🤔 If you were GameStop’s CEO leading the company through its second era of struggle in the mid-2010s, what and how would you have invested the $470M+? It may be tempting to answer esports or streaming as low-hanging fruit, but consider that esports (including the leading brands like TSM and Cloud 9) are unprofitable businesses subsidized by millions in venture capital. This episode builds off the live services episode from Season 1, which covered that making video games in themselves are expensive and unpredictable bets that take years of development and millions in costs. That episode analyzes titles like Witcher 3 alongside studios like Rockstar and Square Enix. Good games do not always sell while games that do sell are not always good. th-cam.com/video/B71mbSBgZ3E/w-d-xo.html
I would reduce the trasparancy of any financials while trying to preception manage to my advantage like Uber. And would sell this sinking ship the fuck out until its too late 😅
@@TheMysteryDriver that would be a crazy great niche for them and they have the coverage and brand awareness to do it. I just don't think they have the personell. Being able to get into the pc hardware market will require a very strong knowledge as it's not a casual market. I can see them trying to over price whatever graphics cards they saw was popular and getting 1 underpaid guy with no pc experience to run the place, then drop it once it fails to double their revenue need year.
My friend is a manager at my local GameStop and our Zelda launch was awesome. We had pizza and played Mario kart for about 3 hours until everyone got their game at midnight. Really sucks that corporate seems to crap on all their stores and employees. None of their CEOs for the last 10 years have known anything about video games and can’t figure out how to compete with the direct buy online market or digital stores.
We are entering a era where these pompous college educated only book smart ceo's are going to be replaced by people with real world experience and smarts.
@@ebonhawken574I’ll still get some single player stuff physically (such as from Nintendo) but if it’s primarily multiplayer focused like COD, I’m just gonna use Steam.
My son was 5 when I took him to the midnight opening on Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360. He's 23 now, but he STILL talks about how much fun he had waiting in line for that game. Other gamers were dressed in full battle gear, fake guns, camo face paint, RC cars with Go-Pros taped to them... And the guys letting my son be at the front of the picture, making him look like the leader of the group, is one that I'll always cherish. Those days don't exist anymore. And the world is worse off because of it.
I remember going to a launch as a teenager with my childhood best friend and airing for a midnight release of COD. I’m 35 and we still talk and joke about it. Nothing like that exists today even if we wanted to do it.
@@vidmantaskvidmantask7134 yup. I would often go down and just hang out in the store talking to other gamers or workers there about games. Hanging out trying new systems and new games they had on display and sometimes even buying something. Now a days no one wants to chit chat much anymore, there's no display console or game, and the workers rotate out so fast because people hate their jobs you never really get to know them.
@@norcalbowhunter3264 Someday this generation will have to face reality and they will go back to old ways of socialising like it was before. They will have to take care of themselves.
One thing not mentioned was their inability to compete with steam on the PC market. They had an amazing opportunity to get users to switch over to their own platform for PC game sales by using physical game exchanges for online credit, but never put any effort into the platform and just let it fail. GameStop really died off because the people running the company did not understand the industry they were in after hitting their peak.
Especially as the Epic Games Store proves, there's a spot in the market for a second retailer that isn't owned by a publisher actively releasing new games (yes, EGS is owned by Epic who has their own games, but the catalog itself is way larger than its first party IP, similar to Steam being much larger than DotA and CS:GO, and in contrast to the respective storefronts of Activision, Ubisoft, and EA) If Gamestop really wanted to back in the early 2010s, they could have become that second alternative. What a waste of potential.
@@GyroCannonso essentially epic games store is not the second major online retailer after steam? if so, then gamestop truly had wastd potential because that physical game exchange for online credit is brilliant and could’ve actually been what steam is today if it played its cards right
Yeah, as a new pc player in the 2010’s it was very disappointing to see such a tiny pc section in their store. Once I found out steam was a thing I never looked back
There will be midnight launch events again. You just don't know what category the product will be. Unfortunately the company behind it will likely be Apple.
The last time I actually bought something there was 2015 when I picked up a New 3DS XL, Smash 4, and the 3DS port of Xenoblade Chronicles. That was also the last time I bought a new game system, with me getting much more into PC gaming and emulation after.
@PricelessSweetPrincess yea but the world that has opened up for indie developers has been quite amazing. Baldur's Gate 3's developing team Larian Studios paves the way for crowdfunded indie gaming to make games great again imo.
I work at the mall and you couldn't be more right about those damn things. They have so many that they clearance them to get rid of them but they just rot on the shelf.
This is what my local store did a while ago. It used to have a big wall full of shelves with bunch of games for all consoles, and a small stand of POPs to the side. But now they switched them and first thing you see as you get inside is a huge wall of POPs, and if you go out of your way to look for the video games, you'll see a couple of shelves with games at the end of the wall. And those couple of shelves incliude the games for all consoles, so the amount of games for each console is pretty small. It's just sad.
