Game Group has been given the chance to hit the reset button.

OpCapita - no stranger to headline-grabbing deals after snapping up Comet for £2 last year - has brought the UK arm of the business back from the brink and taken possession of a leaner and potentially stronger retail operation than the one that filed for administration two weeks ago.

The culling of 277 of the group’s Game and Gamestation stores slashed the number of towns and cities where the business was operating multiple shops - and highlighted how bloated the estate has become.

Five stores were closed in Leeds, four apiece in Dublin and Glasgow and three in Newcastle and Birmingham. There are many examples of towns where the number of sites dropped from three to one.

Reducing the size of the estate was a big step in the right direction but OpCapita managing partner Henry Jackson, who said the business has no plans to shut any more stores, today admitted there was still a huge amount of work to do (even assuming it has patched things up with the publishers that refused to supply the retailer in its darkest days).

Game Group 1.0 particularly struggled online against the likes of Amazon - the phrase “behind the curve” has been uttered a few times in recent weeks - and this is certain to be a focus for the new owner in the coming months.

But there’s a case to be made that an area equally in need of attention are the stores themselves - and particularly Game-branded sites. The Game stores are bright and colourful but ultimately lack excitement - inexcusable in what is a market driven by innovation and noise.

Perhaps the intention is to offer an environment parents would be happy to shop in. But more must be done to encourage gamers to walk through the door. At the very least, there should be more opportunities for gamers to try before they buy and more screens showing games in action.

And in terms of branding, the new owners could do a lot worse than look to its remaining Gamestation stores - they might not be perfect, but they certainly feel much more like a gamer’s store. I’d go as far as to suggest the whole estate is rebranded as Gamestation.

Of course, it’s easy for an outsider to suggest such a move. But OpCapita will be weighing its options very carefully over the coming months.

Gamers get to hit the reset button as many times as they wish. Game Group doesn’t have that advantage

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