Psychotext
Member
Have you even read any of their quarterly / annual reports or earning releases?
You might as well walk into a casino and start throwing chips around.
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UK Retailer GAME is dead | Brera's Lament
- Thread starter CrunchinJelly
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You might as well walk into a casino and start throwing chips around.
Did you even read my post? The "war chest" you speak of was down from £150 million to £40 million by July 2011. It's right there in that screenshot in black, white and purple. They do not have £120 million to spend, that much is obvious. You're trying to convince yourself that they do so you can hold out some hope that your shares will be worth something, but you're completely ignoring facts.
awanderingsoul
Member
How can the war chest be £120 million when it was £40 million in july 2011?
If they had a warchest left they would be ensuring they were fulfilling mass effect customer orders rather than handing out £5 gift cards, refunding deposits and losing customer confidence!
Any takeover will be through an insolvency. Pick and choose the best stores and retain the online portion.
I really feel for Gamestation in all this. Much of my 90s gaming came through that shop.
Your shares are going to be non-existent in three years. How many shares you got in Wimpy?
heliconsoul
Member
You have no idea what you're doing do you.
glaringradio
Member
This is some really shit trolling going on here by Brera, it HAS to be, nobody can actually be that dumb. Where are you picking this idea that they had a £30,000,000 loss from their War-Chest, when it doesn't even mention the figure £30 mil anywhere on anything...
My mind can't even comprehend the levels of stupidity
My mind can't even comprehend the levels of stupidity
Mr. Luchador
Member
hahahahaha oh yes. Someone buy this man a drink.
I realise you're likely trolling everyone by now, but since this took me all of 2 minutes:
Any clearer?
IdreamofHIME
Member
and this is what he thinks will happen when he cashes in his precious shares.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tfZ5iwb-mI&feature=related
They are projecting a loss of £30 million this year. This was their first announcement before the hurt started.
My view is simple. It's their first loss in a long long time. I see them surviving this fiasco. You guys are forgetting constantly that no one has refused to sell them games, they've refused to stock them as they don't want to agree to the credit terms put forward by EA, Nintendo and Capcom. UBI refused as well but quickly changed their minds.
If you think GAME won't be stocking FIFA 2013 then your the ones being unrealistic!
Psychotext
Member
Maybe they'll use their war chest to buy some copies!
They would not refuse to stock Mass Effect 3 and lose out on millions of pounds of profit if they had the money to buy it. It is as simple as that. I see you're still ignoring the fact that everyone's pointing out, that Game's "cash reserve" has been plummeting for months. For example, they wiped £110 million from their supposed "£150 million war chest" in just 6 months.
Brera, you're doing math with old figures. There's a poster outright SHOWING YOU that GAME ITSELF is reporting that it only had £40 million in July. If you wanted to use your own math, that would mean they'd only be sitting on £10 million, but that's also crazy talk, because that's not the way that business works.
Mr. Luchador
Member
Clearly Brera needs to buy more shares to give GAME the confidence to stock games again.
J Tourettes
Banned
Wimpy is still around, mang.
At one point he'll put in his £500 and end up owning the company.
Wimpy shareholders won't be rolling in the money in three years either.
j0hnny_385
Member
so when did this thread become "GAME Group |OT| - Will Brera make money or not?" ?
Seriously dude, stop being such an attention whore. Frankly I don't give a crap about your "investment" in GAME and I'm sick of reading your "I'm smart, I can see inside my crystal ball, you guys wait and see" posts.
You really crossed the line with that warchest post when people dismantled that with a simple picture (thnx for that @PaulLFC).
OK, we get it, you have some money in GAME stop. Good for you.
Others, just drop this. He's the Investment God, let him Be.
Q.E.D.
heliconsoul
Member
In more positive news I spent my £5 "lol we're not stocking ME3" voucher on a £10 PSN card. Journey for a fiver, hells yes.
J Tourettes
Banned
perhaps not but at least they'll be able to console themselves with a tasty brown derby.
I hope Game go down the shitter to be honest. It's a shame for the shopfloor staff (minus the managers who have invariably been twats whenever I've encountered them) but Game have been hanging on for quite some time. I remember when they had a bit of a shitty time a few years back and they were asked how they were going to turn it around. The chief exec said something along the lines of 'GTA 4 is out next year'. Sure big titles help but that's not a fucking business plan.
Mr. Luchador
Member
I have it on very good authority from someone who works the Stock Market that GAME Shares are only going to get better. May I suggest you ask if you can change your credit for shares?
"You have received a new PM from: Brera"
Psychotext
Member
I'd be going out and buying a metric shittone of PSN / XBL points in your position.
No way I'd leave that money with Game.