Also hiring execs that hated gaming, treating employees like shit, and flipping broken systems instead of actually refurbishing them, all helped kill their business also.
This is fact. I know a bunch of people who got gamestop jobs because they enjoyed gaming, but then felt crapped on by the company. They could have transitioned with gaming if they actually cared about gaming. They didn’t
@@LandingBullyI spent six years working at GS, and the employees did a lot more than “just stand there”. Constant, ever-increasing pressure to meet ever-increasing goals, denying requests for PTO, denying requests for supplies, overly hostile district managers, etc.
I remember being a kid, wanting nothing more than to go to a midnight drop but knowing I couldn’t because of school the next day. I always wanted to do it as an adult but by the time I was an adult, there was no need… dang.
I feel this but I have made the “midnight launch” for Red Dead 2 & The Show 23 this year. I was expecting lines out the door & hype a plenty but for AT LEAST Red Dead but I just walked in at 9pm, the only customer, purchased my game & walked out like any other day
I can relate to that. I never got to go to a midnight release as a kid and I don't need to go to a midnight release as an adult but I'm a big Zelda fan so I went to the Tears of the Kingdom midnight release and it was honestly a great time.
RIP to those classic stores absored by GameStop: Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, EB Games, FuncoLand, Game Champ, and Software, Etc. Sleep easy, old friends.
I'm surprised GameStop has lasted this long. I would have thought they would have gone bankrupt years ago. They were too heavily reliant on used game sales and gave you next to nothing for trade in value. Not to mention how they treat their employees and how they have unrealistic expectations of their employees.
I prefer physical games to digital (at least on console), and I drive for a living, spending more time on the road than at home, so I can't just get it tomorrow by ordering off amazon, because I won't be home where they ship it. The fastest way for me to get a physical game is usually for me to drive to a nearby store than download a game on my hotspot or public wifi. (Assuming no game patches, of course)
The next too nothing trade in value is why I gave up on them. I remember coming in too trade in about 5 games or so that were barely a year old I was offered $15 for all. Mind you I wasn't expecting even 40% value but I was flat out insulted at the offer. It was a wake up call too me
@@tripx3033I’m sure that’ll keep them afloat for another couple years but GameStop should’ve been taken out back and shot a long time ago. It’s still a sinking ship
So they've actually got very little debt, and raised cash with stock sales and a split. Their cash reserves alone would be able to float them for awhile asuming they did not make any improvements. They're probably still gonna be around awhile. I'm interested to see what happens.
My favorite place to shop for used games these days are the real retro stores that go all the way back to Atari instead of just offering current gen and last gen. GameStop can't really just switch to that model since it's too much of a niche business to work with as many locations as they have.
Trueeee. There's definitely a market for this! I recently spent like 70 bucks for a DS game that is very hard to find anywhere but ebay. They could be the "antiques" store of video games. I do think there is a niche market for that, considering we lose so much gaming history every time a new console is released.
And they sold off all that inventory they once had obtained so cheaply. I thought full retro was the natural course for Gamestop in the early 2010s and it just never materialized
Instead of Gamestop trying to convert their income source..Aka Gaming store.. into everything from geek store, Iphone store, Dvd store. They should instead have opened up side stores that focus on other parts of Gaming. Of which let their game store be free of Funko pops. Heck, they could have opened up a retro store in cities where there is a market.
I remember in late August 2012, I went to a GameStop and they were selling City of Heroes, despite: 1) the game being available free to download and 2) the game (an MMO) shutting down in November 2012. I told the employee they probably shouldn't be selling that, and he told me he knew, but management had instructed them to leave it on the shelves. It kinda changed how I saw the company after that.
Nah, there's little monetization potential there. Independent games shops (boardgame/cardgame/wargame) fill a similar niche and barely eke out an existence, that model can't support a multibillion dollar corporation.
@@ausaskar I mean there is Games Workshop, they seem to doing really well and are not too far off multibillion dollar scale, even if they seem to be squandering their gains recently
For us old timers, I'm not sure I'd characterize the era before 2006 (which seems/feels like 2-3 years ago) as when gaming was "Niche". The launch of the PS1 in 1995, PS2 in 2000, heck even the Dreamcast launch in 1999 generated a lot of hype at the time. Not to mention that glorious Christmas that was 1991 when the SNES launched in North America (that was a magical time). Gaming was always pretty "mainstream" as far as the target demo was concerned as it is now. I don't know why this mischaracterization persists. I don't think I even knew any other kids my age that didn't own an NES or C64 in 1989 while i was in elementary school. The only thing that's changed is the original kids like myself that grew up with games simply didn't "Grow out" of games as our parents told us we would. Instead we largely kept with them like we did with all other media: movies, books, music, etc. It wasn't that gaming gained some kind of adult audience afterwards, it was simply that we didn't grow out of it and give it up and grew up to be middle agers.
