GameStop closing 150 stores

Drop of share's price in the wake of announcement of 14% lower than expected sales.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14058446/1/gamestop-stock-tumbling-as-sales-dip-stores-close.html

We had a discussion here recently on games' physical copies availability. This is not helping to reverse the trend of digital download only distribution for games.

Consoles will probably also go all digital on the next versions after XB1 Scorpio and PS4 Pro. If not completely, for the most part.


I think there should be a business opportunity here somewhere. Like a "download at the store" kind of outlet. You offer a sort of physical copy AND you have the business of people with slow internet connections.

It was inevitable. As for me, the last game I bought from a Game Stop store was Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory in 2005.

As for your business idea, I can see that working in remote areas where broadband internet sucks or is non-existent. It will be a niche market of course.

Very niche, I would think. Without good broadband, forget about interactive online gaming no matter how you download your games.

Sad about GameStop although not at all surprising. I've already mourned the loss of boxed PC games in a brick and mortar, pretty much after they stopped making a real box. What's sad to me now is, I actually like getting out to shop, you know...keeping my feet in motion. Browsing used PC games was as fun as browsing the public library (something I've been doing of late), but that disappeared from GameStop a long time ago.

Back when Electronics Boutique had the bargain bins I would check out their stuff all the time. I also had several games that I traded in for credit. This was mostly between 1999-2003 when I was doing this.

Public library? What's that? For me that's where you go to vote for an election and nothing else.

Couldnt happen to a nicer store.

I dont mind physical copy stores and I frequently will go out and buy a hardcopy of a game that snuck up on me or drive all around town hunting a new release. But I hate gamestop. That place has been mismanaged into the ground IMO. One of the local stores still continues to open new purchases to "check" the disc for problems but really they are just opening games so you cant return them if it turns out not to be the game the person you are gifting it to wanted.

Just stupid policies everywhere. They deserve to go under.

Believe it or not, they're making a comeback, at least around these parts. Nice new ones too, including the Baton Rouge Main Library. We were suppose to see "The Godfather" at that one not long ago (watch then discuss...eh, ok), but something came up.

I can't believe these guys are still around...
http://cdaccess.com/

Military Flight Simulators...
http://cdaccess.com/html/pc/48mil.htm

I think I bought their last Total Air War, also bought from them two F-22 ADF's, EF2000 V2.0, Eurofighter Typhoon, JSF, iF-22 Persian Gulf, EEAH, WarGasm, maybe one or two others.

All in their full heavy box glory!

Oh, and wife found Falcon 4.0 3-ring in the used PC games at GameStop, still wrapped in cellophane for $15.00.

Let's reminisce, shall we?

EDIT: Oops, my two EF2000's came from posters pescador11 and then later Dogsbody (along with the Strategy Guides).

Wow, that's a great find your wife made with Falcon 4. That version with the ring-bound manual often goes for a couple hundred dollars on Ebay.

Yeah, my favorite find (even if *I* didn't find it).

I think tomorrow I'm going to look over CDAccess and see if there's anything left to add to my small collection of games (doesn't even have to be a flight sim), if just for the brand new full box at a reasonable price. It would be kinda cool, at least one more time, to have a heavy game box shipping to me. I know that several of these titles can be found as a much cheaper download from GOG.

And check this stuff out, for you Star Trek fans...
http://cdaccess.com/html/pc/415strek.htm
http://cdaccess.com/html/pc/10util.htm

I have a GS 5 mins from my house which I buy all my games. Like the perk of getting a little extra on my returns and used purchases which Best Buy doesn't really offer.

Its not just the gaming market, a decade hence and many physical stores of all kinds will be gone or on their last legs.

Game stop we had closed last year already. Never found anything good in there for PC it was all Console gaming.

my friend went to BestBuy to buy a physical copy of Mass Effect Andromeda for PC

He took the box, but found it quite lightweight...
It was written that it only contained cdkey to download it on Origin...
He didnt buy it lol

Same here and, for some bizarre reason, there are three of them within a half mile radius.

I'm not sad to see them go. I've been given a raw deal so many times while they benefited from it plus I'm done with giving them my thumb print and with other issues I've seen. I do like Game Informer magazine but I can live without it. I do very much mind it getting hard to get physical copies of things. Back when Gamestop was Electronics Boutique in the late 90s, early 2000s they had tons of PC stuff. Not only was I able to trade games for store credit but I also could get some actual cash for them.

Well, we still have Babbages and Egghead for our PC physical game copy needs right?

When Gamestop stopped carrying PC titles I had zero reason to go in to poke around. That was a long time ago now.

It used to be fun to poke around in a game store (GameStop, Babbages etc.) but nowadays there are no new PC combat sims so it's pretty meaningless for me.

I frequent the local downtown used game shop a lot. They still have PC games, plus console, CDs, it's great. Gamestop sucks. Always annoyed with the stoner douche workers who call out the "bad" games I'm buying...(sims/strategic games we all love here)

I guess most of the impending laid off teenage Gamestop employees will have to go work at a fastfood place or some other retail store.

I've seen more PC games at Target, Walmart, and even Office Depot than I've seen at a GS in the last decade.

I visited EB a lot, but shortly after GS bought them the PC gaming went away with the 360/PS3/Wii craze and it became pointless to visit.



The Jedi Master