. Specialise and offer an alternative to Tesco, Sainsbury, Morrison and Asda.

If and when I buy new titles I usually buy them from the supermarket because they are almost always cheaper than GAME. Theres nothing wrong with that, but if GAME had variety then supermarkets wouldn't be able to compete.

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

Just went iNto gamestation. No stock of MGS.

The guy said stock 'is a bit tight'

Has it already begun?

To be fair I think its been like this across most retail businesses for a while due to bad sales across the board. Where I work we've got less overstocks & since October they've even been cutting back on hot water & heating, even this wk ffs!

[Kaido]

Jesus Christ this thread is damning! Didn't realise GAME had alienated us heavy gamers all that badly... thought it was just me.

If I worked for them I'd be looking for a new job right about now.

[FelixofMars]

Just to clarify I also don't wish redundancy on the people at the bottom level, I know myself if your at the bottom of the chain you will be the first to be thrown to the wolves but ultimately it is always the decision of management that causes many of the issues. I always find it ironic that the CEOs will pay themselves massive bonuses (a good example is with the banks at the moment) when basically they have made lousy decisions.

I really hate it when I find people that say "oh they deserve it as they have to make decisions that effect everyone below them and work really hard" but in my experience everyone works very hard and as for the decisions they are sometimes wrong and misguided but they still get a fat payout.

Either way, as Lebowski says I would rather they stop having 3 plus stores in a town (Game/Gamestation) and have just the one which is actually focused on gamers and not on selling crappy second hand copies.

[Family Fry]

Well you know things are bad when hmv, Tesco and asda have stock of MGS and GAME have no stock and are only covering pre orders. Wonder if that will continue over next few weeks?

[Brad]

Just want to say that the guy who served me in Game yesterday was really nice. Like all stores, there are good and bad staff.

Cheltenham high street is becoming sadder-looking by the day. We have a Game and a Gamestation. I'd rather Gamestation closed if I had to choose because they only have about 10 PC games in at any one time whereas Game have a fair range.

[Flabio]

If they've not had credit insurance for this weeks deliveries, they will have only picked up enough stock to cover pre-orders. Stuff they *know* they've almost certainly got a buyer for.

Now they have credit insurance again, they'll be able to get stock in again. So expect normality to resume next week for Amalur et al.

[EvilBoris]

Thanks to a store having no hard copy of who had preordered MGS I was able to collect my 'preorder'

Kinda surprising they had no MGS but had loads of FF13:2 and Siul Calibur 5

[kryss]

EvilBoris is evil!

[ETC]

And people say ganes trade in is bad that's why I hope they don't go under

[Super Grover]

Here's the companies RNS which was released today (3rd Feb) ...

3 February 2012

GAME Group plc ("GAME" or "The Group")

REVISED GUIDANCE AND FINANCING UPDATE

Revised guidance:

Having received support from its stakeholders and lenders, the Board now believes that GAME will meet its covenant tests for the period to 31 January 2012 when tested on 27 February 2012. The Board now expects that the loss before tax and non recurring items will be around ?18m for the year to 31 January 2012.

Financing update:

Further to the announcement earlier today, the Board of GAME is pleased to announce that it has now concluded discussions with its lending syndicate and agreed revised terms for its facilities.

Under the terms of the revised facilities, the Group has agreed to operate within lower limits of its existing facilities than was previously available. These revised facilities will allow the company to continue to trade. The Group has also agreed to provide an updated strategic plan for review, and approval in part, by the lenders. This plan will cover all aspects of the business's activities and strategy, including its overseas operations.

Ian Shepherd, CEO of GAME said "We're pleased to reach agreement with our lenders, but should be under no illusions about the challenges in our market or the hard work that is required to deliver our strategic plan."


Interesting to note that Shepherd and 2 other Directors bought over 100k of shares on the 1st Feb @ 5.5p.

Shares finished today @ 6.64p, up 24% since yesterday, no doubt on the back of todays RNS. There was also 7 million more shares bought than sold today too.

[BaronSqwelch]

Just went iNto gamestation. No stock of MGS.

The guy said stock 'is a bit tight'

Has it already begun?

My local had 2 copies...they had zero copies of NeverDead which I went in for alongside some M$ points.

Strangely my loyalty card had been frozen too so after they phoned somewhere to sort that out I grabbed one of the MGS to use the points up despite not even wanting it really.