Haha yeah I'm almost 40 and my gf of almost 10 years still thinks I'll "grow out" of gaming. LIke I was 30 when you met me and I'd already gamed for basically my entire life, what is there to grow out of? lol I don't get to play for hours and hours like I used to but I still enjoy a bit of gaming from time to time.
There's a metric ton of just...wrong info at the beginning of this vid. Acting like the big chain stores only had a single end cap worth of games is pretty ridiculous, given that Target alone had multiple aisles of game cases in the early '00s. Also, "In the era of print media, gaming content was nearly impossible to find." I don't even know where to start with that one.
@@YaleStewartArt Yes, it gets really frustrating because I can tell it's largely because you have very young people who weren't there, didn't know the context of the time, trying to describe nuance that they couldn't possibly have. You see it all over youtube. Youngin's trying to make polemic videos; they just don't have the life experience. Sorry they just don't! The older i get, the more frustrating this becomes 🙂
@@TheACcam but its still largely the same demographic, primarily male, lots of teens. Perhaps more adults but Id argue far fewer actual kids (besides Nintendo, the companies seem to want to cater to the manchildren rather than the actual children anymore 😂). But setting aside Wii bowling, my grandmother still isnt interested in gaming. Id argue the demographic really hasnt expanded all that much in the past 30 years, not to the degree that is claimed by the gaming press. it’s still very demographically limited as it always has been. The moment I see a horde of 75 year old grandmothers lineup at midnight to buy the latest playstation I’ll eat my words.
I miss the days from the 90s and early 2000s where regulars at a game store were freely allowed to ask to play or try any game on any console setup at the store turning it into a pseudo arcade and made the place much more of an after school hangout and the conversations and friendships that could develop organically just by sharing a love of gaming.
@@jasonanderson5034 you are using electricity and internet on an unsustainably made device get off your high horse mate if it is just for limited edition pop up drops the boxes could be made of recycled cardboard or plastic for all I care. Think about solutions rather looking to tear people down.
@@Shaijn815 yea i am thats not a arguementat all their is no digital computers their are digital verison of all games use your head u have the resource to waste less plastic well still having entertainment but u choose not to
@@Shaijn815 get off my high horse are u delesional we all got a device do we need to waste more plastic the keeyword is more no we dont we can use digital copies
@@Shaijn815 thats a flawed arguement we have digital copies of games we dont have digital consoles or digital computers we can save plastic and waste by keeping stuff digital so we only have one hysical device instead of trash bags full of games ontop of that so becasue we destory the planet a little bit that means we should do more damage
I remember when GameStop was hated by a lot of gamers for being a soulless and corporate alternative to local/independent shops and putting many of them out of business. I understand the passage of time but it’s still incredibly weird to me that anybody would be nostalgic for GameStop
I worked at a gamestop in college in 2013 and 2014 and the writing was starting to be on the wall. Around 2014 is when they really wanted us to push the Pro membership trying to get all the money they can. Just 2 years later in a business class we had to do a project on a struggling company and gamestop was on the list of acceptable companies
It was before 2014 my friend. I worked at GameStop from 2008-2012. They had us pushing Gameinformer magazine memberships long before the Power Up Program began. Had to maintain a certain percentage of sub sales to overall sales or we would get written up. Part of the reason I left to begin with. Was more about numbers and sales than the customer service and the games themselves.
I worked at GameStop during the time they really started pushing Cricket. It was horrible. We were expected to know how to use this cell phone activation portal with little to no training and for the same pay. To top it all off, they wanted us to upsell plans to everyone who walked in the door. Unsurprised it never went anywhere.
Big box stores actually did have trade in programs, for a bit. Walmart, Best Buy, Toys R Us, and a few others entered the market at one point in the late 2000s early 2010s. Hell, even amazon had a program where you could sell your games directly to them. Often, these competitors even offered more than gamestop in trade in value.
Toys R Us... man you're giving me the feelies. Our Toys R Us had two entire supermarket-sized aisles devoted to what seemed like every NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis game. Hard to describe the feeling I got walking into that store... like it was Christmas morning even when it wasn't 😊
I remember when my friend and I went to the Halo 4 midnight release. His mom had to take us and when we showed up, the line was insane. They were giving away merch, posters, etc. All while gearing up for a H4 tournament and all of this would culminate in the midnight release. It was amazing, an insane experience. Played well into the night and stayed home all day the next. Then…. Fast forward to Assassins Creed: Origins. Pulled up around 10-11, not sure if there’d be a line or what would be going down. Door was propped open, nobody in sight. Walked in and grabbed my copy and asked where everybody was? Answer was I was one of very very few who showed and that “midnight releases” were a thing of the past. Never preordered from them or really anyone, again.
