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It may seem like an unlikely alliance, but GAME has joined forces with GameStop for a UK retail exclusive.
Games Industry reports that Ready At Dawn’s upcoming Deformers, which is published by GameStop’s publishing arm GameTrust, will be a GAME exclusive in the UK. Remember that following the sudden closure of GameStop.co.uk, the retailer no longer has a presence in this country.
"We have a good relationship with GameStop and we’d love to stock all of the games that they have coming to the market," GAME CEO Martyn Gibbs said. "Deformers is an interesting one. The view of the gamers in the office is that we’re really looking forward to that game coming.
That is a key point in the partnership with GameStop there. Deformers is the first stab for us and we have it exclusively in the UK."
Gibbs added that he hopes to secure GAME exclusivity on future GameTrust titles, too.
GAME yesterday published its financial results for the six months up to January 28th, revealing a GTV (Gross Transactional Value) decline of 6.9 per cent and a year-on-year profit drop of 26.7 per cent fall.
Gibbs told MCV: "Console hardware and physical software sales were soft and in addition there were certain key titles that underperformed and the year-on-year lineup of games wasn’t as strong."
Looking forward to the rest of 2017, Gibbs was far more upbeat, adding: "In terms of our current trading, GTV is up 20 per cent."
GameStop last week reported year-on-year drops in both revenue and income.
Revenues for the quarter ending January 28thfell 13.6 per cent to $3.05bn, while net income dropped 18 per cent to $208.7bn. Adjusted earnings were down by three per cent. Comparable store sales declined by 16.3 per cent internationally and 20.8 per cent in the US.
The company said that weakening games sales due to the aging generation of consoles and a few triple-A flops were the main culprit, along with strong competition from retail rivals throughout the Black Friday period.
