GAME in administration

The firm employs 160 people in Northern Ireland and another 125 in the Republic.

However at the time of going to press, the local branch staff had been told not to speak to the press and the call centre was unavailable.

GAME has 20 branches in Northern Ireland and 600 across the UK, employing a total of 6,000 people.

The administrators, PwC, said they remain hopeful a sale of the business is achievable but add that will not stop the closure of many stores and the potential loss of thousands of jobs.

GAME has suffered with dire trading in recent months as it has been hit by competition from online-only retailers.

“Despite these challenges, we believe that there is room for a specialist game retailer in the territories in which it operates, including its biggest one, the UK,” said one of the administrators, Mike Jervis.

“As a result, we are hopeful that a going concern sale of the business is achievable.”

The company asked for its shares to be suspended last Wednesday and announced it was planning to call in administrators.

It followed confirmation that some suppliers had stopped doing business with the retailer.

On the company website GAME.co.uk it states that it is down for maintenance.

A statement said: “MJA Jervis and SD Maddison have been appointed as Joint Administrators.

“We are currently reviewing and processing orders placed on this website.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and we hope to be back up and running very soon.

“If you require assistance with an existing order our customer service team are happy to help you.”

However when the ’MAIL’ tried to contact the company, a recorded message said that the customer service department was unavailable.

It is not known at this stage how many people in the Lurgan and Craigavon area have been affected by this news.

Customers concerned about orders have been asked to email the service team directly with queries at [email protected]