The whole thing always weirded me out. I would buy at Gamestop/EB Games as a necessity back in the day, but their shit trade-in values put me off. When it came to selling my used games, online marketplaces like FB Marketplace got me way more money in private sales. I could sell a Pokemon cartridge for 50 dollars or more in a private sale. GS would probably have offered me 12 dollars. Now their stock mostly consists of cringe gimmicks like Pop figures.
I mean this isn’t uncommon though. Take a game or system to a pawnshop and see how much they offer you for it. They’ll offer you the same price if not close to it as GameStop did. Heck when Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon had their used game programs they hardly offered more than GameStop did. If you’re taking something to a store to sell to them so they can resell it, they’ll never offer you as much as you can make in a private store. Go to a pawn shop and try to sell them something and when they offer you less tell them you can make more in a private sale. I 100% guarantee you they’ll say “They go sell it in a private sale. We’re a reseller. We will never offer you that’s much.” I get it. It sucked they wouldn’t offer you a lot for games, but comparing the price they offered to what you could get in a private sale never made sense. Because it’s literally what’s every other shop out there would have done to you. It wasn’t a GameStop problem. It’s the nature of selling stuff to a reseller.
"their shitty trade in values" Well, it was your choice. You could have sold on eBay and waited all that time and shipping to make your money back, but GameStop was convenient
I worked there from the early PS360 generation until about mid PS4 era. Having to learn how to trade in every phone ever made, selling credit cards, making sure people had internet access so they could use the DLC I was told to push or the games that required internet to even play was all a nightmare. I just wanted to sell games.
I remember wanting to work at a GameStop but never got hired. When I got older and learned how they treated their employees, I am glad I didn’t get hired. It might have killed my passion for the hobby,
As a frequent customer I can tell you…all we want to do is buy games. The constant push for memberships is annoying. I work for Rite Aid. We have to push the membership number for customers to get the advertised sale price. I wish we could just sell shit.
One of my favortie things about going to gamestop was becoming friendly with the employees. I'd also go to one in Jersey at my local mall when i live there and all the employees with hella cool. Talking about what we're up to and games we're playing, they'd always have to deal with bs but despite that they where always really kind and welcoming
Yup. GameStop was a social experience. I remember not just talking to the employees but other people you’d see there too. It was a place where people with a similar interest as you would go to. Sometimes just hanging out playing on the display systems and looking at all the new games. If you wanted to just walk in and buy a game and leave without ever socializing, we had Walmart. GameStop was something much more than a game store. It was a culture. That had long since died off. I still go to my local store and try to chat people up and socialize with the employees. But it’s not the same and the employees cycle out so fast that it’s hard to build friendships with them anymore.
As a kid I loved GameStop because of the atmosphere and because I could sell of games I didn’t use to buy something new. And for a while, the buy back price was actually decent. However, I noticed a big change around 2013. I bought Battlefield 4 like a day after it released. Played it and despised it, and then brought it back to GameStop to trade it in. Mind you, this game had only been out a few days and was selling well for $60. They offered my $7 *in store credit* or $5 cash.. it was in that moment I realized GameStop was no better than any corner pawnshop.
@@SWERIC1 I was too young to be ordering off of Amazon at the time, I used to buy them from GameStop (EBGames), Walmart and local gaming stores back then
The atrocious trade in values at GameStop is what taught me how to sell games on eBay when I was 13. I could sell a $60 game for $50 on eBay instead of $10 at Gamestop. 😂
I worked at one of my local GameStop stores for a little over a year and a half as a secondary job back in 2014-2015. Whenever they started adding Funko-Pops, tshirts and toys/figures inside the store, I could tell that was the begging of a steep downfall. The last midnight launch I worked was Fallout 4 and about 30 ppl showed up. They’ve been on the decline for over a decade at this rate.
@@JM1993951 Physical media is on a decline but I think a major factor to people not going to brick and mortar is because a lot of people just order their physical games off of Amazon and have them shipped to their homes.
They brought back the rabbit in the form of NFTs on their own marketplace. You can even play as it in a developing game called Kiraverse which is seeking to create 3D models out of NFTs to bring attraction back to GameStop. I think there's more to Kiraverse as they seem to be collaborating a lot with GameStop's NFT side of the business. If they are able to drive demand to their game by offering the ability to play as your own NFT, I think they could provide a valuable use case for their new ventures into Web 3.
Big missed opportunity is that Gamestop never created a Gamestop TV TH-cam channel. Stores could do monthly events, interviews with developers, TH-camrs and Twitch streamers. Employee reviews of games, trailer launches and breakdowns.
THIS! Gamestop was the gaming culture in its peak, everything about it was a representation of gaming, if they made a tv show or TH-cam channel in which they interview developers, professional gamers, or go one step beyond and make documentaries on gaming, they would still be a massive company instead of being what it is now
I think collectables are a great synergistic avenue for video games if executed correctly. They should of tried to buy or start they're own publisher for casual gamers, bought Frys Electronics and restructure it in a way that it supports the gaming side.
