277 lost GAME shops could cost market £158m

The UK games market could be as much as 158m worse off due to the closure of 277 GAME stores.

However, that number will be reduced if neighbouring GAME shops and other rival stores step in to attract impulse buyers.

The 158m figure was reached by looking at Kantar Worldpanel data and last year’s Chart-Track market value.

According to Kantar, 65 per cent of game buyers shop in GAME. 10 per cent of these buyers only ever shop in GAME, and these accounted for six per cent of the market’s yearly value last year.

The remaining 55 per cent are ‘cross-shoppers’ and this is the biggest risk area, claims Kantar. 59 per cent of the games market’s value is generated by these customers and 41 per cent of their spend is in GAME or Gamestation.

Plus, 31 per cent of the money these cross-shoppers spent in GAME was unplanned and only occurred because they were browsing in-store.

Kantar estimates eight per cent of the market is made by cross-shoppers’ impulse purchases with GAME Group.

If you combine that with the buyers that only ever shop in GAME, Kantar estimates 14 per cent of the UK games market value could be lost if all Gamestation and GAME stores had closed. That’s a whopping 352.6m. 55 per cent of the chain’s stores remain.