bigtroyjon
Member
Dumb question but the shares people had are now dead yes as in they were under the old company so are gone for good no matter what?
yes
Dumb question but the shares people had are now dead yes as in they were under the old company so are gone for good no matter what?
I'm not expecting redundancy, but I am expected to be paid next Friday. According to my regional manger, we will be paid the two weeks we're still owed by GAME on Friday the 6th of April. The PWC guy said that we should expect the weeks pay (that's just gone by) from the administrators soon after.
Also got my redundancy letter today.
dear oh dear, does that mean you worked for some weeks for free?
Ohhhhhhh shit...
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/former-game-workers-furious-at-late-wage-admission/093715
Utter scumbags.
I'm glad for many of my friends who still have to work in the company. I may no longer have a job but at least they can rest a little easier for a while.Retailer GAME has announced its exit from administration following a successful bid by Comet owners OpCapita.
Private investment firm OpCapita has secured a sale of GAME's UK assets to Baker Acquisitions Limited.
Under the terms of the deal Baker has bought the UK arm of GAME Group out of administration and will provide it with the required capital to resume trading on a normalised basis. There are no plans for future store closures.
Baker, which is based in London, was founded in November 2011.
More importantly, the agreement safeguard the remaining 333 UK stores and secures the jobs of nearly 3,200 GAME employees. All of these staff are now employed by Baker.
Crucially, this will also mean Baker is not responsible for those who lost their jobs with The GAME Group – bad news for those currently trying to fight for their unpaid notice and redundancy pay.
It's also bad news for investors. With the UK assets now owned by Baker, GAME Group remains suspended on the stock exchange. Investors' only hope now is that enough money can be raised from the sale of the international business for them to recoup their investment.
“We are pleased to have reached agreement with the Administrator,” OpCapita managing partner Henry Jackson stated. “We strongly believe there is a place on the high street for a video gaming specialist and GAME is the leading brand in a £2.8bn market in the UK.
“We have assembled a strong team of experienced industry operators to implement the programme of operational change that is needed. There is a huge amount to do but we look forward to the challenge of restoring GAME’s fortunes in partnership with its employees and suppliers.”
PwC administrator Mike Jervis added: "We are delighted to be able to secure this business sale and provide some much needed stability for customers, suppliers and employees alike in these uncertain times. The support of these stakeholders has been crucial over the last week and I would like to thank them for their support throughout this difficult period.
"This means that the GAME brand will not be another one of the retail names disappearing from the high street in the current difficult climate."
GAME Group's non-UK operations remain up for sale.
Crucially, this will also mean Baker is not responsible for those who lost their jobs with The GAME Group bad news for those currently trying to fight for their unpaid notice and redundancy pay.
I'd say you'd still be paid, yeah. As for those that expect compensation (read: me) we claim it off the government anyway so it shouldn't affect that either.Sooo... will we still be paid next Friday? This simply means it's bad news for those who expect compensation for lack of notice / redundancy money, right? While it's shit that getting those things now look very unlikely, it's more important to me that we get paid for the last 3 weeks work. :X
What do people want changed apart from the obvious pricing?
- Less focus on killer questions and KPI's (Give the teams freedom of what questions they ask to what customers rather bombarding everyone with six questions each every time they want to buy something. Stuff like the "Mexican wave" emails with the Vita pre-orders were pathetic.)
- Give staff what they earn (Working for free for 30 / 40 minutes at the end of every full day should not happen. If the managers are paid for this, so should the shop floor staff.)
- Every store doesn't have to look the same (Plano-grams are boring. Let managers mix their shops up a little and make POS interesting for the customers.)
- Cheaper new prices, more incentives to buy (Store prices will never be as cheap as online, but £42.99 for a new copy of Fifa is ridiculous. Hand out more freebies (such as shirts, posters etc.), have more in-store events (such as launch day tournaments and midnight openings) and keep up trade-in offers (such as "get x new game for £10 when you trade in x" etc.)
- Do something different (My ex-store had a second floor full of wasted space. This could have easily been transformed into a demo and pre-order room. Scatter some demo pods about the place, have a desk to take pre-orders and play games / interact with the customers. I know a lot of the customers who visited our store would've loved something like this.)
- Good customer service (While I believe a lot of stores do this already, good customer service is the key to any retail business. It's something that should be maintained by every member of staff.)
