Gamestop Financial Issues

[Monocle]

Honestly, Gamestop can crash and burn. I have plenty of friends who worked their and the rumors of impossibly high numbers and associate pressure are true. One even got fired for not getting the numbers they demand. From their horrible work ethic and their shitty practices for games themselves, I'm glad they're struggling. After what they did with Xenoblade Chronicles, this is all karma in my eyes.

For info on that Xenoblade incident, check this.

Even now, they have the pre-owned listed at $50. A FREAKING WII game. They can go die off for all I care.

[queenzelda]

Honestly, Gamestop can crash and burn. They can go die off for all I care.

Oh I agree 1,000% percent. I am not a huge fan of Gamestop & think they suck balls & would rather support any other store that I can get games at. 

It's just going to be harder for some who want to get psychical copies of games & my guess is that with the next coming gen most games will be distributed digitally anyway, & Gamestop won't be able to survive once that happens anyway.

[Monocle]

It's just going to be harder for some who want to get psychical copies of games & my guess is that with the next coming gen most games will be distributed digitally anyway, & Gamestop won't be able to survive once that happens anyway.

eh. honestly, just order online. Digital is just easier and simpler, especially with systems coming out with a TB or more of space. I only get physical copies of games that I know I'll like or I'm a huge fan of the series already, like Dragon Quest, Persona, and Kingdom Hearts. otherwise, I'm already all digital and game share with my friend so we never buy the same game anymore lol.

I get your point though. it'll be harder to find physical copies of games in a physical store, but it is even easier to find them online through other means. it just means waiting on shipping unfortunately. I just hope this ends the "gamestop exclusive" side of games, whether it was dlc or games themselves. Why limit yourself to one reseller? so dumb

[ShiraNoMai]

Honestly, Gamestop can crash and burn. I have plenty of friends who worked their and the rumors of impossibly high numbers and associate pressure are true. One even got fired for not getting the numbers they demand. From their horrible work ethic and their shitty practices for games themselves, I'm glad they're struggling. After what they did with Xenoblade Chronicles, this is all karma in my eyes.

For info on that Xenoblade incident, check this.

Even now, they have the pre-owned listed at $50. A FREAKING WII game. They can go die off for all I care.

Oh, hey, that's me! I had to drive an hour and half away to even get the game since none of the Gamestop's nearby had them, and in the end, it wound up being $90! I wasn't about to not buy it after driving all that way to get it, but there ya go.

[Monocle]

Yeaaaaah that really freaking sucks.

Especially with how good the game is. Like they had a bunch of pre-owned copies but I can't see THAT many people exchanging them. Makes me believe the rumor that more copies were made and never plastic wrapped so they could expedite the shipments and Gamestop to advantage of that.

[ShiraNoMai]

I mean, it was the only copy there, and the only copy in a 100 mile radius (it was 80 miles from me). I really wanted to play it so I made the effort to get it, and I believed the rarity at that time. But, I agree, in hindsight it very well could've been artificial scarcity on Gamestop's part.

Does anyone actually know of anyone or has anyone ever worked for Gamestop before? I'd like to hear from a former employee on this matter honestly

[Monocle]

My friends didn't work there during that time which is great honestly. If I was one of those customers, I would have exploded about being taken advantage of by Gamestop.

They are still screwing up. Do you know how many KH3 PS4 Pro pre-orders they canceled on people? People who have waited over a decade and people who weren't told until the week of release? And they only offered $25 in store credit for the mistake. How is that even close to okay?

[Moonface]

The KH3 PS4 controversy was ridiculous. Offering store credit was a joke of compensation considering many people likely wouldn't want to even buy KH3 from them after that, let alone anything else.

Trust is and always will be a problem for Gamestop and I don't think they can fix it. I've never seen them handle a problem properly and they don't really try to appear consumer friendly.

[Metallix]

I’m not defending GameStop at all but there just are no dedicated game store chains in America that can pick up the slack.

I just went to both Target and Walmart. Target had a lousy 63 total PS4 games to choose from all of them are newer games and the older ones were also popular like COD WW2. The only games they had that were 3 years old were PlayStation Hits which a reprints of already well selling games and they only had the more popular of those too. Their accessory section was anemic too.

Walmart was a little better because outside of their main display(roughly same size as Target’s) they have a section for older budget titles that are halfway niche like Everybody’s Golf. But still a fraction of the amount of games a GameStop would carry. Also a very anemic accessory selection.

Best Buy is generally the best when it comes to big retailers though. They are decent but again they aren’t a dedicated game shop. Maybe if GameStop tanks they will reap the rewards and expand their gaming section who knows?

