EB Games
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EB Games (formerly known as Electronics Boutique) is an international computer and video games retailer, established as an American company in 1977 by James Kim with a single, electronics-focused kiosk, located in a suburban Philadelphia mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The operation mainly sold calculators and digital watches. Between 1977 and the mid-1990s, the company expanded to (and later stopped) selling computers and other related items. In the mid-1990s, the company's focus switched to TV-based video games and consoles, though many stores still maintain PC game sections. Prior to an October 2005 merger, when the company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of GameStop Corp., the international headquarters were located in West Chester, Pennsylvania. After the merger however, EB Games moved its international headquarters to Sadsburyville, Pennsylvania shortly before the overhaul and reorganization of Southeastern Pennsylvania by Gamestop Corp. Gamestop sold off EB Games' headquarters in Sadsburyville shortly after the new 2006 year. Electronic Boutique's former headquarters in Sadsburyville, Pennsylvania is currently owned and operated by the company C.T.D.I. which also has a facility in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
As of July 30, 2005, the company operated 2,280 stores in the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Austria and Spain, primarily under the names EB Games and Electronics Boutique. The company operates an e-commerce and international website at http://www.ebgames.com . There is also an Australian EB Games website at http://www.ebgames.com.au and a New Zealand EB Games website at http://www.ebgames.co.nz , while neither support full online shopping like the international website does, they both have many games available for purchase and download at EB Games Australia - Digital Downloads for Australia and EB Games New Zealand - Digital Downloads for New Zealand. The company changed its corporate name to EB Games within the past few years, but the retailer is often still referred to as Electronics Boutique. The company still has stores named Electronics Boutique, EB Games, EBGameworld, EBX, Stop-N-Save, and EB Kids. The reasoning behind the multiple names is not known, but it is speculated that it is to get around a restriction in many malls that there cannot be two stores with the same name. It was believed that this was the same reason that GameStop had not commenced renaming EB Games stores, however this has been disproven since Gamestop has indeed rebranded all stores to GameStop beginning mid-spring 2007, after the acquisition of Rhino Video Games.
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[edit] International
EB began its international expansion with the opening of three stores in the Toronto, Canada area in 1993. The Canadian division is the largest of the international divisions with 300+ stores as of May 2008.
In 1995 the company expanded to the UK with the purchase of financially troubled British game retailer Rhino Group The name of the chain was changed from Future Zone to "EB Games" to match the new owner. Store remodels, product mix changes and used video games combined to restore the chain's finances.
In April 1999 Electronics Boutique's UK entity bought out its main rival, GAME PLC following GAME's near failure after a dreadful Christmas period. Electronics Boutique UK folded Game, Plc into its own structure, keeping Game stores open under their Game branding, and all new stores following the release of Playstation 2 in 2000 used the Game branding, as EB UK wanted to sever its ties with its American parent.
Although the EB-GAME "merger" created a company separate from the US parent, EB retained a 24% ownership stake in the merged chain for a period of time and, under the merger agreement, collected substantial management fees from it until 2004, when the companies agreed to sever the remainder of their ties with a one time settlement. The GAME brand replaced the EB name at all former EB stores in the UK and Republic of Ireland. The new company was the biggest video game retailer in the United Kingdom. However, GameStop Corp. is once again operating in the UK and Ireland under the GameStop brand.
Electronics Boutique commenced operations in Australia in 1997 and rapidly became the number one video game specialty retailer in the country and the only one with a nationwide footprint.
On May 23, 2005, EB Games announced a definitive agreement to acquire Jump, a retailer based in Valencia, Spain that sells PCs and other consumer electronics. EB Games plans to begin introducing video game hardware and software into Jump's 141 stores over the next several months. The acquisition provides EB Games entry into the Spanish marketplace and continues EB Games's aggressive international expansion.
EB Games once had a retail presence in South Korea.
[edit] Questionable Labour Practices
On December 13, 2005, the website Lawyersandsettlements.com posted an online petition asking EB Games managers from Los Angeles County, California, USA, to register their complaints of unpaid overtime in anticipation of a class action lawsuit covering a period from November 2003 "to the present."[1][2]
EB Games response was to request the case be dismissed, due to its similarity to another class action lawsuit regarding unpaid overtime filed against the company in New York City, New York, which as of August 2006 appeared that it might be settled out of court. Simultaneously, a class action lawsuit regarding unpaid overtime against Gamestop in Louisiana was rumoured to soon be merged with the New York lawsuit, if the Louisiana courts failed to dismiss it, and if the New York lawsuit was not settled out of court.[3]
Allegations of abuses in EB Games' international franchises mirror what has been described as "systematic[4]," in its American operations.
