Be Excellent To Each Other

Sure, but how will a sit-in help that in the slightest?

The Irish ones seem a little different as they have slightly different redundancy laws over there and GAME seem to be screwing around with them - theres a bit on MVC yesterday that i'll dig up and post in a minute

The protestors staging sit-in protests at a number of GAME’s closed Irish stores have released a statement clarifying their demands.

As we know, the disagreement hinges on GAME and PwC’s unwillingness to pay sacked workers for the remainder of their contract, owed holiday time or redundancy.

The group say they will continue their protest until PwC amends its decision.

The statement in full:


As of the 26th of March, GAME have told all employees in the Republic of Ireland that they are being made redundant.

The company have appointed administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers in the UK to look after the stores that are being closed in the UK but they have failed to appoint an administrator to the business in the Republic of Ireland.

We have only been told to make a claim to the state for our statutory redundancy entitlements, a process which we have not been offered any support with and which we understand will take over a year to complete while GAME and PricewaterhouseCoopers walk away from any responsibility or liability in the Republic of Ireland, even whilst they have asked us to remove all company assets back to the UK, which we believe puts them out of reach of any Irish creditors.

We believe GAME and PricewaterhouseCoopers are making us a burden on the Irish state and the Irish tax payer, whilst avoiding their responsibilities. Employees have not been given any of the paperwork or the information required to claim redundancy from the state. We were instead given information about UK redundancy procedures. We were informed that we would not be paid redundancy or any statutory or contractual notice period or any outstanding annual leave.

GAME and PricewaterhouseCoopers is still trading as a going concern in the UK and we feel that they should pay us our wages and entitlements we are due including statutory notice and redundancy payments rather than forcing us to spend a year our families do not have claiming our entitlements from the Irish state and tax payers.

GAME and PricewaterhouseCoopers can expedite there payments and allow staff to pay their mortgages and feed their families without having to wait as much as 16 months for their just entitlements.

We, the employees of GAME Ireland, believe the way we are being treated is wholly unfair and unjust. We are now sitting in our stores as a form of protest until GAME and PricewaterhouseCoopers address our concerns.

Still holding on to those shares?

Former GAME workers furious at late wage admission

Nearly two thousand former GAME and Gamestation staff in the UK have only discovered today that they will not receive either payment for their notice periods or redundancy.

Staff at GAME's Northern Irish stores were given the same bad news earlier this week.

What has irked most for those who received confirmation in the UK, however, is that their letters from PwC confirming the situation have arrived exactly one day after the vast majority of them have finished their last day of work.

GAME went into administration last Monday.

“PwC sent out forms to all staff, got mine today,” former GAME worker Russell Adams told MCV. “Conveniently the day AFTER we finished work saying we've to claim wages. Absolute joke, could take seven weeks!”

Another reader added: “We were told we could claim back what they didn't pay, not really true, statutory notice pay lot less than in my contract!”

Although existing staff are unsurprisingly relieved that it seems what remains of The GAME Group will exit administration early next week, those without a shop to return to have also expressed annoyance that they will go unpaid while the business continues to trade.

This all occurs on the backdrop of ongoing protest in Ireland, where some sacked workers continue their sit-in protest at closed stores.

“We have yet to receive formal written communication from GAME or PricewaterhouseCooper, their appointed administrator in the United Kingdom,” the latest statement from the Irish group, released today, claims.

“GAME or PricewaterhouseCooper did not give GAME Employees statutory notice of these events, which is required in Ireland, and further to this, we have been told that we will not be paid any of our statutory entitlements by GAME or PricewaterhouseCooper and we should apply directly to the Irish Government in order to receive them.

“In fact they said to apply to the government and gave us a UK government web link because they could not be bothered to remember that the Republic of Ireland is a different jurisdiction. Currently, our people are actively engaged in sit-in protests in 11 of our stores as an objection to the treatment we have received.

“GAME employees risk losing their homes and the security they provide for their families. As you can imagine, staff are frightened and anxious for their futures. We are also worried for the futures of the next Irish workers that will be put into this same situation.

“The Irish economy cannot sustain itself as it currently stands, never mind having to pay what is legally due to Irish workers of foreign businesses and branches of such who leave the country rather than fulfil their obligations.”