Their policies are trash but they will leave a void that won’t be picked up imo. Gosh I wish I had a dedicated gaming store in my town that wasn’t a chain though.

[Monocle]

That's never been a problem for me. There are resellers online that will get you those niche titles and most publishers have their own stores online anyway. But I can admit that I'm lucky. I live in NY and finding those dedicated game stores isn't hard at all. Hell, I remember buying Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 all in one shot with no problems at all. There doesn't need to be a big chain to pick up the slack. Thanks to online and local stores, that might actually start seeing more business and growing with Gamestop's death, there will be ways to sell procure even the most niche of titles.

[Metallix]

Yeah NY. Outside of major cities they aren’t abundant. Online is okay but buying used items online especially sucks! Pictures can be deceptive and most places offer a guarantee or returns but it’s a huge pain in the rear!

I bought a PS3 controller back in the day on an Amazon 3rd party seller. It was totally counterfeit but without a trained eye most people probably wouldn’t know any better. It was actually a new item too, in those official blister packs everyone hates. The seller let me return it but you know he knew what he was doing. I’m sure most people don’t even notice and he makes big money off of fakes.

[Moonface]

The fact Gamestop can leave a void shows why they can make questionable choices. There's no other brick and mortar store that does what they do, so besides a massive dent in sales what incentive is there to change? A large amount of people will still rely on them just through necessity.

If I go to a big store and find they don't have the game I want, my first thought is Gamestop. They would always be my first choice if I didn't have nearer stores, just because poor practices aside, I'm not going to go out of my way to avoid them unless somewhere was offering a superior deal.

[Grungie]

Tbh what’s also not helping GameStop, is that every metro area in America has way too many stores, and in close proximity with each other. I’ve seen quite a few times where you have one in the mall, and right across the street from the mall. Hell there’s even been a few malls in Florida that have two GameStop’s in the same mall.

I just find it unnecessary when there’s 60+ locations in a city, and they’re all less than half a mile from each other. I can’t find that good for buisiness. If GameStop closed 150 stores across the country, anyone who lives in a city wouldn’t really notice because there’ll still be dozens of stores.

[Moonface]

I've never noticed how abundant Gamestop is but that's mostly from not paying attention or really knowing where each is located relative to another, but there's definitely no point having multiple in a single area unless one store is just so busy that you need a second location nearby to cope with the foot traffic. Otherwise it's just burning money by paying to have double the buildings and employees when you could manage with half of that without hindering business.

[Moonface]

So apparently Gamestop are going to be trailing some different ideas in who knows how many stores in who knows what locations in an attempt to turn the tides back into their favour:

The first renovation concept is one that will change the layout of a store to include ways for customers to try games before they buy them. Another seems to imply dedicated space for competitive play, the release specifically stating, “store concepts that offer competitive sessions in home-grown e-Leagues.” Finally, the last concept mentioned in the release is a location dedicated entirely to retro games and hardware.

Going point by point, the first one seems like something Gamestop was already doing given that CTR:NF was playable at various locations. I know that was more of an event thing than an any time demo, but that idea doesn't seem new and the only way it could really work is if Gamestop have a system pre-loaded with various games so that people can pick what they want to try. Otherwise, it's just a kiosk for one game and then it limits who plays it. Getting to try a game out first though could be good in this day and age when demo's are dead.

Competitive play doesn't interest me as something to go to a store for, but I suppose it could work out as a local thing. Gamestop would probably need to do small tournaments of some kind though and offer a small prize to incentivise people to come in. The only problem would be if and when the same people keep winning and then everyone else just stops caring to show up because they're not going to get anything, and it isn't like they're at some huge event that means a damn.

Retro stuff would absolutely rock, although there is the problem of limited stock. Anything from the PS2-era backwards isn't being made now in an official sense, and games are absolutely not being printed, so trying to obtain a steady stock flow could be hard. Also, I recall Shira having to pay something like $100 for a copy of Xenoblade on Wii because of how limited the number of copies were for that game. That was for a game limited at the time it was made, so I don't want to imagine the prices that could roll out in a dedicated space for it where everything is limited. I know conventions often have these booths and the only expensive stuff they have is the really rare, high quality stuff, but even their wares are only enough to fill a small space. They also aren't dealing with overheads and staff and a building to run. Gamestop will be. So on the surface, the retro idea sounds cool, but there's a lot about it that concerns me, and Gamestop being attached to it doesn't help. They also offer piss poor cash for trade-ins, so even if I had retro stuff I wanted to trade in, I wouldn't expect Gamestop to give me anything worthwhile in comparison to just selling the game myself on eBay or something.