SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
I remember when ThinkGeek was in its hey day and often chortled on seeing some of the items on offer. It looks like there are some major changes under way. Their web site is moving under the web site of parent company GameStop. Physical store locations for ThinkGeek will remain open. Selected items will remain available in GameStop stores. Orders from ThinkGeek on or after June 13th, 2019 are final sales -- no returns.
As part of this transformation, there is currently a 50% off everything sale at https://www.thinkgeek.com/
I must confess I had not visited their site in years. What has your experience with them been like?
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Web Site thinkgeek.com Moving in with Parent Company GameStop
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 23 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
(1)
There's no such thing as an original sin.
-- Elvis Costello
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Monday June 17 2019, @12:29PM (8 children)
Same. I don't think I bought anything from them for many MANY years. They used to have a lot of "geek" (or one should probably say computer nerd humor) shirts and such. I bought a few. I had a quick look now and it would appear that they really changed target audience to some other form of geekdom and popculture. I couldn't even find any of the funny UNIX-, Linux-, PERL, general computer nerd things anymore. Just a lot of japanese cartoon stuff, star wars everywhere and just general "crap". So even 50% off there is just nothing there I would want anymore.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 17 2019, @01:14PM (2 children)
Same here. They don't have any of the stuff I used to be interested in.
My guess is they brought in an MBA who had the brilliant idea to sell merchandise licensed from Hollywood because they could negotiate "graaate dealz." Except they alienated their audience segment with recycled, uninspired crap. There's not a single, edgy item in the 10-15 pages of goods I looked at just now. So, not only did they alienate their customers but they walked away from their core brand identity. That's a very bad idea in a very crowded consumer goods market.
Brand Identity and Differentiation are Business and Marketing 101 for a reason, and violating those rarely produces benefits.
It reminds me a bit of how Dice screwed the pooch with Slashdot's Beta.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday June 17 2019, @08:06PM
Fuck Beta!
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 17 2019, @10:36PM
I suspect you're right about the MBA.
Their homepage has a list of mainstream pop culture franchise logos on it, none of which have much to do with anything geeky to me.
Harry Potter is one of them, which just seems very dated.
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday June 17 2019, @01:51PM
(Visits.)
Oh, looks like they replaced whoever grokked geeks with someone who's seen every episode of The Big Bang Theory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @02:10PM (1 child)
Anyone have any suggestions for other places to get good stuff?
I know of Maths Gear [mathsgear.co.uk] for some pretty cool stuff (very math-heavy, which is my interest, and not so much unix-oriented). Love the Hyberbola Clock [mathsgear.co.uk], for instance.
This used to be the great promise of the Web, where specialty places like that would proliferate, but that doesn't seem to be very common (or I haven't searched too hard). I suppose Think Geek used to be one of those places.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 18 2019, @11:50AM
I have had the same question a few times, but lately i'm coming around to another answer: make your own. there are a bunch of places online like cafe press where you can upload your own designs and they send you the finished article a few days later. that covers hats, t-shirts, mugs, etc. or you can watch a couple howto videos and make your own from scratch.
For more specialty items out of plastic or metal, casting them yourself or 3D printing them works. you don't have to cut a check to Hollywood, if it references a popular movie or show, so bonus. A couple years ago i made a really cool zombie mask with liquid latex and paper towels after watching some australian girl's how-to on YT.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday June 17 2019, @07:08PM
I just visited for the only item I bought from there: Bawls. No longer sold. No need to visit thinkgeek anymore.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by steveg on Tuesday June 18 2019, @01:09PM
A few years ago, they sent me an email telling me what a great discount I could get if I used up my "Geek points". It would require that I buy a certain amount of stuff. Since ThinkGeek T-shirts had formed such a large part of my wardrobe in the past, I was willing to give it a try.
Couldn't find anything. Just media related items, no Linux stuff, no science stuff. What little that was actually interesting in their online catalog was all sold out.
Haven't been back.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Monday June 17 2019, @12:34PM (3 children)
Kinda like moving into a currently burning apartment building.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday June 17 2019, @01:33PM
Or a new high rise with cracking [abc.net.au] beams [abc.net.au].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @04:10PM (1 child)
Will they be moving into the basement?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @05:45PM
Of course - they hid Milton's stapler down there.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @01:11PM (2 children)
Thinkgeek became a boring mainstream some decades ago. It is much better and fun to build own toys and gadgets.
