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A long-standing brick-and-mortar game shop could be the latest victim of the digital age - and it could leave gamers out in the cold. We've seen the pattern before: the demise of a beloved retail chain due to the rise of online shopping, and the decline of in-store retail sales. Now it's happening to the country's biggest retail gaming chain, GameStop.
foxnews.com/tech/gamestops-future-in-question-after-failing-to-secure-buyout
The full statement from the company is available at GameStop Concludes Process to Pursue Sale of Company.
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GameStop's Future in Question after Failing to Secure Buyout
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Wednesday February 06 2019, @11:49AM (6 children)
I almost completely gave up buying games on physical media when they started shipping with DRM that needed online registration. If you can't play it without it phoning home to some server that will undoubtedly get shut down at some future date, what's the benefit of owning a physical copy? Think I'll stick to GOG.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 06 2019, @01:07PM (5 children)
I was at a GS last weekend; my son is into console gaming (multi-player with friends etc)
GS gave up on PC, thats steam only now. Merely a vestigial amount of PC gaming stuff if any. A couple sq feet at most.
Much like Barnes and Noble used to be 99% books and now is down to less than 50% books and is mostly a gift store, the gamestop is mostly full of "gamer culture gifts" there must be more tee shirts than xboxone games at the store by us. And bobble heads and dolls aka "action figures" and decorative clutter etc. You can buy that crap cheaper on amazon of course with a better selection. Its actually not true that gamestop is a game store, its a gamer culture store mostly tee shirts and collectibles that also stocks games. Its about as much a game store as Target, given that Target stocks more watering cans and thermoses and womens swimwear than they stock video games.
They do have an excellent selection of cheap / old games that you COULD buy from the online store at full list release price. xbox one spyro reignited (essentially spyro remade and upsampled for the xbone) was like $10 used, $30 at Target new, or freak'n $39.99 at the microsoft store.
The cabal of console mfgrs hate retail because they want to be the single source forever selling Spyro at $40, they lose $30 when kids shop at gamestop or $10 when kids shop at Target. The main way they sabotage is by punishing the gamers. If you buy minecraft online, you click on the icon and play minecraft. If you're a bad boy and buy physical media, you click on the icon and search the living room for 5 minutes trying to find and insert your original minecraft disk and the game is slower because it'll look at the inserted disk occasionally.
Note that gamestop for recent new releases (Ace Combat 7 for my PS4 ?) is same list price as online stores.
The experience at GS is awful. Online I click "add to cart" and "checkout" and I'm all good and it makes me smile. At Target they can really do the logistics thing well, and my main complaint is waiting in line which really isn't all that bad. At GS they have ten big screens with morons babbling on them at high volume plus or minus bad music (the kind I always mute when playing games) and they try to pimp all kinds of reward clubs and tracking systems and protection plans every time I try to buy stuff and the stores are packed floor to ceiling like a crazed hoarder-store. Its cheaper for used games so people put up with it, but seriously, fuck GS.
So taken together the ONLY secret sauce gamestop provides as a business is last years games on crappy experience legacy optical media, are cheaper. Also its kinda a gift store / retail reward experience for teenage boys. Thats all. Can't really run a business on just that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Wednesday February 06 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)
To be fair, Microsoft tried to change this, tying the physical copy to a serial number on the disc so it wouldn't require the disc to play, but still allowing it to be resold later through specific retailers like GS who could revoke the key and reissue it. Gamers had a fit and Microsoft canned it, going back to the put-the-disc-in-to-play model for physical media.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:20PM
To be fair, Microsoft tried to destroy the secondhand market. That's why people had a hissy fit. It was a shitty idea that the majority disliked along with the other crap they pulled on the xbone's launch which is why they lost close to half their preorders after announcing it and have been playing second fiddle ever since.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 06 2019, @05:39PM (1 child)
FYI, PC games at GameStop have been that way for 10+ years. At least, anywhere I've been. That would include one I visited on a semi-regular basis in a very large metropolitan area. Kids like going to game stores and they have used games at decent prices. Sure, it's all well and good to wait 3 to 7 days for your game to arrive, if you buy it online. But, a kid isn't going to want to wait that long. It also isn't the same, if you're just buying a digital copy online. There's none of the personal touch that is involved with going to a store and browsing the shelves.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday February 11 2019, @01:06PM
Sorry for the late response; anyway to elaborate on agreeing with your assessment, the delay doesn't fit in with "kid economics" you can't celebrate a good report card with a new game and pizza for dinner if it takes the game a week to arrive (or download...)
Likewise Auntie buys the kids gift cards to pick out what they want; they want to celebrate the day after their birthday, the day after their birthday, not a week later.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 06 2019, @06:35PM
They are trying to survive when they can't compete with digital downloads. That's what the higher-margin "culture" crap is for.
I personally still prefer to buy the Switch games with a physical cartridge. Works better as a gift, and I can actually lend them to others to try in a few minutes even offline (did that when my sister got her kids a Switch for Xmas).