Why would they buy Fry's Electronics to support the "gaming side", which I assume means sell PC build parts and components? There's no reason to buy that stuff in person when you can find exactly what you want online, which is exactly why Gamestop is a useless business. The same is true for collectables. None of those things need to exist in a brick and mortar store, and it's cheaper to sell it that way.
@@painfulsilence316 obviously you’ve never been to a micro center. In most cases it is cheaper to find on line, key word is FIND. Micro center has deals with a fair amount of graphic card manufacturers so they can usually source them where other online locations can’t. It one of the very few things that you see people standing in line for these days. The same can be said for collectibles, if it’s based off a hit IP, it’s going to be hard to find it online for the original price. Do you not remember that it took close to THREE YEARS for people to get the PS5 after launch? Mainly due to scalpers and bots. Your viewpoint on online retail is based SOLELY on the fact that the people selling the product HAVE it in their inventory and are not willing to price gouge you for the item because of how in demand it is. Then there’s the fact that with digital downloads from the publisher, have twice as much control over their refund policies versus you getting the physical copies from a third party. In most cases they make so hard to get a refund, most don’t even bother. Every path has a plus and a minus, it’s about weighing your options and risk to see which one is better.
That stuff sells mostly as an add on but isn’t what draws a person into a store. TBH, nothing would save GameStop unless they would have lucked out with an online platform. But, keep in mind that a lot of their customers hate this company. People don’t forget being ripped off on trade ins when they had very few other options.
@@kristianFL even though the collectibles are a great complementary source of income, they contribute to the bottom line nonetheless. Also, that could easily pivot to exclusive deals with various media companies for any major release. I still think GameStop could of been saved but like most companies that go bust, greedy incompetent individuals are the ones who have the last say.
I feel like GameStop, was always destined to fail the same way blockbuster did. As much as people hate to admit it digital media is the future of entertainment as it cuts out the middle man completely and developers make the most profit, and in my personal opinion as sad as it is to see digital media is great for indie developers and the convenience is unmatched compared to having to drive to a store
But that opens another can of worms when it comes to actually owning your media vs your games being forever at risk of being removed for whatever reason.
Once things began moving from physical to all digital I fell off. I don't think I've put more than an hour into actually sitting down to play a video game since 2018. But I basically stopped buying games after 2013
All games I got from games top were used besides black ops 2 which I pre-ordered. Pretty pointless to buy a disk game nowadays considering you need to download an extra 100gb of content anyways
@@SkylineFTW97 The Sega Genesis/Master System cases were the best imho, a nice sturdy hard plastic case with a satisfying click/crunch when you inserted the cart back and out of it.
I mean the memory card thing was just a requirement on old systems because the devs couldn’t be bothered to include a few megabytes built in storage for whatever reason. We’ve moved past needing that thankfully The loss of manuals is sad; even if the internet is more practical, it was always fun to read them
I worked for Gamestop from 2007 to 2015 and this video is spot on in terms of facts. Another thing too, the corporate structure of the company was/is a joke and they always treated employees in the retail stores like garbage.
I worked at GameStop and I witnessed first hand how bad the decisions being made were at the top of the corporate chain. Nothing they did ever made sense
I enjoyed gamestops. Going there and playing the test systems they had out, browsing games and sometimes even buying one, talking to other people you knew shared an interest with you. It was a social place for gamers. Slowly that died off and now it’s about getting in and out as fast as you can while trying to avoid the 200 upsales the employees are pushed to do by upper management. I still enjoy going to them. It’s like visiting my childhood, but they’re not the same.
Really informative and well researched video. Took me down the memory hole of my own career in gaming and as a regular gamer through these years. Interestingly, I always looked down a bit on GS. I think my first experiences of getting scratched 2nd hand discs, then the time I bought a new title for $60 only to find it had obviously been played (maybe by an employee) soured me on the retail outlet. I bought all my games from Best Buy from 2005 - 2015 or so until I grew tired of them not unpacking the newest title. After that it was Amazon with frequent pre-order d discounts then fully online for the convenience. Interesting footnote, I worked for almost 2 years with the future CRO of kongregate who must have been there during the GS buyout. Very nice guy.
Forgot about Game Informer. The subscription that came with new consoles felt like such a luxury in my late adolescent/early teen years. That was a great magazine and a great memory. I would read and re-read those things constantly. read the previews and subsequent review of many iconic games in that publication. ‘San Andreas’ preview issue cover art anyone? Classic 😊
The last time I ever bought anything from GameStop (2016) first off, there were 2 copies of a certain game that I was looking for in stock at this GameStop location. I was curious to see whether or not the salesperson would choose to do the right thing and he did not. Originally, he tried selling me a copy that was in terrible condition. I mean, really scratched up. Literally, I have never spent another dime at GameStop because of this and I never will. Overpriced Used Trash. Out, GameStop.
