UPDATE: Game Over? GAME Australia Enters Administration
Update: Official word has come through now, GAME has gone into official administration and PricewaterhouseCoopers will be handling the situation. According to a statement from the company, GAME will continue to trade ‘business as usual’ while PwC investigate the business’ situation.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers representative also told Kotaku AU that they working on a scheme for giving customers ‘some’ return on gift cards and gift vouchers. “We are working on schemes aimed at giving customers some return on these claims if they are used to make additional purchases,”
It may be a couple of weeks before anything happens to stores, stock or employees if at all. PwC believes that the ‘difficult local retail market’ may be the cause of Game’s troubles. We could have told them that.
Original Story: Perhaps it was inevitable after news earlier in the year, but GAME Australia has gone into Administration. Kotaku AU is reporting that this morning GAME staff members were informed that copies of Diablo III wouldn’t be arriving at stores, it appears that GAME Australia can’t pay its suppliers somewhere along the line.
The news was confirmed though when GAME stores were sent an email announcing that GAME were indeed in adminstration. Not a good way to start a Monday morning. What happens next isn’t clear yet but when this happened to the UK arm of GAME, 609 stores were closed immediately and staff were let go. It doesn’t appear this is the case here yet.
Expect more news in the coming days about just what’s going to happen and yes, there might even be a crazy sale.
They can’t do this, I have Animal Crossing preordered with their online site and still have $15 of credit.
They’re in administration, so you may still have your debts filled. However, since they will likely file for bankruptcy, you will become an ‘unsecured creditor’, and it will be extremely unlikely for you to get any of your money back (essentially, only if they have enough money to cover all of their ‘secured’ creditors).
This might help.
Voluntary administration: a guide for creditors
Only really useful for material secured creditors to be honest. This process can take years to finalise as they still need to decide on the direction of the voluntary administration process (restructure, liquidate, etc.).
I’d be inclined to cash in those gift cards if you still can.
We knew a few days ago that we might only get half our required stock for the Diablo 3 launch, but we just assumed HQ would send the rest by Monday morning. I guess we wont be getting any of it at all now. The worst thing is that as the staff, we are the face of the company, and we are going to have to be the ones dealing with the angry customers. It’s going to be a terrible week :/
You would think they would at least supply enough for preorders though? As they are guarantied sales?
I haven’t shopped once at GAME, there are just too many other stores that I can purchase mine from. They are not good at competing with all the other stores.
I’ve found their online arm to be good prices or average prices for most items if they are Australian based. Pretty much most of my Australian purchases come from either Game or JB online.
I’ve found so many bargains at GAME, most recently Steel Diver for $9(shrink wrapped). They do have some really great prices for a retail store and sometimes even beat import prices. I really hope GAME can find a way to survive, Australian retail prices has a chance with them around.
So use all my GAME credit ASAP?
I haven’t used GAME in a long time (only when they had crazy sales, where I could pick up something for $2 or $8 or something). I refuse to buy anything at max RRP or where they haven’t paid attention at their 2nd hand game prices that are $10 more than new games.
Also sucks to be a Diablo 3 fan tho – they won’t be refunding any preorders apparently!
I’ve never bought from GAME. Their nearest store is 3 hours away in Perth and their online site doesn’t accept PayPal so I can’t order online. It’s a shame, I do wish I could have supported them.
Could you imagine being a GAME employee right now? Not only would you be uncertain about your job but you’d have to field 100 questions from jerks coming in and going “Are youse closing?” Etc. Poor GAME they just could never compete.
Thank god I jumped early from that sinking ship. Less than 2 months after I bailed my store was gone and all my former colleagues cast away without a raft (apologies for unnecessarily prolonging that metaphor but you catch my drift…)
Hehe. Drift.