HMV: What now?

[Administrator]

Last year it was GAME in dire straits, now it's HMV (and Blockbuster, but that will have to be a different story). Administrator Deloitte has taken control of HMV, refusing gift vouchers, turning off HMV.com but keeping stores open. HMV doesn't see it as "the final chapter", but acknowledges "it might have to be a slightly different future". What HMV and Deloitte are hoping for - like GAME was a year before it - is a buyer.
Back when GAME was up the creek, I wrote a piece about the frighteningly wide-reaching ramifications of what would happen if GAME sunk. If HMV falls, similar things could happen. But for video games specifically the consequences are less dire.
"It's less serious because it's more serious for the music and film industry," Andy Payne - boss of budget PC game publisher Mastertronic, among many other things - tells me. And he happens to be connected to this HMV situation in a couple of ways.
Read more…


More...