GameStop Officially Opens First "Store of the Future"

focus
focus Members Posts: 5,361 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited September 2010 in IllGaming
Why GameStop's "Store Of The Future" Is Anything But
August 25th, 2010

500x_gamestop.jpg

Having trialled them in select regions for almost two years now, GameStop last night officially opened their "store of the future" in Palo Alto, California. Get a good look, because it'll soon be the past.

The concept store, a prototype of the kind of changes the mega-retailer will be rolling out to its 6000 stores worldwide, certainly looks the part. Gone are the days of a pair of store assistants, a monitor and a TV on the roof, replaced with an outlet that's designed to be as modern as the medium its selling.

There will be web-connected PCs that have downloadable and flash games to play. There will be large touch-screen displays, which gamers can use both for information as well as to buy things like downloadable content. These displays will even store your customer history, activated via your customer loyalty card.

It's all flashy, and for 2010, looks fairly impressive. It's designed to maintain the retailer's dominant position in the marketplace as we move into a digital age. Yet, beset on all sides be enemies bent on its destruction, it's far from enough to keep pace with a rapidly-evolving games market, meaning it'll also be the chain's last hurrah.

The future of video game retail is in downloads. This is not up for debate. We can yearn for the heft of a box and the feel of a manual all we want, but one day, and that day will be soon, we won't be buying video games off a store shelf. At least, we won't be in quantities to support a retailer the size of GameStop.

That day may be five years away, it may be ten, but it will come. And if this is all GameStop can do to counter this fact, then they're done for.

A central design feature of these new stores is the fact you can buy downloadable content. You walk in, swipe your credit card, and you get a redeem code for the DLC you just bought. You then have to go home and download it. Sure, you'll get loyalty points for doing so, but does GameStop HQ not see the absurdity in this practice? In thinking people will leave their homes, go to a store, give that store money, then return home to download something that had they stayed at home, would have finished downloading before they'd even arrived at the GameStop?

Were this the only challenge the retailer was facing, you'd at least fancy their chances of finding a workaround. But it's not.

Publishers like Electronic Arts and THQ are waging an open, public war against GameStop's practice of encouraging the sale of used games, a cornerstone of the retailer's business plan. Other publishers, like Sony, are looking seriously at joining in.

At this early stage it probably hasn't' had too adverse an effect, but the more games are released that encourage new purchases - which for GameStop carry a negligible profit margin compared to their "buy for $10 and sell for $30" used games - the more it will hurt them. And if people stop buying used games at GameStop, GameStop, utterly reliant on the sale of used games, is in trouble.

The boxed PC market is as good as dead, with digital delivery services like Steam moving swiftly to dominate the market with their convenience, portability and and plentiful bargains. You can already buy full Xbox 360 games on that console's marketplace, and more and more titles are being released as downloadable games, purchased directly from a console rather than a store.

The latest PSP doesn't have any kind of boxed game whatsoever, nor do any of Apple's handheld platforms, which are fast becoming some of the most important devices in the portable space.

As a brand, then, you could say that to succeed in the future, GameStop would need to evolve and become an online retailer. Steam, the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, all rolled into one. That would be a sound business plan, and something the name "GameStop" with its current pull could probably manage. If Amazon could sell Xbox Live Arcade games, there'd be no stopping GameStop from doing more.

And it's trying. Sort of. GameStop has bought Kongregate, an online gaming portal, and Jolt Online Gaming, which does much the same thing, but these are cheap, peripheral solutions, not a meaningful means of shifting the company's business online.

500x_bbuster.jpg

This is where GameStop's nature will be its undoing. Like other outdated stores - let's use Blockbuster as an example, which when movies went online found itself adrift - it's not enough to simply cut their losses and move online, because there are thousands of stores worldwide with tens of thousands of employees on the books.

Those can't simply be tossed aside, and like Blockbuster, when the end comes GameStop will find them to be the burdens that catalogue its demise, when the only time you hear about them are when 1500 employees are laid off, and/or hundreds of stores shut down as the market the retailer once dominated disappears from beneath its feet.

http://kotaku.com/5621248/why-gamestops-store-of-the-future-is-anything-but?skyline=true&s=i

........................

Comments

  • focus
    focus Members Posts: 5,361 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    I guess I pretty much agree, although I honestly will miss going to the store and getting a tangible copy of a game. I have an ipod, but still buy CD's in the store. I don't like downloading from itunes unless its individual songs here and there. But, I grew up in a different era, times change.

