Video game retailer GameStop is dying

[MadMaxHellfire]

Last time i bought a game from gamestop the conversation went like this with the clerk (it was on a shopping mall on a little city at the south of Spain).
Me: Hi! I'd like to buy world of warcraft the burning crusade.

Clerk: which wow is that one? ( A college points to it on the shelves)

C: (screaming out of her lungs) antonio!! Bring me one of the green wow games!!

M:.... Thanks....


Why the hell they don't hire people that know about videogames??

they tend to give suggestions to customers which end in tons of shit not selling.

 

[passerby]

I'm excited for their death but also cognizant of the consumer rights people are losing along with it. Conflicting emotions.

I'm fine with retards "consumer right" to pump their money into useless parasitic companies like Gamestop, to be taken away.

Pirates and cracking groups, don't waste or make any money on their proceder at least, while in theory contribute to preserving games in case drm provider will go bust, or stop the support.
While Gamestop provides nothing of value and just extorts money from retards that would otherwise paid for the games and contributed to gaming industry.

 

[J1M]

When discs are gone, your 'consumer rights' arguments will have more weight. Might one day lead to means of transferring digital ownership.

 

[Garbage]

When discs are gone, your 'consumer rights' arguments will have more weight. Might one day lead to means of transferring digital ownership.

That's never going to happen, publishers want to push digital to get away from the used game market.
End game for these companies is having you buy a temporary license, then once the next game is out having your access revoked to the old title.

 

[DalekFlay]

It's going to take a while, but that's the same reason they're going to push streaming hard, just like the movie studios. They don't want no resale, they don't want no ownership, and most consumers are fine with losing all that as long as it's more convenient and less expensive.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-03-29-gamestop-is-closing-another-300-stores-this-year

GameStop is closing another 300+ stores this year
"These closures are part of our de-densification plan."

US specialist retailer, GameStop, has confirmed it's closing at least 320 stores over the next 12 months.

The company has already closed 321 stores as part of restructuring efforts in the financial year ending February 2020, and now a similar number of its 5,500 stores are expected to shut by the end of this financial year, too.

The closures come in spite of the company reporting a net income of $21 million (£16.8 million) at the end of the last financial year.

At the time of writing, it's unclear which territories will be impacted, but the company has stores in 14 different countries, including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, and Sweden.

"[We] anticipate store closures to be equal to or more than 320 net closures we saw in fiscal 2019 on a global basis," GameStop executive vice president and chief financial officer Jim Bell told investors in an earnings call this week (thanks, Gamasutra).

"Importantly, we want to emphasise that these store closures are a very specific and proactive part of our de-densification plan and they are not related to recent business trends", Bell added, suggesting the decision does not come in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

A number of specialist video game retailers came into heavy criticism recently for choosing to keep their stores open despite social distancing rules recommended by governments across the world. Whilst GameStop eventually bowed to pressure and shuttered last weekend, UK retailer Game was not amongst the firms that had voluntarily halted operations following the government's announcement that all bars and restaurants would be closed. Many game stores, including Argos, Currys, CEX, and Smyths, elected to remain open across the UK.

Game did eventually announce it would be closing its Belong arenas in light of the government's social distancing guidelines, but initially insisted it would keep its retail stores open - a deeply concerning prospect for many of its frontline staff.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

I knew the industry wanted to kill off physical media, but this is overkill. Someone said in a meeting, 'wouldn't it be nice if we could keep the gamer but eliminate the game?' And then someone important heard it the other way around and got on a jet for Beijing.

 

[J1M]

We might care if gamestop was an enjoyable place to shop with helpful staff. But the company had contempt for its workers and its customers. I recall trying to purchase the Diablo II expansion pack from gamestop and they told me I'd have to wait a week because I hadn't pre-ordered the game. As if it was normal or expected that they would only have enough copies to cover pre-orders. Went to the big box store a block away. It had hundreds of copies.

This is basically another Blockbuster situation. Gamestop had the cash, mind-share, and ability to create a digital store. They even purchased the software to run one. But at some point a very smart MBA decided that the profit margin on selling "disc insurance" was high and every digital sale was a lost opportunity to up-sell for a couple of minutes while 8 people waited in line.

 

[DalekFlay]

Gamestop and Microsoft not running massive digital storefronts with sizable market share, and leaving Valve to dominate for years with no competition, is executing incompetence to the extreme.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

We might care if gamestop was an enjoyable place to shop with helpful staff. But the company had contempt for its workers and its customers. I recall trying to purchase the Diablo II expansion pack from gamestop and they told me I'd have to wait a week because I hadn't pre-ordered the game. As if it was normal or expected that they would only have enough copies to cover pre-orders. Went to the big box store a block away. It had hundreds of copies.

This is basically another Blockbuster situation. Gamestop had the cash, mind-share, and ability to create a digital store. They even purchased the software to run one. But at some point a very smart MBA decided that the profit margin on selling "disc insurance" was high and every digital sale was a lost opportunity to up-sell for a couple of minutes while 8 people waited in line.

Blockbuster wasn't killed by digital, they were killed by Redbox. Netflix's becoming a digital powerhouse didn't happen until after Blockbuster closed up most everywhere in 2010, at that time Netflix was still making most of its money on sending movies in the mail...which Blockbuster also did. And Blockbuster did that better too, because you could take the movies you got in the mail into a store and exchange them for "free" movie and game rentals. The movie studios were also more than happy to let Blockbuster die, because they stupidity saw them as hurting their home market...although unsurprisingly the home market took a huge hit (and completely eliminate a market of movies that made money in the home market) when a company that buys over 80000 of every major release just suddenly disappeared.

 

[Outlander]

That's never going to happen, publishers want to push digital to get away from the used game market.

Spoiler

 

[Comte]

Whatever happened with this scam?

 

[vonAchdorf]

After the Microsoft cooperation yesterday, the GameStop stock is back to where it started when the thread was created, up 500% from the April lows. Michael Burry was right.

 

[mondblut]

After the Microsoft cooperation yesterday, the GameStop stock is back to where it started when the thread was created, up 500% from the April lows. Michael Burry was right.

Corona saved their business.

Try that with your steam download!