Zomba13
Member
He went back to Game to ask about the money and they locked him in their storeroom. They can't afford to give him his money back.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
http://www.gamegroup.plc.uk/gmg_plc...p/interim-report-2011/interim-report-2011.pdf
Page 14:
Current assets
Inventories - 144,787
Trade and other receivables - 46,229
Current tax debtor - 10,597
Cash and cash equivalents - 40,964
Total - 242,577
Current liabilities
Trade and other payables - 133,562
Current portion of long-term borrowings - 109,241
Leasehold property incentives - 1,485
Current tax liabilities - 0
Total - 244,288
The "long-term" borrowings are the most worrying part, it means that their creditors are looking at moving in quite soon. We can also forget about the tax credits, Game need to show a profit to benefit from the £10m in tax credits they have built up and the inventory is mostly stock which depreciates quite fast. The biggest problem I can see is the debt coming due and there being no creditor willing to back them. In fact with just £40m cash on the books and a £110m of debt coming due I would be surprised if they lasted until the end of the next quarter.
As I see it Games true current assets are about £180m once the inventory is written down to a sane amount and the tax credits written off. If Game weren't such a shady company they would have a good chance of renegotiating their trade payables (to publishers) as a lump sum to avoid bankruptcy, but at this point publishers are so fed up with their shoddy business practices that they would probably rather see Game go bankrupt and reset the games retail sector in the UK and allow new competitors to fight out a £1bn consumer market.
Either way, Game are about £70m in the red. If Game are to survive they need to cancel the dividend (no company can give away 1.8p when the shares are worth 4p) and find an investor willing to buy new shares via an issuance of at least £100m to clear the debts that the company holds and allow Game to use part of their cash reserves to pay the publishers and get some new stock into their shops. They also need to start getting rid of low yield retail locations in expensive retail centres and busy high streets. They need to go back to their roots as a shop that people actually want to go to, it might mean lowering shareholder value (in the long term) but it would also mean they continue to exist into 2013/14.
Finding an investor willing to front up to £100m will be tough but not impossible. It just means the board are going to have to admit their failures of trying to turn Game into a mass market brand. It was never going to work. Games and gaming is still niche and right now Game offer nothing that HMV (or even supermarkets) can't or won't. Only that HMV and the supermarkets offer more competitive prices for new games and are easier to shop in without being hassled to buy a PSN card that I don't want or being "upsold" a CE/LE version that I also don't want, if I had wanted a a CE/LE I would have picked up a CE/LE.
Next up, Game have no digital strategy, a friend of mine was once asked to head up their digital division but he took a look at the strategy they had planned and told me they would go bankrupt within two years. That was late in 2010. Every media retail company needs a strong digital strategy. Game should have bought OnLive when they had the chance, it would have been risky, but given their retail power and publisher relations they could have made it work and changed the name to GAMELive or something like that.
On the idiot comparison to BP. BP still had a sound business which is extremely profitable and billions of pounds worth of assets they could sell for short term funding. I invested in BP at 340p In July 2010 and sold at 490p in January 2011 for a gain of £11,000. I even have money invested in RBS (a lot), bought at 19p, currently the shares are 26p, but RBS's underlying profits for the past 12 months were £6bn suggesting that they are extremely undervalued (even taking into account £20bn worth of EU related write downs to their asset base). That's the difference though, BP and RBS still have massively profitable core businesses and a hugely profitable business model. Game do not. They are in trouble because the board suck at their jobs and they have turned Game into shop that gamers don't want to go into.
Anyway, I would seriously recommend selling you Game stock and just crystallise those losses before March 31st.
I kind of like GAME despite their price gouging and being turned off from working there during my college years. At least it was a games-related place you could mosey around and talk about games with your friends in. Someone showed me a games-related bar in the States somewhere (near the Washington area?) that served drinks, food and hosted arcade games and consoles set up for multiplayer COD and Smash Bros., where you could hang out and soak in the game nerdiness - we really need more of those! Perhaps they should replace all the GAME stores with places like that when they go under.
That, stock clearance sales and Brera's inevitable meltdown are the only things I'm looking forward to out of this whole debacle. They were meanies, but I'll feel that little more dead every time I walk into a shopping centre when they go.
Do Wimpy show prices entirely in pennies still? That always annoyed the hell out of me. "Burger and Chips for 499p!" - gaaaach.
That, stock clearance sales and Brera's inevitable meltdown are the only things I'm looking forward to out of this whole debacle. They were meanies, but I'll feel that little more dead every time I walk into a shopping centre when they go.
Do Wimpy show prices entirely in pennies still? That always annoyed the hell out of me. "Burger and Chips for 499p!" - gaaaach.
