Latest news with #GAME
The Sun
2 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
High street retailer with 240 shops launches huge closing down sale ahead of shutting six branches in DAYS
A MAJOR high street retailer has launched a huge closing down sale ahead of the closing of six of its branches across the UK. GAME - which operates around 240 stores across the UK - has slashed the prices of some of its products by up to 20 per cent across the closing outlets. 2 The retailing giant announced the closure of six of its stores across the UK in August and September, including outlets in Eldon Square in Newcastle and at Galleries Shopping Centre in Bristol. Fans of the gaming store spotted major discounts at their local outlets that are due to be shut. GAME, which stocks video games, consoles, and even LEGO products, is owned by Frasers Group - the company behind brands Sports Direct and House of Fraser. Closing down sale signs were seen outside the popular store in Eldon Square last month, reports ChronicleLive. GAME stores closing in August and September Basingstoke, Hampshire (closed August 10) Southend, Essex (due to close before end of August) Metrocentre Shopping Centre, Gateshead (due to close September 7) Galleries Shopping Centre, Bristol (due to close September 25) Chatham, Kent (due to close before end of September) Even more have appeared since the first sighting, with discounts slapped on countless products in the store. These savings could grow even larger as the store heads closer to its final day of trading. Other stores due for the chop include one outlet in the Metrocentre Shopping Centre in Gateshead as well as another in Southend, Essex. This follows the closure of a number of other GAME stores in recent months, including shops in the Trafford Centre in Manchester in June and the outlet in the Victoria Centre in Nottingham in July. GAME was acquired by the Frasers Group, owned by businessman Mike Ashley, in 2019, as part of a £52 million deal. However, in January 2020 the retailer announced plans to close 40 of its more than 300 stores across the UK. Major card chain with 163 shops launches closing down sales ahead of shutting its doors for good Today, there are roughly 240 Game stores operating across the UK. HIGH STREET STRUGGLES The high street has majorly struggled in recent years due to a combination of factors. Shoppers are buying much more of their products online, while retailers have faced higher rental, wage and energy costs. The Centre for Retail Research says the sector has been going through a "permacrisis" since the 2008 financial crash. Figures from the Centre show 34 retail companies operating multiple stores stopped trading in 2024, leading to the closure of 7,537 shops. Businesses have cautioned more closures are to be expected this year as well due to the hike to employer NICs and staff wages. The rate of employer NICs was hiked from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent and the threshold at which they are paid lowered from £9,100 to £5,000 in April. The national minimum wage was also increased by up to £12.21 a hour. Some big names have already announced mass store closures in 2025, including Poundland, Hobbycraft and The Original Factory Shop. RETAIL PAIN IN 2025 The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion. Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April. A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024. Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure. The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year. It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year. Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: "The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025." Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector. "By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer's household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020." 2
Metro
01-08-2025
- Business
- Metro
Full list of stores closing in August 2025 from Superdrug to Poundland
British high streets are facing even more shop closures this year, with dozens of shops set to shut in August. Shoppers might enjoy the closing-down sales in the short term, but the move is likely to deal another blow to local communities. From tech giants to the everyday favourites that have defined the high street for decades, retailers are pulling down shutters left, right and centre. Up to 17,000 shops are expected to close this year alone, according to the Centre for Retail Research. Running a shop isn't what it once was, experts have told Metro, with sky-high energy bills and online shopping forcing retailers to make difficult choices. Here are the brands set to disappear from your high street this month. Apple will close its two-floor store in Bristol city centre in Cabot Circus after 15 years. A notice on the branch's store page says: 'Thank you, Bristol. Apple Bristol is closing on 9 August at 5pm.' GAME will close several branches over the next few months as part of a restructuring plan by its owners, Frasers Group. A GAME on Southend High Street will be shutting on an as-yet undisclosed date this month, while the branch in Festival Place in Basingstoke will close for good on August 10. The troubled arts and crafts chain was bought by investment firm Modella Capital last year, kicking off a wave of redundancies and closures. Hobbycrafts in Bromborough, Southport, and Stratford-upon-Avon will all close in 'early August', according to the company's website. No exact dates have been given. Ammanford Birmingham Fort Cardiff Valegate Cramlington Leicester Long Eaton Port Glasgow Seaham Shrewsbury Tunbridge Wells Bedford Bidston Moss Broxburn Craigavon Dartmouth East Dulwich Falmouth Hull St Andrews Newtonabbey Perth Poole Sunderland Stafford Thornaby Worcester Brigg (Cary Lane) Canterbury (Marshwood Close Retail Park) Coventry (Hertford Street) Newcastle (Killingworth Centre) Kings Heath (High Street) Peterborough (Orton Gate Shopping Centre) Peterlee (Castle Dene Shopping Centre) Rainham (Rainham Shopping Centre) Salford (Regent Retail Park) Sheldon (Coventry Road) Wells (High Street) Whitechapel, London (Whitechapel Road) The funkier sister store to H&M is closing its Glasgow store in Buchanan Galleries in August. 'Thanks for all the love and support. You can still shop Monki online – explore more at a notice on the store reads. The health and beauty tailor is in retreat, shutting two more in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and Redruth, Cornwall, on August 9 and August 16, respectively. The Grantham branch has been part of the local community for four decades, with one disheartened local writing on Facebook: 'This town is dying.' The fashion brand is saying goodbye to its shop in Neath, Wales, on August 6. New Look has warned that nearly 100 of its 364 stores could be at risk, having already closed 11 sites this year, including in Birmingham. The discount retailer is trimming its high street presence, with two spots closing this month. The TOFS in Kirkham, Lancashire, will close sometime in August, the store said on its Facebook page. 