For those interested in the survival of GAME as an entity, it's interesting to watch the market performance of it's shares and the interplay between major holders of shares.
First of all, a large chunk of game (more then half in fact) is held by investment funds and hedge funds. The investment funds, who tend to represent people with ISAs, pensions and all the other jazz that anyone can get from high street banks and specialists like Standard Life, are selling up their shares because it's become too risky - they no longer have anything like a guaranteed return. The Hedge funds have been buying these shares up, resulting in a price this afternoon hovering around 5p per share. This likely means that they can see a profit (albeit a far more risky one) by either selling the entire business to another company and wrapping up GAME Media Group (the parent company) or by putting the company into administration and selling the assets individually.
GAME are pretty much gone in their present form as a result of this. Mass Effect is a symptom which isn't being treated correctly (Game should be looking to rapidly dispose of some assets to turn a quick profit while altering their business model to be more competitive.)
I'd also suggest they should be adopting better management practises in their stores as well, although that's more down to poor service I've experienced from managers (although not often the sales staff.
EDIT: Also, yeah, I'm really disappointed I've missed out on the Collector's Edition. Hoping EA offer it to Amazon, since Zavvi, GameStop UK and Play had all sold out of the PC and Xbox versions by the time I got home from work.
First of all, a large chunk of game (more then half in fact) is held by investment funds and hedge funds. The investment funds, who tend to represent people with ISAs, pensions and all the other jazz that anyone can get from high street banks and specialists like Standard Life, are selling up their shares because it's become too risky - they no longer have anything like a guaranteed return. The Hedge funds have been buying these shares up, resulting in a price this afternoon hovering around 5p per share. This likely means that they can see a profit (albeit a far more risky one) by either selling the entire business to another company and wrapping up GAME Media Group (the parent company) or by putting the company into administration and selling the assets individually.
GAME are pretty much gone in their present form as a result of this. Mass Effect is a symptom which isn't being treated correctly (Game should be looking to rapidly dispose of some assets to turn a quick profit while altering their business model to be more competitive.)
I'd also suggest they should be adopting better management practises in their stores as well, although that's more down to poor service I've experienced from managers (although not often the sales staff.
EDIT: Also, yeah, I'm really disappointed I've missed out on the Collector's Edition. Hoping EA offer it to Amazon, since Zavvi, GameStop UK and Play had all sold out of the PC and Xbox versions by the time I got home from work.