Slightly odd offer going on with Game at the moment but if you have piles of old tat it might be of use.

Went to Meadowhall last week and only the GS was open, however the prices were rubbish. Pricing elsewhere seems to have gone a bit bonkers, 25-29 quid seems the new price point for stuff that's been out for over a month in HMV / ASDA and Tesco. Oh and the new big Tesco near me is doing 2nd hand games, when did this start?

Went to Meadowhall last week and only the GS was open, however the prices were rubbish. Pricing elsewhere seems to have gone a bit bonkers, 25-29 quid seems the new price point for stuff that's been out for over a month in HMV / ASDA and Tesco. Oh and the new big Tesco near me is doing 2nd hand games, when did this start?

Where is "near you"? I feel I might enjoy the weekly toil and an argument* of going with mrsA to the Supermarket** if they dos econd hand games

*"You'd enjoy it more if you see things you like and tell me"
"I've seen something I like"
"What?"
"The exit"

** In Morrisons in Idle, garlic is in the "Speciality Vegetables" section, although in its defence, it is the first time I've seen casava on sale in a palce that big.

Mike Ambrogi is one third of Final Form Games, the developer that created the wonderful 2D shooter Jamestown, and he also shared strong words about the sale pricing of indie games. “The bulk of our revenue to date has come from sales,” he explained. “On the first day of the Steam summer sale, we earned more money than Jamestown’s entire earnings up to that point times three. The importance of those events to our company’s surivival can’t be overstated, and because we are poor, our survival is predicated on that kind of short-term thinking.”

Developers would love to sell more copies of their game at a higher price, but the choices offered to gamers across XBLA, PSN, Steam, and other services have never been more extensive. “Everyone has a queue in their head and a queue on their hard drive, and for most games, sales aren’t even a way to make sure your game gets played; they’re a way to move your game from a gamer’s mental queue to their hard drive queue,” Ambrogi said “It could still, without hyperbole, be years before that person actually downloads/installs/plays your game.”

For every 3 games you trade in until the 25th of April they will add £10 to the total they will give you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's more that possible to pick up three games from Game for less than £10, right..?

I've seen some posts on other forums with people going round clearing out CEX / Blockbusters of their 99p sports titles or games at 5 for £10 and then taking them in batches to Game to swap for a Vita or a 3DS

@Do you get the bonus for every 3 games you trade in? So if you take in 6 games you get a £20 bonus?

@Do you get the bonus for every 3 games you trade in? So if you take in 6 games you get a £20 bonus?

Are they being open about this, or do you need to drag it out of them?

Perhaps they have been taken over by EA and they are going to burn all of them and destroy the 2nd hand market.

The other part of me thinks 'yes, but I end up with several hundred pounds of worthless credit it GAME. I don't want more games, I want to get rid of them for CAHS MONEYS.'

soon-to-be-worthless (to you) PAL games than you'll otherwise get'.

If I go, I'm taking UK consoles with me. And then buying extra US ones. Isn't that totally obvious?

In my experience the faff of power conversion boxes and having two consoles won't be worth the trouble. I take it, though, that the advent of HD has largely eliminated the whole PAL/NTSC TV issue?

If you can overlook the Penny Arcade-ness, this article doesn't feature either of the cunts but makes interesting reading:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editoria ... pers-and-p





The last point is very true. I've yet to play Beyond Good & Evil HD and The Maw, both of which I bought in a sale. I've also barely touched Frozen Synapse (sale) nor given sufficient time to the Mount & Blade games (bundle).

Q: One of the things that Steam does is this random deep-discounting of software, and it works well for them. Do you see that as something you want to do?

David DeMartini: We won't be doing that. Obviously they think it's the right thing to do after a certain amount of time. I just think it cheapens your intellectual property. I know both sides of it, I understand it. If you want to sell a whole bunch of units, that is certainly a way to do that, to sell a whole bunch of stuff at a low price. The gamemakers work incredibly hard to make this intellectual property, and we're not trying to be Target. We're trying to be Nordstrom. When I say that, I mean good value - we're trying to give you a fair price point, and occasionally there will be things that are on sale you could look for a discount, just don't look for 75 percent off going-out-of-business sales.