Skilled people are able to create, unskilled crowd must consume stuff naively.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday June 17 2019, @01:54PM
"Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products."
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday June 17 2019, @05:11PM
Decades ago? Wow! Hadn't been aware they'd been in business that long!
But modded insightful because that is my same experience, just on a timeframe of years.
Then again, as geek culture becomes (became?) appropriated by the mainstream very little has been the same about it. One has to go farther and wider to hopefully find a more purer and refined Geek Culture and weed out the poseurs. (What??? How dare you question my geek cred!!!)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Dale on Monday June 17 2019, @01:39PM
I've ordered once or twice a year for ages. They have great little novel things. Over the years I've had to contact their support twice. Both times things got resolved quickly and the support people were very entertaining (they call them support monkeys). In the days of one or two day shipping I can see why it might be hard to maintain them as their own entity though. I'd love to say I hope this move doesn't kill them off ultimately, but I've seen too many consolidations of things I've like be destroyed to have that hope.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Alfred on Monday June 17 2019, @02:18PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rupert Pupnick on Monday June 17 2019, @08:52PM (1 child)
A USS Enterprise pizza cutter sounds like an item with a lot of gravitas, to say nothing of the fact that it’s functional. The giant foam rubber Minecraft pickaxes I saw the last time I popped in to GameStop are another matter entirely.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday June 18 2019, @09:36PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jshmlr on Monday June 17 2019, @10:36PM
Also bought a bunch of their shirts back in the early aughts. I wore my "Hey you, why aren't you coding" shirt until it fell apart.
I actually came in here hoping to lazy web a link to a new independent site that sold things like the old TG. Left disappointed.
Need nothing, then see what happens.
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Tuesday June 18 2019, @03:21AM
GameStop is called EB Games in Australia, and instead of ThinkGeek we have Zing. Zing doesn't appear to be affected in any way by this, at least not yet.
A lot of the stuff you can get at Zing still have the ThinkGeek labels on them (such as shirts), and they continue to sell the USS Enterprise Pizza Cutter.
https://www.zingpopculture.com.au/product/things-for-home/201903-star-trek-uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-pizza-cutter [zingpopculture.com.au]
I have to wonder if EB Games in Australia is doing anywhere near as bad as GameStop in the US. They always look very busy and have some great sales (although are often overpriced at "normal" prices - but they always have sales anyway, and do price matching against local store prices (which is great because you can pick up "carrot points" from them that give you benefits when you trade games.
They have a 7 day return policy, usually have great customer service, and have an option where you can re-purchase any game you trade in at a later date for the price you traded it for. I often go there just to take advantage of the 3 for $16 (~$US10.97) PS3/Wii/Xbox 360 games, as sometimes there are some gems to be found. They are also the only place to go to for certain Japanese games, as it seems they sell some new games exclusively (eg. Death end re;Quest).
The only thing that I don't like about them is that "new" games usually have the shrink wrap removed, but I prefer keeping my games in pristine condition. That, and when you purchase stuff online you can't tell if you get the manual and box with it. Heck, even when you pick out a box for a second hand game in store you still don't know if you'll get the manual - but at least in-store you have the option to ask them to check.
Ultimately I'd be quite sad if they closed. I like them a lot more than I think most people in the US like GameStop.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday June 18 2019, @06:36PM
They're no longer able to maintain their operating units as independent entities (which really have different priorities, audiences, and aims although a little commonality). Seems like a sign of circling the drain in a desperate struggle to become profitable. I'm reminded a little of Radio Shack - they've put their chips on media franchise deals, apparently, and will ride that to its death. I'm also reminded of Hastings and all the stuff they carried - 99% crap to find one good thing and could wander the entire store for a couple of hours and find nothing worth buying.
Someone above said my experience better than I could. They carry somewhat commonplace and mundane items for popular media brands that some geeks relate to. (Though going through the site I feel bad that I missed out on a D&D Expert Rules cover T-Shirt...) At one time they were *the* place to go and find the odd and unusual. (Theremin kits. USB3 hubs of ridiculous size. HAL computer interfaces). Now what they've had is just sad. I doubt I'll be making the jump over to GameStop.
This sig for rent.