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Will you be sad when Gamestop goes out of business?

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Cartagia:

--- Quote from: NickAwesome on February 18, 2022, 02:14:02 pm ---The company is abhorrent but these days you can get some ridiculous deals from gamestop- trade in credit bumps and crazy discounts- I would miss those.
--- End quote ---

I honestly don't remember the last time I saw a discount at GameStop that made me want to pick up something.  At least not in store.

bikingjahuty:
I grew up shopping at Software Etc at an old mall I used to go to often. I LOVED that store and have so many wonderful memories of shopping there during the mid to late 90s. There was an EBX at another mall that I frequented too, but Software Etc was way better. When Gamestop decided to buy out all their competition and I saw my beloved Software Etc practically change overnight I hated Gamestop for it. The selection got worse, the employees got more and more pushy, and just overall it was a far less enjoyable experience going there. I eventually just started buying my games from places like Best Buy or Target, and after discovering some great independent stores in my area I just gave up on Gamestop entirely for a while.


It wasn't until around 2014 or so that I started to warm up to Gamestop and began shopping there fairly often, at least for new games. I'm not going to lie, I really liked a couple of my local Gamestops up until around 2019 or so, however they too began to suck more and more, mostly due to Gamestop shifting the focus of their business on collectibles and video game merch that wasn't actual games. Then they started only carrying the same 500 or so titles across all stores while sending rarer stuff to their warehouse. In all honestly, Gamestop stores haven't even been worth visiting for the last 2-years and aside from popping into preorder games I never go there now.


This brings me to where I am now. I'm honestly one more screwed up preorder away from no longer even utilizing them for that either. I just feel like every time I start to like Gamestop more they find a way to screw that up. Obviously this is more of a corporate thing than an individual store thing, but all things considered I feel like Gamestop has made the video game retail landscape a far worse place than it would have been otherwise. I have a few good memories of Gamestop over the years, but overall they will mostly be remembered by me as the place that continually disappointed me and also destroyed game stores I actually really loved back in the day.


So in short, no, I won't miss them or feel sad once they're gone.

Warmsignal:
Of course I will be, they've always made up a huge chunk of my modern game purchases at retail; a trend which I continue to this day. While GS doesn't get the distribution of smaller profile titles like they used to, other retail store are significantly worse for game selection in 2022. If you haven't noticed, all of their competition has now relented back to AAA titles only, full retail, brand new with next to no clearance...  Leaving GS as the only retail store left offering a chance of getting a reasonable deal on a modern game, that might be a little bit more obscure, like a KoF. Although, as you know they're having distribution issues themselves actually getting the games on time.

Two stores in my general area have closed in the past couple years, leaving 3 within reasonable driving distance. I feel it's only a matter of time until it comes down to just 1 store. I suppose I'll be forced to order all of my modern games online when the day comes that there's nowhere left to get them. As I've noted, big box stores like Best Buy are useless for most AA game releases now. Sure, you can buy Horizon all day there, but think you're gonna find Edge of Eternity in store? Nope. Heck, you aren't even gonna find that one in GS unless you pre-ordered.

So yeah, I am going to miss it. I don't really care about the things which people often complain of, like trying to be sold subscriptions, or warranties, or pre-orders. I don't care about how little they offer you for your games. If you don't like it, sell them yourself. You can't expect a corporation to give you what your games are worth in cash, not even close. That's silly.

The sad part of this all comes down to not only the obsolesce of GS as a store, but the rampant and gross mismanagement happening as we speak. As with most failing retail chains, the company is made up of a bunch of money-grabbing fat cats, only taking the chairman position to soak up as much wealth from the company as they can, and then bail and let the next guy do the same. They don't actually care about trying to save the company, and they're not trying to turn things around. It's just greed from top, all the way to the bottom level management with these stores, and lots of abusive assholes at every level, firing hard working employees to cut costs and trying to make everyone below them in the company suffer in some way. Beyond your average guy running the register, it's just a corrupt cesspool of over-paid assholes who don't care, pointing fingers, barking orders, and soaking up fat paychecks. There's so many over-paid levels of management in the company, it's ridiculous, and the store workers get treated like crap.

Greed and corruption usually sees the demise of most corporations, and GS is no different in that regard, sadly. I feel for the bottom level employees, who are doing all of the actual work and trying  to make a decent living doing something they are suppose to enjoy. But ya know, late stage capitalism.

Warmsignal:
I also want to comment on the notion of GameStop destroying other game stores, only to point out... when companies absorb other companies it's not just some kind of brutal, forced take-over against their will... For every buy-out, there's also a sell-out. Companies like Software Etc simply sold their souls to a big fat payout. Agreed to the terms, threw their employees under the bus, and didn't give a damn about their own vision as an independent company, because the money waved under their nose smelled a lot better.

So, it's sort of hypocritical to scorn GameStop for taking over the landscape without acknowledging the other companies which played an equal role in not caring about you, their former customer. The guys at the top of Babbages, FuncoLand, EB, Software Etc, had no principles other than big money, either. They wanted a piece of the pie. There were some which didn't, like Game Crazy, and Play N Trade.... but where was the show of support for that competition? They both died off during the prime era of re-selling used games. There's a good chance both probably died through terrible corporate mis-management as well. I've heard horror stories of people who actually tried to run Play N Trade franchises. Treated like suckers with no support from corporate after investing all of their money into opening a store.

“A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.” That's our system. So, we deal with this reality on every level, even at our video game stores. The power of the almighty dollar can conjure any shit-show imaginable, and the logical conclusion of every corporate conquest - the implosion and the golden parachutes for all the winners... i.e, not you the customer, or the poor guy being berated buy his boss to sell pre-orders under threat of firing.

gummo:
I always wished they would get their act together . Their retro gaming items were always a crapshoot , but sometimes the prices were pretty good on some of the stuff . I'd be sad , I always liked mall game stores as they are a great place to hang out when you have to go "shopping" bleh :P

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