GameStop buys Electronics Boutique

[vsp]

<a href="http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050418005419&newsLang=en">The grisly details</a>

DAMMIT. Not only do I hate to see a local-company-made-good vanish, but this is simply going to decimate gaming outlets in this area, as EBs litter the landscape and are often within a mile or in the same malls as GameStops.

GameStops don't carry used PC games. The bigger EB clearance outlets (Edgmont, Springfield, Downingtown) are likely toast, and those are where I buy 90% of my used AND new games of all types. Easy comparison shopping between different inventories with different prices will be harder. Since Blockbusters around here have also essentially given up on used game sales, this leaves only one meatspace outlet of note. Without local competition, game prices around here will likely rise to match those of more remote areas.

Poopie.

Remember, in thirty years mergers will have left the world with only three companies: Microsoft, Wal-Mart and a player to be named later. I believe Wal-Mart has dibs on the name "Oceania."

[wolf]

Do you have a Hollywood Video with a Game Crazy in it? There is some hope, is there not?

[vsp]

I have never heard of Hollywood Video, much less seen one in my area.

EDIT: Store locator says no Hollywoods closer than Thorndale or Upper Chichester, and no Game Crazy stores closer than Pottstown, which is a 30+ minute drive.

[Guyute]

VSP- The third company will be Sony. They just bought MGM, I think...now they own technology manufacturing, music entertainment and movie entertainment.

Or maybe GM. Their stock is sucking the hind tit but they still do huge volume.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Make lemonade from those lemons, Man. Open up a place where people can trade in and buy used games. You could be that third party.

[Troubleshooter]

We have a company here in Louisiana that has a few locations. You could give them a call and see if they're large enough to move into your area or let you open a franchise.

Game Trader

[vsp]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Make lemonade from those lemons, Man. Open up a place where people can trade in and buy used games. You could be that third party.

Uh uh. I could go off on a dozen different rants about how indy game stores are a no-win proposition right now -- ten years ago, maybe some stores had a chance, but not now -- but I'll stick to the used game issue as an example.

First off, any used game is that for a very simple reason -- somebody decided that it wasn't worth playing or owning any more. Obvious, but worth repeating for its implications; if it was that good and noteworthy, it wouldn't have been traded in. (This is why certain games like Intelligent Qube are holy grails on the used market, as _nobody_ gives them up once they've got them and they're long out of print.)

Even at large chains, the majority of used games sit and sit and sit and gather dust because of that principle; those who really wanted them to begin with bought them new, and those who didn't probably won't be moved by a $5 price difference. If a game is known to suck, ANY price difference probably won't move it -- I've passed by my share of moth-eaten $0.99 PS1 shovelware, for instance. What store owners hope to tap into is one of two things:

1) Someone sees a used game at a moderate discount and thinks "Okay, I didn't buy that when it was new, but at _this_ price point it's worth the risk."

2) Someone sees a used game at a DEEP discount and figures "Ah, screw it, how bad can it be for $3.99?" This is called "getting SOMETHING back on your investment."

This leads into the pricing dilemma that I like to call the Shelby Trap, named for the owner of a local Microplay with whom I debated this very issue repeatedly.

The problem for Shelby was that he had a ton of inventory, but so did the EB and Funco down the street. With very specific exceptions, older games depreciate RAPIDLY, particularly when new systems are out or imminent. As such, Shelby had a store full of aging white elephants that he'd paid a fair amount of money for.

Now, your big chains can knock prices way down on such items just to get them out of the store and make room for more profitable items. Shelby, on the other hand, had a mental block where if he'd paid $X for an item, he _had_ to get $X+1 for it or the world would collapse. Never mind that EB also had a copy of J. Random 3DO Game and couldn't sell it at $9.99; Shelby kept that $40 sticker on the case and would say "Well, it USED to be $50!" when pressed.

Shelby's argument was simple: if he didn't sell for more than he paid for everything, he'd lose money and go out of business. He seemed to live in hopes that some clueless parent or nostalgia seeker would come in and say " Ah! A stack of 3DO games! I don't care what they cost, I MUST HAVE THEM!", blissfully ignorant of what they went for elsewhere.

Seemingly lost on him was the notion that if a game sits on the shelf, forever unsold, the potential return on the investment doesn't matter; the ACTUAL return is <b>ZERO</b>.

When he finally gave up and held a massive going-out-of-business sale, regulars and newcomers alike cleaned him out of a lot of his stuff. He clasped his head like a stunned monkey, mumbling things like "Where were these people three months ago?" Well, where were those _prices_ three months ago?

The above happened ten years ago. This was in an era where eBay was in its relative infancy. Broadband internet access was still exclusively the province of government, businesses and universities, and online distribution of CD-ROM images was out of reach of America's households, thus limiting the "hey, free bootleg games!" drain on used sales. And even then, indy games stores flopped left and right. Today, with 3,000 eBay sellers undercutting the low end and lots of gamers pulling games off of USENET regularly? No chance in hell.

Lesson 2 (how indy stores can't compete on NEW games) and Lesson 3 (why stores don't carry imports any more) will be posted in about three years from now when I'll have the energy to rant properly.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by vsp

Seemingly lost on him was the notion that if a game sits on the shelf, forever unsold, the potential return on the investment doesn't matter; the ACTUAL return is <b>ZERO</b>.

At Mrs. Dallas' last job they had a semi-annual sale. She shocked the senior management when she once designated a table of stuff as "music by the pound." You see, in order to get the best pricing, they had to buy a lot of the new releases from different publishers. (I'm vague on the details here so don't hold me to it.) As a result they ended up with a fair amount of back stock that they weren't likely to ever sell. Since this stuff was taking up warehouse and shelf space, getting it out the door and getting some small amount of money for it, rather than letting it take up space until it was literally thrown out, seemed to be a good idea. Management didn't seem to agree--to this day if I ever feel like having one or more of my bodily appendages removed I can just bring up the subject of "music by the pound" to set her off.

(Meanwhile the store was run into the ground and eventually closed after the company was sold, both of which were writ large on the wall for some time even prior to her departure. The president of the company, who presided over the death of these stores, and whose father was chairman of the board, is currently running for the local township council on a platform of a) run government like a business and b) get rid of cronyism in the township.)