I think the big factor that everyone is missing is...game prices have not coincided with inflation. Paying 60 bucks for a game 15 years ago was a big deal. You wanted to trade it in when youre done. Nowadays, 60 bucks for a new game is really a drop in the bucket when a big mac meal costs like 10 bucks so people are fine with spending it on digital download with no way to recoup
u can recoup on a digital download if u sell your console wiith the game downloaded on it lol and that isnt a reason to jsutify wasing plastic its kinda sick hoow 99.99 ercent of the gaming community is so selefish they wont give up plastic for the good of the plant
@@jasonanderson5034 Nonsense comment, if they want to be ecologically concerned they just need to make digital games cheaper, a digital game is 70-80€ a physical with way more men in the middle is 50-60€, blame those companies not gamers, stop being a company shill. What is actually sick is you not understanding that although it's pretty clear where the problem lies, but I guess it's easier to blame gamers in a Redditor fashion other billion dollars companies
Everyone is missing it because it's nonsense, if there is an inflation then people are less likely to buy games, since everything is more expensive you cut on non essential things, there is an inflation but incomes haven't increased that much. You're acting like incomes went higher and followed the inflation. Seriously what's this reasoning ? It's like saying people would buy more [insert non necessary thing that hasn't been touched by inflation that much] now more than back then just because of proportionality, doesn't make sense at all, with your logic third words countries were inflation is crazy would buy more entertainment stuff than ever. During inflation you optimize the money you sent, it's not the other way around. The only reason are : 1) Peoples are dumb, they may don't even know a console physical copy costs less, can be resold and take less disc space, the only market where it makes sense is on PC where games are cheaper and not tied to a single official store. 2) People are playing less games, sales are only higher because there are way more gamers than 10 or 20 years ago, the average gamer buy less but there are more gamers, we haven't stoped playing while now all kids are playing. 3) People play f2p like LoL/Valorant/PUBG/Fortnite more than ever and thus don't buy much games and don't care about those physical stores or the possibility of trading 4) People play FIFA/2K/Madden/COD/AC etc (most played game) which have a retail value of 2€ at the end of the year
What can they do outside of diversifying their company when ALL publishers are cutting the middlemen, though? Making their own games is the only viable solution to me, but capturing miliions by being a middleman is a completely different thing than being a creator. Valve seems to be the only one that is able to do this, too.
it feels like they were doomed to fail. their experience as videogame retailer just did not translate into a wider game industry expertise. they failed to see potential in streaming and made a mindboggling bet on kongregate, not sure they understood game industry all that well. in another world they would have used their cash to invest in streaming, esports, and, as you said, game development and publishing
@@othertriangle Gamestop would have never invested in any of those things and streaming didn't become profitable until very recently in the timeline. Esports was extremely niche and still is - it is only as big as it is today thanks to streaming. They would have never stepped foot into game dev because that is a whole other beast of an industry - amazon tried and failed at it - netflix is trying and will fail at it.
@@corail53You are right, Gamestop would have never done this, that's why I said "in another world", imagining possible scenarios. It's farfetched, but I think it's not impossible: after all, they bought Kongregate and Impulse, they showed SOME interest in game publishing and online content delivery. Not hard to imagine few more dubious decisions: sponsoring esport teams, buying game development studios
Valve did to online sales that GameStop did offline: fill a niche everyone was ignoring. If Gamestop was willing to to do a well made online marketplace at the same time as Valve they could've easily dominated. But the boat has sailed.
@@corail53you're usually always wrong when you say "never" notice how I said usually? Decent argument but that doesn't make you correct unless you can prove that you can see into other timelines.
GameStop made me homeless I hate them. They really messed my life up so bad like I need to sell my collection to stay in my home. I offered them 100,000 games & they only game me $4.62... ive lost all hope now its cold... its dark... im scared
There was this GameStop that used to be next to a Subway in the same suite plaza. And everytime you would go in the GameStop, it would smell like Subway because the smell would creep through the vents. So everytime I smell Subway, I think of GameStop. 😂 It's nostalgic for me because it was back in middle school. (2008)
Pre pandemic GameStop actually had a good database for their older Gen 6 and 7 games. You could see online which stores had what and I could hunt for Wii games or even still trade in N64! Made me visit a lot of branches I normally wouldn’t before I found better thrift stores and goodwills. The pandemic screwed them up royally because they tried to push shipping games from a warehouse and stopped keeping track of their in store inventory. Even current Gen games that aren’t New releases can be very difficult to find because the inventory is only the warehouse, not the store. What little advantage they had with retro gamers completely evaporated, and now they are more focused on Pokémon cards and Funko pops
I used to frequent GameStop once a week. I think the day I stopped was when they announced that they would not be carrying PS2 games or earlier generation and eliminating them from their warehouses completely. I think they really missed the mark. I would go there to often look for classic retro gems. Console games are not as fun as they used to be. If Gamestop wanted to get the community together, get rid of most of their collectibles (which take up shelf space of stuff a very miniscule audience wants) and just run sponsored tournaments with winners getting store credit. Get people coming in and test their gaming skills while uniting the gaming community together with such a small cost. Use their pro membership or charge a small fee as a way to enter tournaments and recoup costs of doing that.
