GAME won’t be selling Mass Effect 3

UK retailer GAME has announced that it will not be stocking Mass Effect 3, one of the biggest games of the year. This news follows previous announcements that the chain wouldn’t be stocking The Last Story, and until recently had no plans to sell Ubisoft’s PS Vita launch lineup. 

According to an alleged internal memo, leaked to Eurogamer, GAME blames unfavorable credit terms. The implication seems to be that GAME was not offered a good deal in exchange for selling the game, so it made a “very difficult decision.”

While it’s certainly believable that EA would offer a retailer a bum deal, this is still reflecting very poorly on the UK’s most powerful videogame retailer. Not stocking high profile titles is becoming a “thing” for the company, and I’d say that GAME not stocking Mass Effect 3 is like a movie theater being unable to show The Hobbit. It’s embarrassing. 

Many pundits have confidently declared that GAME will not die because of these recent shenanigans, and that may be true — but you can’t convince me that it’s not in some real hot water at the moment. A game store that can’t sell games is a game store that’s in a pretty bad position.