GAME Saved

GAME have been saved – Administrators PwC have confirmed OpCapita’s purchase of GAME UK.

In fact to be more specific Baker Acquisitions Limited, an entity advised by private investment company OpCapita, has picked up GAME's UK assets, including all 333 UK GAME and Gamestation stores that remained open during administration.

This acquisition is great news for the company and for the industry itself too. The gaming giant have now come of our administration, which they have been in since last Monday. At the time being it looks like GAME and Gamestation stores will function as normal and that the 3200 employees are all safe in the knowledge that their jobs will continue.

Baker will also seek to re-employ a "small number" of staff who previously worked at GAME's head office but were made redundant last week. There are "no plans" for any further store closures, it also said.

Although the specific financial terms have not been disclosed it is reported that it was brought for a £1.00 nominal fee. The costs comes mainly from paying off the £85 million in debt that GAME Group owed to the lending syndicate, led by The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Obviously this means that the GAME brand will not be another one of the retail names that has recently disappeared from our high streets. In fact it’s even better news that they have come out of administration not least because of the supermarkets getting ready to mark their territory.

In fact Tesco jumped on the GAME bandwagon a few days ago when it quoted in ads that it was now the "The Home of Gaming".

The ad boasts that the chain has more gaming stores in the UK than any other retailer, 393 of which open at midnight for new releases.

On top of that, it claims to have over 10,000 titles available online, free UK delivery and day-one pre-order shipping. It also flags up its in-store used game trade-in programme and Clubcard rewards system.

It follows the Sainsbury’s tactic from earlier this week where they launched a massive sale and announce it was increasing stocking of new titles

At least we can all still pop into GAME and get an honest opinion of what’s on offer. Every gamer in the UK can not breath a big sigh of relief.