    On the other hand, the PSP Go is a complete flop. Maybe all digital isn't coming as soon as we think?
  • vagrant-718
    vagrant-718 Members Posts: 4,569 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    I hope Gamestop die and burn in hell!
  • So ILL
    So ILL Members Posts: 16,507 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    I hope Gamestop die and burn in hell!

    lol right, ? a GameStop
  • satyrone
    satyrone Members Posts: 4,696 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    lol i walked past this about a few weeks ago with my wife and i was like" damn thats a big ? gamestop."
  • willhustle
    willhustle Guests, Members, Writer, Content Producer Posts: 6,550 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    I hope Gamestop die and burn in hell!

    Word...I think they really just did all that ? to save face to be able to compete with the online sales competition b/c don't too many people ? with gamestop like that anymore. I know ? has gotten so bad with them now that their in-store deals is garbage and the only time I go to gamestop is when I'm looking for a psn or xbox live card ain't no point in being bothered especially when I go online to get most of my games now where it's much cheaper most of the time. I got RDR on ps3 for $35 it beats paying 60+tax at the store.
  • stoneface
    stoneface Members Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    Ima laugh when Gamestop falls. The game industry will be better without it.
  • blackkevblazini
    blackkevblazini Members Posts: 1,445 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    It's gonna be longer than 5 or 10 years before digital distribution is the only way to get a video game, And only when it becomes a cheaper more viable alternative to going to the store to get games will it really begin to pick up steam: Example: for what MS is charging for some of the On Demand ? on Xbox Live I can get cheaper at Gamestop on an actual disk that I actually own WITH a box and a booklet.Steam sells some games for 60 dollars. PSP games on the PSN can run upwards of 39.99.And as long as Gamefly gives you the option to keep some of the stuff you rent, leaving the house ain't even a factor.Digital distribution will NEVER replace boxed retail if they keep up that fuckery pricing.

    And that's exactly why Blockbuster failed. Not cause of digital downloads, because it suddenly made no economic sense anymore. Blockbuster was failing before Netflix started the streaming ? ...As soon as people found out that you could rent unlimited movies for the price of what 2 movies for 5 days cost at Blockbuster it was all she wrote for them.
  • Michael_Malice
    Michael_Malice Members Posts: 17,415 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    ? Gamestop with an Aids ? !
  • TANGLUNG
    TANGLUNG Members Posts: 806 ✭✭
    edited August 2010
    If Gamestop would change their policies and stop harassing people when they come in the door. Specifically they need to change their trade in value policies. ? is garbage.
  • Terrorist_Jones
    Terrorist_Jones Banned Users Posts: 1,158 ✭✭
    edited August 2010
    satyrone wrote: »
    lol i walked pasted this about a few weeks ago with my wife and i was like" damn thats a big ? gamestop."

    i got clowned for using this word years ago,, damn,,,
  • satyrone
    satyrone Members Posts: 4,696 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    i got clowned for using this word years ago,, damn,,,

    oops lol i fixed it . didnt even realized i typed that.
  • willhustle
    willhustle Guests, Members, Writer, Content Producer Posts: 6,550 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    TANGLUNG wrote: »
    If Gamestop would change their policies and stop harassing people when they come in the door. Specifically they need to change their trade in value policies. ? is garbage.

    That would be a major start and yeah I get tired of when I walk into gamestop or rarely buy something from there they hound the ? out you to reserve some wack ass game or some garbage ass accessories that you don't need at all.
  • vageneral08
    vageneral08 Members Posts: 19,535 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    Wow ya'll really dont ? with gamestop like that.....I dont have no problems with them as long as they have what I pre-ordered I'm good
  • unspoken_respect
    unspoken_respect Members Posts: 9,821 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2010
    Im old school. I want to hold the game in my hands.
  • willhustle
    willhustle Guests, Members, Writer, Content Producer Posts: 6,550 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    Im old school. I want to hold the game in my hands.

    Agreed....
  • anduin
    anduin Members Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    I need me a physical copy for most of my games, this digital ? is not that great. What if your internet gets knocked out, wtf you supposed to do then? I get my ? online though, ? gamestop. Haven't been in there for over a year when I got a couple used PS2 games. Their prices are ridiculous + they're pushy as hell. I've gotten into arguments at the stores when I asked the cashier why the ? I need to "guarantee my game for an extra X $", having to explain that I don't use my games as frisbees and put ? away when I'm not using it. Then she got mad like I'm the ? while trying to push some pre order for some trash game. Never gone back and never will after that ? , suck a ? Gamestop.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] rubbed off from friction Posts: 0 ✭✭✭
    edited September 2010
    The user and all related content has been deleted.