LordAlu said:I'd say you'd still be paid, yeah. As for those that expect compensation (read: me) we claim it off the government anyway so it shouldn't affect that either.
Going out of administration is good for those who won't lose their jobs but it will be quite a long time until it will be good for the general public, if at all.
What do people want changed apart from the obvious pricing?
Ha ha. That's my local game (there's another around the corner that survived but I always used this one)
I am pretty sure that Super Pokemon Rumble was already discounted to £19.99 before Game started to go under. So yeah, it's a great deal.
This is an absolute must. Constant performance management work was detrimental to morale and was essentially an exercise in paperwork that the company could use to fire people based on poor performance. Both my manager and myself felt that, whilst it needed to be done (and was checked by our RM on every visit) we would not actually use it and would make our own calls and judgements on our own staff, not by an arbitrary list that requires you to ask questions all the time.- Less focus on killer questions and KPI's (Give the teams freedom of what questions they ask to what customers rather bombarding everyone with six questions each every time they want to buy something. Stuff like the "Mexican wave" emails with the Vita pre-orders were pathetic.)
Every store should do this anyway - if our store closed at 5:30PM all of our staff in were paid till 6:00PM, and we would not stay longer - any jobs not finished were simply started the next day. Unfortunately it is too late now, but if any store does this (and if any current employees read this and their store does this) they should make a complaint to their RM or HR.- Give staff what they earn (Working for free for 30 / 40 minutes at the end of every full day should not happen. If the managers are paid for this, so should the shop floor staff.)
A great idea. Hopefully this can get implemented at some point, as some space is paid for by publishers to advertise their products. I would much prefer a little creativity in allowing management to do their own displays.- Every store doesn't have to look the same (Plano-grams are boring. Let managers mix their shops up a little and make POS interesting for the customers.)
With the majority of new games at £39.99 and already £10 less than the RRP we should be paying, they definitely need to come up with more events and other products to sell. Old Gamestation did it best with gaming T-Shirts and posters which GAME did its best to remove from sale- Cheaper new prices, more incentives to buy (Store prices will never be as cheap as online, but £42.99 for a new copy of Fifa is ridiculous. Hand out more freebies (such as shirts, posters etc.), have more in-store events (such as launch day tournaments and midnight openings) and keep up trade-in offers (such as "get x new game for £10 when you trade in x" etc.)
I really wish this could be done. The old store in the Leeds Headrow centre was massive, and even had an area with five 360 demo pods in. I'd love to see demo systems in store, maybe in their own area or possibly remove a browser or two and put some demo pods in showing the latest games. Even better if they could tie it in to orders.- Do something different (My ex-store had a second floor full of wasted space. This could have easily been transformed into a demo and pre-order rom. Scatter some demo pods about the place, have a desk to take pre-orders and play games / interact with the customers. I know a lot of the customers who visited our store would've loved something like this.)
Whilst subjective (one man's idea of good customer service is another man's idea of bad customer service), this goes well with your first point. Sure, approaching people is a good idea, but only if that person looks in need of help, and it's so very easy to spot when they might be confused or in need of assistance. I'd like to see people just being chatty and enjoying their work, which again Gamestation did a lot better than GAME tended to.- Good customer service (While I believe a lot of stores do this already, good customer service is the key to any retail business. It's something that should be maintained by every member of staff.)
These sell like hot cakes. We had one guy bring in over 50 Saturn games in the first week of November. They were all gone in just two days. Likewise, a week or two before we shut one guy traded in 10 or so Dreamcast games, and they were gone the next day. Retro stuff still sells, and sells well.-An expanded used game section with retro games/consoles reappearing.
I don't know the cost of soundtracks but it would be fantastic to have somewhere to actually buy them, and would be a great item to sell with the title being bought. Strategy guides don't sell well in the age of the internet unfortunately, and only go for games that might actually require them (i.e. Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur). The number of Duke Nukem guides that just got written off was unbelievable!-Expand on the gaming merchandice sold. Better range of strategy guides, soundtracks.
