The Big GAME Shutdown: An Insider’s Account
“Once the boxes had gone, he [the administrator] did a walk around the store. He was asking us what we planned on doing next. If I’m honest, I was a bit short with him. He was saying, ‘What are you going to do now – have you got any plans?’ And I was like, ‘I’ve just lost my job. I’ve been doing this job for two-thirds of my working life, if not more than that, working in a game shop. And suddenly I haven’t got that option. So no, I don’t know what I’m going to do now. First things first, I’m going to make sure I get the money that I’m owed. But I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’David Jennings was assistant manager of Gamestation Congleton, one of 227 GAME and Gamestation stores closed by administrators. He was also was one of 2104 staff to be let go by the end of the most devastating week in GAME Group’s history. “My first reaction was complete and utter shock. I was a bit devastated,” he remembers. “It’s incredibly brutal; I know that’s what administrators do, but going from the day before, thinking well we’re supposed to be safe until the end of the week, to suddenly, within a couple of hours on Monday morning, being told that I wouldn’t have a job any more…” This is David’s story, an account from the front line of GAME’s battle for survival – the shop floor.Roughly nine years earlier, David Jennings started work part-time at GAME in Crewe, where he lived. Working there meant combining a wage with a hobby he loved, and it meant getting out of McDonald’s. “The amount of people I met,” he tells me, “who said ‘I’d love to work in a game shop!’ – it made me feel really proud and like I was lucky to be in this position.”Read more…