'We would like to thank you all for your support over the years we've been part of the local community,' it added. The Caldicot branch in Wales will then follow. In 2024 alone, 12,804 chain stores closed their doors, amounting to 35 a day, data from PwC network shows. More Trending But around 132,945 local high street shops could disappear over the next 15 years, mainly clothing, furniture and electronic stores. While these closures are being seen visually, with boarded-up shops and vacant lots, why they are isn't always so obvious, Julie Fisher, UK CEO at Simply Business, a small business insurer, previously told Metro. On top of day-to-day running costs being higher, higher National Insurance contributions, increased rent and squeezed incomings are also factors. 'These are clear signs that our high streets, as we know them, are under threat, and will become unrecognisable without intervention,' Fisher added. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Full list of 38 Poundland stores confirmed to close this month MORE: The 'nightmare' pub punter habit with a £125,000,000 industry cost MORE: Beloved bar chain with London locations set to shut four sites
The Sun
28-07-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Full list of nine chains closing shops on the high street in August – is your local at risk?
THIS August, the UK high street faces another wave of store closures, hitting shoppers and communities hard. From well-known budget favourites like Poundland to popular fashion brands such as New Look and Monki, a raft of familiar names are set to disappear. 1 The cost of running shops, from soaring energy bills to higher National Insurance, is pushing retailers to cut back. At the same time, more shoppers are going online, and with the cost-of-living crisis biting, people have less cash to spend. The result? Shops are closing, and high streets are starting to suffer. If you want to know which stores are shutting soon, we've got the full list right here. Apple Apple will close its two-floor Bristol city centre store in Cabot Circus on August 9, 2025 after 15 years. The closure comes as part of a redevelopment plan for Cabot Circus, which will replace the store with new flexible workspaces and public areas. GAME GAME is closing several UK stores this summer as part of a wider restructuring by parent company Frasers Group. Upcoming closures include Festival Place in Basingstoke on August 10, Southend High Street later in August, and Chatham in September. The Nottingham Victoria Centre store closed in July. Stores are running 20% off clearance sales ahead of closure. BrewDog to close TEN pubs across UK as staff set to be axed Hobbycraft As part of a major restructuring, arts and crafts retailer Hobbycraft will close three stores in early August 2025. The affected locations are Bromborough, Southport, and Stratford Upon Avon. The closures follow a strategic review aimed at reshaping the business. Monki Monki, owned by H&M, is closing its Glasgow store in Buchanan Galleries in August. The retailer has already shuttered branches in Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London earlier this year. The online store has also closed, with the brand being integrated into H&M's Weekday line. One remaining Monki store in Bristol remains open but will either close later this year or be transformed into a new concept. New Look New Look is continuing its wave of store closures, with a branch in Neath, Wales, set to close imminently on August 6, 2025. This follows a string of 11 closures already this year, including sites in Hamilton, Birmingham, Corby, Devizes, and others across England, Scotland, and Wales. The high street stalwart has warned that nearly 100 of its 364 UK stores could be at risk when leases expire, amid ongoing cost pressures such as the National Insurance hikes earlier this year. The retailer recently secured £30million in fresh equity investment to bolster its online operations and completed a £100million refinancing deal in 2023. Last year, New Look reported sales of £769million. Poundland Poundland is closing 26 stores in August 2025 as part of a wider restructuring plan following its £1 sale to Gordon Brothers earlier this year. Closing August 1: Newquay Closing 10 August: Ammanford Birmingham Fort Cardiff Valegate Cramlington Leicester Long Eaton Port Glasgow Seaham Shrewsbury Tunbridge Wells Closing August 17: Bedford Bidston Moss Broxburn Craigavon Dartmouth East Dulwich Falmouth Hull St Andrews Newtonabbey Perth Poole Sunderland Stafford Thornaby Worcester In addition, the Whiteley store in Fareham closed unexpectedly on July 21 2025, outside the announced closures. Whitby will close on September 3. Poundland is trimming its estate from nearly 800 stores to between 650 and 700 locations. The company is removing frozen foods, ending online sales, and expanding womenswear and seasonal lines. Managing director Barry Williams called the closures regrettable but necessary to secure thousands of jobs and hundreds of stores. River Island River Island is facing serious financial trouble and could run out of money by August 2025 if creditors and landlords do not approve a rescue plan. The chain plans to close 33 stores and seek rent reductions on another 71 to cut costs. Approval from 75% of creditors is needed to unlock an emergency loan from the founding Lewis family. Despite these challenges, River Island stores and its online site remain open as usual. The retailer reported a £33.2million pre-tax loss for 2023, with sales falling 19% in the following year. Several stores have already closed this year, including locations in Corby, Banbury, and Chesterfield. Superdrug Superdrug is set to close two more stores this summer, adding to a string of recent closures. The Grantham branch in Lincolnshire will shut on August 9, followed by the Redruth store in Cornwall closing on August 16. These latest closures follow the shutdown of its Bournemouth store earlier this year. The Original Factory Shop (TOFS) The Original Factory Shop, with 178 stores, continues to close locations amid restructuring. The Caldicot branch in Wales and Kirkham in Lancashire are set to close soon, while the closure date for Blairgowrie in Scotland is still unknown. Since June, TOFS has closed several stores across the UK and launched significant closing down sales. The retailer is undergoing a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) process to renegotiate rents and close loss-making outlets as part of efforts to stabilise the business. RETAIL PAIN IN 2025 The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion. Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April. A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024. Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure. The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year. It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year. Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: "The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025." Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector. "By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer's household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020."