GAME actually used to do this about 6+ years ago, and it worked okay. The problem was the games themselves were often mis-labelled genre wise. I remember once going through a display list of things to show on a shelf and seeing Tomb Raider listed as a "Strategy" game. If games were kept in alphabetical order whilst still being sorted by genre then this would be a good improvement.I'd also prefer if games are sorted by genre rather than title. That way if you want to try a different shooter for example you have them all in eyeshot making it much easier to browse them. I'm sure this will also help staff when recomending games.
They kinda did something like this, in that every easter, summer and at Christmas they'd do a little magazine with product deals and upcoming games. It is something they should continue with.I'm not sure if GAME/Gamestation do this but for the pub chain i work for we produce magazines every couple of months which customers can read showing off news/events/products which prove very useful. I'd like GAME to produce something simalar.
Every store should do this anyway - if our store closed at 5:30PM all of our staff in were paid till 6:00PM, and we would not stay longer - any jobs not finished were simply started the next day. Unfortunately it is too late now, but if any store does this (and if any current employees read this and their store does this) they should make a complaint to their RM or HR.
Sure, approaching people is a good idea, but only if that person looks in need of help, and it's so very easy to spot when they might be confused or in need of assistance. I'd like to see people just being chatty and enjoying their work, which again Gamestation did a lot better than GAME tended to.
Resistance100 said:-An expanded used game section with retro games/consoles reappearing.
Resistance100 said:I'm not sure if GAME/Gamestation do this but for the pub chain i work for we produce magazines every couple of months which customers can read showing off news/events/products which prove very useful. I'd like GAME to produce something similar.
Price is one thing but i found that the problem with the stores is that there is no reason ever to go to one for anything but midnight launches.
I'd like to see
-Proper demo booths set up.
-An expanded used game section with retro games/consoles reappearing
-Expand on the gaming merchandice sold. Better range of strategy guides, soundtracks.
Gibbs is an experienced hand in the industry and was first bought into GAME when the company purchased Gamestation, where he had been Managing Director.
He was a major component of GAME from 2007 on and eventually left the company in mid 2011. Hes also known for heading up the game arms of HMV and WH Smiths.
I am delighted to be leading GAME back to success. Our immediate priority is to help the GAME and Gamestation teams, so they can give our customers a great Easter in our stores and websites, Gibbs said in a statement, via MCV.
The first major task for Gibbs will likely be getting stock into stores for Easter as many stores are approaching empty after several weeks of no deliveries and an impressive Spring Clean sale which saw preowned stock heavily reduced.
It was also confirmed yesterday that David Hamid, a veteran of Dixons, MFI, Halfords and Nationwide would take the role of GAMEs Executive Chairman.
The deal signed yesterday will save the remaining 333 GAME stores and 3100 jobs.
As administrator I am required to prepare my proposals for distribution to all known creditors, including former employees, providing the information required by Rule 2.33 of the Insolvency Rules 1986 as soon as reasonably practical and, in any event within eight weeks of the date of my appointment. These proposals will be accompanied by a notice convening a meeting of creditors or, depending upon the circumstances, an explanation as to why no such meeting is required. You will receive notification of any creditors' meeting, together with a copy of my proposals in due course.
I regret that I cannot enter into general correspondence with creditors regarding the Company's affairs in the meantime. It is too early to give any indication of the prospects of return for the Company's creditors.
I think the owed money will be paid in due course. The letter is just legally informing you that you are a creditor and owed money but I believe the plan is to pay the final week by the end of this week or the end of the month.
I wouldn't worry too much yet...unless that money never arrives. As for the random names, that is a big fuck up, apparently it was a spreadsheet error, imagine that's how they came to there conclusion on closing stores, god help them!
This properly confused my old Senior Sales guy yesterday, he got a letter addressed to me but with half his old address and half his new address on it! It pretty much informed him of the legal stuff about his final payment but he was also told it would get paid in as usual anyway so he just ignored it.GAF saves the day again. Thanks a lot for the information. The letter scared me, to be honest. The PWC guy at our store (although being quite rude to begin with) seemed very confident we'd get the money within a few weeks. I was worried this letter today was PWC trying to cover their arses just in case we might not get paid.
