GAME shares drop 15 percent after announcing it won't carry Mass Effect 3

UK video games retailer GAME will not stock Mass Effect 3 or any of EA's March releases, an internal memo obtained by Eurogamer revealed today. The troubling news was met with a hasty drop in the store's share price, falling from 5.98p to 4.89p before leveling out at 5.00p even, representing a nearly 15 percent decline within 24 hours.

In the memo, GAME channel director Tom Devine explained to employees, "Last week we held an event for our publishers in the industry and explained the challenges we are facing in the short term, and we asked for their support." He added that the retailer asked publishers to "trade with us using manageable credit terms," which EA was apparently not willing to do.

"We will not stock products if the terms are not right for our business — a position we believe is critical to our long term health as a business — we have taken the very difficult decision to not stock EA's March releases, including Mass Effect 3," Devine added. He goes on to explain customers with canceled pre-orders will receive "£5 of reward card/ elite points."

The announcement follows a pattern of layoffs, store closings, rumored acquisitions by GameStop and even a similar scenario last week, when GAME announced it wouldn't carry Ubisoft's Vita launch titles due to having limited shelf space. We should have known something was fishy back then, since the amount of physical space Vita games occupy could be measured on the subatomic scale. We've contacted EA for a comment on the memo.