I’ve always wondered why they never bought GameFly up and went the direct to consumer route since they already have the physical stores to hold all the games
Gamestop had a no questions asked return policy for the used games within a week so why would anyone pay membership for something free. Gamestop kept hiring bad leaders who would pass on their bad habits to their employees making the work environment unbearable.
I’ll never forget the wonderful time range we had when preorders meant you were getting a really cool physical piece of merch. It shifted to special DLC and then a lot of times pre ordering has no reward at all except possibly an amazingly buggy game for early adopters. For me the weird exclusive bonuses always had me asking what’s coming out next and risking preordering games I knew nothing about it it was a publisher I trusted. It’s still so sad to me that I live in a huge city and all of the remaining convenient gamestops closed. The closest one now is a 3 hour bus commute round trip.
Gamestop really should to into the retro market. It's already known as a place to sneakily get deals. I know my local shop even has a single shelf dedicated to older games. It's usually only wii u, eii, 3ds and the like, but still they're usually pretty low. I think given their reach, it'd be a profitable point if done right.
Y’all are delusional if you think the nft marketplace from GameStop is worth anything. It’s dead. It’s only worth the initial release, capitalizing on hype, greed from day traders, coping crypto bros. There’s absolutely no long term success. (Coming from a crypto/stock trader hence the name) GameStops most valuable thing for me is used games, trading in games, and there pro rewards membership, as it gives a $5 coupon every month. And if there’s not something you want to buy you can use it on gift cards for later.
It still depresses me to think about Gamestop. During the Summer of 2020, I saw how low their stock was and nearly put $2000 into it. I figured that it was so low that if they somehow made a comeback, I could make bank on it. Worst case, I lose $2000. Decided against it just because employment wasn't guaranteed at the time. I could have made hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling that stock during the short squeeze. I'm a broke 27 year old so it would've been huge to make that kind of money lol I know that you can't kick yourself for missing out on huge investment payoffs but this Gamestop stock scenario just hurts to think about because I had everything selected in the app and just had to click confirm 😢
My biggest turn off was when I went to get Skyrim for Xbox one. They still had at full $60, then I went across the street to Walmart who had it for $30 Now GameWare is where my business goes because I can find old games too. I’m a big fan of finding old classics that I missed as a kid
This is a fantastic, and fascinating video!GameStop will be missed by those of us who were around in it's heyday. Much like Blockbuster. They had their issues for sure, but it was always a fun experience compared to now. I held out quite some time in physical releases. Only recently buying mostly digital. Sony, Microsoft, and other big publishers have been trying to get rid of game stop for years as they only make money on the initial purchase. I give you, Greed & Capitalism. 😂😢
Before Gamestop we had 3 video game stores at my local mall. They all got bought out by Gamestop. Trade in value dropped and used prices went up as there was no more competition. One thing I forget is if Gamestop ever carried PC titles. If they did it certainly wasn't to the extent that the guys they bought out did. It wasn't all bad though. For new stuff Gamestop was great and Game Informer was a nice magazine. I also used to buy PSN cards there as I didnt trust Sony with my payment info after that big hack.
Great video, and well researched! I disagree with your tone that GameStop appear to be doomed for failure. The video game industry has grown to more than just digital assets and properties, though that's obviously the majority of it. There will always be gaming related physical merchandise to sell and so long as that is the case, GameStop will have a bright future.
