As GAME prepares to close its remaining physical stores this month, will consumers miss the brand?

The three remaining GAME stores will be shutting their doors this month after falling into administration earlier this year. This will end a more-than-35-year stint as a dedicated retailer on UK high streets – although the brand will continue in digital form, and as a concession within Sports Direct and House of Fraser stores.

Will the public mourn the chain’s departure? Perhaps not. Data from YouGov BrandIndex suggests that it underperforms the general retail sector in several key areas. Impression scores, for example, sit at 10.1: 3 points lower than the average. Quality scores are similarly lower (8.4 vs. 11.2), while Value scores are six times lower than average (1.0 vs. 6.4). This may well play into GAME’s Recommend scores, which, at 6.9, are 3.3 points worse than those of the general retail sector.

Index scores, which track overall brand health by averaging several measures, may summarise the retailer’s fortunes to some extent: GAME’s are 6.9, while the sector’s scores are 9.8.

So it’s clear enough that GAME is not particularly beloved by the UK public at the moment of its departure, but this should be placed in the proper context. Its fortunes are not entirely of its own making. The landscape for video gaming has changed dramatically: Sony’s data from last year, for example, suggests that 75% of its PlayStation  sales were digital, rather than physical.

Still, the chain will continue to exist online and via brand partner concessions. Only time will tell if its digital presence is a success, but contnuing as a concession in Sports Direct stores makes a certain commercial sense: Current Customer scores (which track whether consumers have recently visited a retailer) for Sports Direct are 11.1, compared to GAME’s 1.3. Could GAME end up seeing more foot traffic once it has finally closed its own stores?