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ether Treasury Company GameSquare Buys CryptoPunk NFT for $5.15M
Digital media company GameSquare (GAME) said it bought Cowboy Ape #5577 of the CryptoPunk non-fungible token (NFT) collection from Robert Leshner for $5.15 million. The Frisco, Texas-based company, which described the purchase a strategic investment, also said it added just over $10 million worth of ether (ETH) to its treasury. Leshner, the founder of Compound Labs, an open-source protocol for algorithmic money markets on Ethereum, received the company's preferred stock in payment CryptoPunks are one of the earliest and among the most influential NFT projects. Created in 2017, they inspired much of the modern crypto art movement and set a precedent for digital ownership on the blockchain. "GameSquare plans to leverage CryptoPunks for marketing activations, community building, and potential licensing opportunities," the company said in a Thursday announcement. The firm's purchase of 2,742.75 ETH takes its total holdings to 12,913.49 ETH, valued at around $48.5 million. A number of companies have unveiled ether treasury strategies in recent months as a means of generating passive yield through ETH staking. Foremost among them is SharpLink Gaming(SBET), now the largest corporate ether holder, with over 360,000 ETH. Firms in the media, entertainment and gaming sectors like SharpLink and GameSquare may see an ether treasury strategy as a means of advancing their Web3 aspirations through investing in the Ethereum ecosystem and thereby gaining exposure to NFTs, decentralized finance (DeFi) and more. GAME shares spiked to $1.44, an intraday gain of nearly 8%, following the announcement, before pulling back. At the time of writing, it was trading 4.8% higher at $1.33. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Scotsman
19-07-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Waverley's Game store to close as Ashley pulls back from high street
Mike Ashley, pictured, whose Frasers Group has closed a number of Game stores across the UK recently Good news, and not so good news, at Waverley Market this week. Notices have gone up in the windows of GAME that they will be closing in September. This was a surprise to me as the shop always seemed busy and had very knowledgeable staff. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... If what I have heard is true the only stand alone GAME that will be left in Scotland will be in Glasgow, and while the Edinburgh shop located within Sports Direct will remain open, they will continue without any staff dedicated to GAME sales. It is a great shop unit just along from Avalanche and I doubt it will be empty for long once they leave, but I've always felt they were a good fit with what we do along with Anime Republic and Damaged Society. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Unlike record shops, which managed to outlast the threat of downloads and then streaming computer games, shops are now trying to trade in a world were the vast majority of games are downloaded. While they have done well to keep going by selling related merchandise clearly GAME's owners – Mike Ashley's Frasers Group – have decided to not completely throw in the towel but certainly pull back from having a strong high street presence. It is maybe telling that the closure notice does not ask customers to visit the remaining Edinburgh shop but instead suggests they visit the GAME website. In better news the old Body Shop unit in the centre has been transformed into a glittering jewellery shop by the Edinburgh-based business Fairy Made and while I can give no judgement on their wares it is good to see a local business giving it a go in these tough times for most retailers. Due to open very soon they were beaten to the post by a gents barbers opening on Thursday. While not located in a shop unit but in one of the two pop-up spaces opposite the Waverley Bridge entrance, they are I am told not a pop-up business and intend to be there permanently much like the Beauty Boutique and Mobile Plus are in the centre of Waverley Market. Again I have no idea what the demand might be for a barbers like this though I have always said the centre needed a hairdressers shop as well as a shop offering tattoos and piercings, so while this is maybe a scaled down version of what I was thinking, this is not their first venture and they have already been successful in other shopping centres so only time will tell. One thing I always warn potential businesses about when looking to move into the centre is that Waverley Market is not like other shopping centres, and I feel that is an advantage it has so long as the businesses are right for the footfall, which includes a lot of families visiting both from the UK and abroad and couples visiting Edinburgh for a long weekend. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As I was getting the train home on Thursday a headline in this very paper caught my eye. 'Shock in Edinburgh as sudden closure sees Evans Cycles vanish from Fountainbridge'. It seemed odd as the owners were blaming their landlord who had served notice for them to close. Odd that is until I saw the owners were Mike Ashley's Frasers Group.