Thank you for explaining this in a way that even someone financially dumb like myself can understand. For some reason I still don't quite get the sums involved in working out the overall financial position (and I have an A at A-level Maths!) but otherwise that all makes perfect sense.
Is there still time to offload low yield locations to improve their financial position, or would it be too little too late?
ScreenSplitter
Member
Is this something they allow you to do, trade cards for cards? I wanted to get an XBLA card for ME3 From Ashes.
I think Brera should read the excellent post above and stop being all hyperboly.
Castor Krieg
Banned
Depends how long is the rent, and how long notice they have to give, I suppose.
Hey man, don't knock Wimpy. Much better than Subway or McDonalds or that shit.
Psychotext
Member
It's what I did. A product is a product.
N
NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
Was just in my local GAME. I heard the employees talking and their expecting to go into administration any day now. Also heard them talking about having to find new jobs.
MCV have covered the ground reaction from their website editor going into GAME at lunchtime. They also have a "source" (where from is not identified) confirming the 50% Vita sales figure that Brera mentioned earlier.
While the sentiment is admirable, I'm not impressed by the article. Wishing GAME Group good luck at the end of what's ostensibly a news piece seems a bit odd; makes the whole thing sound weirdly biased, but I don't think Ben Parfitt has any links to GAME beyond being the only person writing positive articles about the situation.
While the sentiment is admirable, I'm not impressed by the article. Wishing GAME Group good luck at the end of what's ostensibly a news piece seems a bit odd; makes the whole thing sound weirdly biased, but I don't think Ben Parfitt has any links to GAME beyond being the only person writing positive articles about the situation.
ScreenSplitter
Member
That's great and all, and again I do feel sympathy for the people at GAME, but that article seems to contain more hidden bad things. Why don't branches know what's going on? A company should keep in good correspondence with its outlets, even when things are going bad. Walking into GAME, asking where the fuck your Mass Effect 3 order is and getting a "Durrrr i dunno" is just sloppy.
As for that Vita launch figure... 50% of 10 is 5. Doesn't make it a big number. (Not saying Vita sold low, just think it's weird we get a percentage rather than a solid figure)
Found the name of that bar I was just talking about now - it's Ground Kontrol in Portland. I really really wish I could find one of these in the Southampton area... or even London. Someone who is rich get onto it!
I also don't think boxes advertising pre-orders is a good sign, considering GAME's recent track record on actually obtaining new releases.
Droog
Member
At the risk of completely derailing this thread, I'd be completely down with helping set up something like this in London... assuming someone wants to lend us the money?
MCV is a trade magazine. The vast majority of people who receive and probably read it every week who don't work at game publishers/developers are basically people who work in retail (e.g. store managers and staff).
I worked temporarily in The Entertainer toy shop when I was between proper jobs and we got it monthly and had nothing to do with video games barring pokemon TCG and some toys.....didn't stop me from standing behind the counter reading it though.
But the fact is, the story does not wish GAME or GAmestation luck, it's their employees it wishes luck to, and the fact is, 90% of the staff are just normal people trying to earn a living, they don't deserve our hate, it's the directors, the money men etc not joe bloggs behind a till.
I don't hate GAME in the slightest. I think any hatred is misguided; just because I'm not their target customer doesn't mean they deserve my rage. After all, I can buy online (although I'm still irritated that I couldn't find any copies of Mass Effect 2 on any platform in GAME on Oxford Street at lunchtime, not even in the second hand bits!).
I just think that, if you're a "newspaper", then you should make it clear when something is more of an opinion piece rather than ostensibly on-the-ground journalism. EuroGamer is quite good at this, for instance.
They aren't a newspaper though, they are a trade mag. Also most newspapers aren't 100% factual - they usually have their opinion slant.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
As of now it would be too little to late. According to data I have just had a look at their debts come due in less than six months and that means they either need to refinance or pay it off. The latter is impossible, they don't have enough cash and firesaleing the stock would lead to publisher problems and market devaluation problems down the line (consumers get used to low game prices and then refuse to buy higher priced ones). Refinancing is an option, but really, I don't see any bank willing to loan out £110m to Game, there really is very little chance of it. The third way is to find an investor willing to stump up £100m for 80-90% of the company to recapitalise it and pay off debts while also giving publishers confidence that Game will be around for more than six months and their games won't be sold off for no money. That's the reason publishers are holding back stock, they are worried that Game will take a bunch of new stock and sell it at 50% face value to get the punters in and pay the banks back and fuck them over in the process by devaluing the worth of their new games.
Offloading low yield stores means getting out of Westfield, getting out of Oxford St and other main high streets around the country and sticking to regional high streets local shopping centres. The rents are more reasonable and the management can better get a feel for the local consumers and tailor their stores for them.
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