Things were better back when they were Funcoland.
I REALLY wish this notion would die off already, it's the "vaccines cause autism" of the video game world at this point.
FuncoLand was a SHIT company and the originator of a lot of the stuff people grief GameStop for now. All that upselling/pushing/pitching of things like products and subscriptions? That was FuncoLand. They treated their employees like shit and put your working hours/employment in jeopardy if you didn't hit enough cleaning kits and/or Game Informer subscriptions sold. I should know because I put up with that shit for two years before jumping ship to GameStop when Babbage's first created it. GameStop had some metrics (all companies will) but your job wasn't threatened if you didn't hit your percentages on the upselling nonsense. There was literally NO pressure and up until the merger with FuncoLand, working at GS was a dream job.
Maybe from the perspective as a customer, I could kind of see FU Land's allure but my time at FU Land and my time with GS before the merger were markedly different. Constant grief over upselling and a shit 10% discount at FU Land versus no pressure and a nice 35% discount at GameStop. Hmmmm....no give me the torturous hell of the former please!
Gamestop has been digging their own grave for a long time. We had a Gamestop within walking distance of my parents house and I have never had someone who worked there tell me it's worth it. And the constantly changing policies on Used and Returned games just so they can make a few extra bucks. Maybe now some other more-deserving game stores will get more business.
AFAIK the return policy has largely been the same even from when I was there. New, unopened has 30 days to return. Opened is trade-in, used has 7-days for full refund/30-day exchange on defective. I'm going to avoid the whole open box/sold as new nonsense as it has been beat to death enough already (I never agreed with gutting when I was there anyway). As for other game stores...WHO are you referring to? In my area there are no other chain stores besides Half Price Books. I have to travel to Indy/Cbus/Cleveland before I start seeing smaller chains like Disc Replay or The Exchange (I'm honestly surprised neither chain is here). The Blockbuster/Game Rush and Game Crazy locations are all gone and that franchise based one called Play N Trade or something is defunct. The chain Video Game Exchange is ancient, Ancient history in these parts.
I wouldn't say physical media is declining. I predict digital is going to collapse eventually. People want to own what they buy, digital games don't work that way. You can pay a lot of money for something digital, and it's only yours until the company behind it decides to cancel it's availability (ex: Scott Pilgrim, TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled, P.T.). Physical copies will always be preferable.
Physical media is declining but it would be foolhardy to say it'll go away completely. Like Hoshichiri pointed out, vinyl made a comeback from the brink. I'm not holding my breath waiting on cassettes, 8-track, LaserDiscs, or Betamax to come back but I think chip/cart media and high-capacity disc storage like Blu-Ray to be around in ten years time. Digital certainly isn't going to collapse but it will be interesting to see how "ownership" is handled in the future. As it is now, Nintendo makes zero qualms about how you actually don't anything digital with them, you merely own the license to access that digital content. I don't know what kind of blowback about that will occur if at all in the future but I know once all of these companies decide to stop with physical releases, I'm effectively done.
Lol @ thinking GameStop will still be around for another 9 years.
I doubt they will be in their current state but as some kind of boutique, they might be. I'm not putting any money on that and at the rate they've been going, it'd be safer to bet they won't be.