Micromania, released by its owner

Stores, specialized in the distribution of video games in France, are for sale. After the shock of the announcement, the employees are waiting and hope for a buyer.

Micromania stores are for sale. The brand, which has 300 shops throughout France, is well known to all enthusiasts for video games and already has more than 40 years of history. The approximately 1,200 employees saw like everyone else the CEO of the American group Game Stop, owner of Micromania since 2008, announce the bad news by a simple message posted on social networks. Micromania is one of the last French bastions for the “physical” sale of video games while dematerialization is more and more essential.

With the long -awaited exit of the new Opus of Monster HunterIt is a permanent parade of customers that morning in one of the micromania stores. Customers, in their twenty or thirties, who like to make a hook through their neighborhood store instead of buying online. “With my friend, we said to ourselves ‘we’re going to pick him up in physics’. While we have a third boyfriend who buys them in dematerialized because it is a scraper”joking one of the customers.

“It’s nice to leaf through the games, leafing through the pockets. It’s like going to a vinyl record store”Explain another. Some have come to a micromania since they have “5 or 6 years old”. “I also buy on the internet, I admitrecognizes a client. Sometimes we don’t necessarily have the opportunity to go directly to the store. But still, this contact, I find it super important. It would be a shame if it disappears. “

“Activities continue normally”wanted to reassure Micromania in a press release sent to its customers. Ryan Cohen, CEO of the American group Game Stop, owner of Micromania, brutally announced this sale between two messages of support for Donald Trump with these few ironic words published on February 18 on social network X. The bad news is accompanied by comments on high taxes, wokism or socialism.

“We were immediately reassured that it didn’t change anything, while waiting to know what would happen if there was a buyer or not”explains Wilfried Agapit, CFDT union delegate at Micromania. He is convinced that video game stores still have a future. “Dematerialization in terms of video games in the United States, in Asian countries is around 80 to 90%explains the trade unionist. With us, in France, it is around 50%. There is this very important attachment for ‘physical’. Now, and it is also the CAP that Micromania took: we diversified our offer, we make derivative products and it is for this reason that we were the last European country to make the result. “

Micromania has arguments to convince a buyer with around ten million euros in profits in 2023, results in the green in 2024, and 2025 which promises to be well with the launch in the coming months, of the Switch 2, the new Nintendo console.