Also, what I find hilariously ironic is that the administrators where throwing a strop wanting everything scanned, boxed and labelled perfectly ready for delivery to other stores. The shop needed to be gutted and everything spotless, no excuses. Then they send out a tonne of letters to the wrong addresses. Fucking idiots.
i traded in some games i brought from game just before they went into administration (bulletstorm £1.98 for example )
i thought it would be interesting to take them games back to game for a trade in now i finished them and low and behold i got £55 store credit back.
so for 5 games i paid around £15 for i got £55 store credit back lol
I'm glad to see that most of my staff have now found new jobs. Only myself and my manager have yet to get a new job and that's primarily because we both decided to take a break and get some family time!
Audίoboxer;36852662 said:Can anyone who works with Game tell me when new stock is expected? Staff told me to wait a few weeks today. Have £90 on a trade in card for trading in 7 titles combined with the trade in bonuses (if I had known 8 titles would have netted me another £10 I would of brought another along!!!).
Looking to pickup Silent Hill Downpour.
Also the girl at the desk told me trade in cards can now be used online, can't see anything on the Game site that suggests that?
Thanks
I'm sure I read that those with credit can only use it on pre-owned stuff. Might want to enquire at a local store.
i traded in some games i brought from game just before they went into administration (bulletstorm £1.98 for example )
i thought it would be interesting to take them games back to game for a trade in now i finished them and low and behold i got £55 store credit back.
so for 5 games i paid around £15 for i got £55 store credit back lol
Stock has been coming in with increasing magnitude, however it's mostly still 360 accessories and hardware with a small amount of chart and back catalogue titles to keep us going. It's definitely going to be a few weeks before we start seeing stock flowing in properly again. Nobody knows exactly what is coming in until the boxes are opened though.Audίoboxer;36852662 said:Can anyone who works with Game tell me when new stock is expected? Staff told me to wait a few weeks today. Have £90 on a trade in card for trading in 7 titles combined with the trade in bonuses (if I had known 8 titles would have netted me another £10 I would of brought another along!!!).
Where abouts do you live?Mine too. I found the video while I was googling to see if my local GAME stores were affected.
Can any ex/current Game or Gamestation employees send me a PM please.
Stock has been coming in with increasing magnitude, however it's mostly still 360 accessories and hardware with a small amount of chart and back catalogue titles to keep us going. It's definitely going to be a few weeks before we start seeing stock flowing in properly again. Nobody knows exactly what is coming in until the boxes are opened though.
And yeah, if anyone has some games to get rid of at the moment I'd seriously at least go and get a quote. Trade in prices are still pretty close to the actual selling price, plus you've got that bonus £10 per 3 games. I mean stuff like Super Scribblenauts ends up at trading in for about £13 including the bonus £3.
Still weeks before they get new stock in?
Whats that, 3 months without new games to sell? The masses will have gotten used to buying from Tesco or somewhere by then. I still don't know how they can survive, without going down the CEX route even more than they have done.
Which will just piss the publishers off again, and restart the war.
they didn't tell me about that offer yesterday?
*snip*
can i go back and get the credit which they didn't give?
They have given you the extra credit, because of the way the tills work the bonus £10 had to be worked out by offering £3.40 across three games (technically given you £10.20 extra). For example Mass Effect trades in for £10, but if you bring two other games with it the promo price on the till can be selected which brings that to £13.40.
Also just a quick note, I would remove the images as someone could end up spending your points on the website if you leave that loyalty card number there.
So are GAME offering the £10 extra on trade ins as well as Gamestation?
I have some PS3 games with me today, was going to trade them in at CEX, but might go to GAME instead in that case.
Are they just offering credit? I'm after Assassins Creed Revelations for the 360...be a bummer if they didn't have it.
Can you check their trade-in prices before hand, or do you have to go to the store?
yep, i traded my games into game.
only credit, the cash alternative i was offered was just below 70.00 with the credit being 169.40. you can't, but ask them to ring up the games and price check them on the cex website.
they should have it, the one i was in yesterday had a few copies as well as a collector's edition for 19.99.
Cheers for this. I only have 5 games with me, will have to stop by CEX and pick up Fifa 06 or something!!
One of my PS3 games is a promo...do they take these? It's in a case with a full colour sleeve, but there's no instruction manual, and the disc has promo written on it. I THINK I've seen them selling these before, but not 100%...
I'm assuming the £10 extra for 3 games is only on certain titles? I couldn't trade in FIFA 08, 09 and 10 and get an extra £10 could I?
As far as I know, you can trade any title.
Although you probably won't make any friends by trading in 100 copies of Vampire Rain.