GAME Group Leak: Microsoft and Activision Gone
The saga of the UK video game retailer goes from bad to badder
The ongoing saga regarding the UK's once proud video game specialist retailer, The GAME Goup, continues to unfold with a leaked memo revealed to trade title MCV that "says that Activision and Microsoft are the latest publishing giants to not supply the troubled specialist..."
According to the report, "Activision titles Cabela Big Game Hunter 2012 and Zhu Zhu Babies, plus Microsoft's Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure, will not be sold by the retailer, the memo to store managers reads.
"The note also confirms that Nintendo's Inazuma 12 and Sega's Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai will not be stocked, along with PokePark 2, Kid Icarus and Yakuza: Dead Souls, which has already been announced."
The memo "also warns staff to forward any press enquiry to its PR team and adds: "we ask that you do not get involved in dialogue or comment publicly via social media, or gaming forums.""
Also piling into the fray are Konami's UK General Manager Pete Stone, who said One way or another it’s crunch time for the GAME Group. Despite the growth of digital delivery there is still a long way to go with physical games, so we need a presence on our high streets and in our shopping centres and I want GAME to survive in some form. I never like to see anyone lose their job and I feel for the many staff there. But I also know there are far too many GAME and Gamestation stores and at the very least rationalisation is necessary."
He's joined by 1C international publishing director Darryl Still who points out that his, "main hope is that the shake-up will turn out to be for the good. It seems to me that, with the likes of Tesco, Asda and Morrisons doing the job of stocking the mass market hits, it is behoven to whatever specialist game entity that crawls from this wreckage to be exactly that. A specialist. Stocking range & supplying knowledge.
"I spent some time with the GameStop guys in the States last week, and the way they are supporting their physical stock, with a whole back-up catalogue of key codes for games they don’t stock, but which are available for immediate download and play by their Impulse digital company, is not really rocket science, but just makes so much sense."
According to the report, "Activision titles Cabela Big Game Hunter 2012 and Zhu Zhu Babies, plus Microsoft's Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure, will not be sold by the retailer, the memo to store managers reads.
"The note also confirms that Nintendo's Inazuma 12 and Sega's Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai will not be stocked, along with PokePark 2, Kid Icarus and Yakuza: Dead Souls, which has already been announced."
The memo "also warns staff to forward any press enquiry to its PR team and adds: "we ask that you do not get involved in dialogue or comment publicly via social media, or gaming forums.""
Also piling into the fray are Konami's UK General Manager Pete Stone, who said One way or another it’s crunch time for the GAME Group. Despite the growth of digital delivery there is still a long way to go with physical games, so we need a presence on our high streets and in our shopping centres and I want GAME to survive in some form. I never like to see anyone lose their job and I feel for the many staff there. But I also know there are far too many GAME and Gamestation stores and at the very least rationalisation is necessary."
He's joined by 1C international publishing director Darryl Still who points out that his, "main hope is that the shake-up will turn out to be for the good. It seems to me that, with the likes of Tesco, Asda and Morrisons doing the job of stocking the mass market hits, it is behoven to whatever specialist game entity that crawls from this wreckage to be exactly that. A specialist. Stocking range & supplying knowledge.
"I spent some time with the GameStop guys in the States last week, and the way they are supporting their physical stock, with a whole back-up catalogue of key codes for games they don’t stock, but which are available for immediate download and play by their Impulse digital company, is not really rocket science, but just makes so much sense."
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