Having worked for major vid game publisher 8 years and worked closely within the relationship of this company in handling retail finance matters, I can say this is a brilliantly surmised video! Except for the present day/future tone which I will say is outright incorrect, they are still very much a core-retail business and they know it and will invest more in retail, and they will not transfer into primary digital as your video suggests. GameStop short squeeze fiasco on the stock market shows a massively passionate culture aware that they need to help otherwise digital direct sales will render Video Games absent as a speciality store in retail sector. They were/are not short-squeezing wanting Gamestop to become digital! GameStop KNOW their company value is in being the only (in many countries) specialised retail venue for the biggest entertainment industry in the world. They have a place in the future, just like bookstores do in spite of the challenges they face from Amazon, and e-books etc. Video Game shops are NOT the video stores of the eighties; they are different and can stand alone in a digital future where video stores could not. An example; in Australia (a smaller market) Gamestop operate as EB Games (as they do in UK) and they have about 310 stores nationally (which is impressive). They also own/operate collectible reatil stores (name Zing). 117 of the 310 stores are actually dual branded, physically, commercially it is one store (one lease, one set of employees etc). Literally split in half down the middle of the shop space; one half of the store is EB Games, the other half is Zing. But where the evidence of a confident and successful current day retail existence is revealed is in the presence of 46 Zing only stores, all placed in the same shopping centre and usually the shop immediately next to EB Games or extremely close. These 46 stores could easily adopt the split store retail branding strategy of the 117 dual branded stores but instead the GameStop / EB Games management decide to sign additional leases, pay additional rent, invest more in shop fitout upfront costs and need to employ separate staff. This example above (albeit a small one) says the complete opposite to the video's ending tone and suggestive narrative about Gamestop going digital and gloom for retail future success. But your actual video explains why better than this example; gamers want their game store to survive, they do not want to lose their passion to the bigger department stores which wont represent their passion as well as a independent store does. If every failing retail store type had fans this passionate they would not fail!!
I can remember when I first stepped into GameStop like it was yesterday. I was also one of the ones that said that I couldn't do digital copies of anything but after receiving a PS5 digital a gift i see why GameStop is failing. Is responsible for a lot of fond memories of me and friends gaming all weekend but all things must come to an end one day. My suggestion would be that the start hosting or sponsoring tournaments because it's a no brainier butni highly doubt they'll do it.
In my hometown growing up, they had THREE gamestops. It was awesome because if one store didn't have what you were looking for, you still had two other options. I was sad to see when I went back last year two of the three were closed and the last one was basically just a funkopop/digital download card dealer.
game stores should die .. why do u think wasting plastic is even morally ok when u have digital copies like really get your morals straight how can the entire gaming community just support wasting plastic ...its nuts your worse then rednecks vs hybrids
Gamestop was great when pre-owned games were half the price of new games. However, having just $5 off these days is ridiculous. As a formor employee of gamestop, it became harder and harder to justify my alliance or shady buisness practices that the worker is of course blamed for rather than the company as a whole. I say let it go, your time has past and it was fun while it lasted but ultimately have become the villain.
For newer games you may as well just get a new copy for Al the dlc and deluxe edition add-ons. But games 5 years old or older are dirt cheap used. The other day I got Battlefront 2 for $2 and God of War for $8.
If I was GameStop at the time I would have made major investments to also become a publisher. Specifically investing in cost-efficient indie games that were on the rise at the time and maybe localization of overseas games. Operate a like a Limited Run games. In addition to investing to be a competitor to Steam as well as a combination of social integrations of other console platforms.
Honestly I’d really love to see GameStop go for the retro market more. They sell retro games online but it’s really hit or miss if you can actually find those games in a physical store and see the condition of the game.
I remember how about 3 years after the ps4 launch, they Gamestop had a huge sale to get rid of old ps3 and 360 games and you couldnt get them pre used anymore
GameStop built an NFT marketplace with the intention of having a platform to onboard gaming studios developing games on a Blockchain. Meaning in-game items will be traded, bought and sold as NFTs, giving the players real ownership of their in-game items/skins. That's the goal with Web3 gaming, to kill the predatory micro-transactions by creating real world value for the items/skins you buy. Items/skins you can re-sell on the marketplace when you get bored of a game and recoup the money you spent. But the NFT marketplace is still in beta and will probably remain in beta until studios actually start releasing good quality games that people wanna play because they're fun. Ideally they wouldn't even know that they're trading NFTs, just that the $1.000 they spent on Fortnite skins wasn't a 100% waste of money, in tangible terms.
NFT could be anything. Could be a game. Imagine you have an NFT that represents a game you download when you want to trade or sell that game you trade or sell the NFT then another person has the game on their console or pc.
It's a bummer to see retail go, it's being done on purpose, all transactions and currency will be digital soon i'm afraid. Gamestop as a company i won't miss, i liked the days before Gamestop bought up EB Games and the trade in values were good. Once Gamestop took over they really started to rip people off on trade ins. Looking back i wish i kept everything i ever traded. But at least EB gave you a fair shake.
I just go to Retro Game Trader because GameStop doesn’t have what I’m looking for about 90% of the time. Probably because they’re using all their space for toys and funko pops. GameStop needs to remember they’re a game store and not a ToysRUs.
When I started walking into GameStops and seeing half of them being toy stores, I just said forget it. Started ordering from Amazon and never looked back.
They still would have failed at that because they would have run it like they did the stores. Running a game dev company is a whole different beast then running retail and they sucked at that.
Their entire business model revolved around reselling physical media. When media went digital, suddenly they no longer had anything to sell. Pivoting to a game merchandise style operation would have worked but theyd need to reduce themselves down to a single store per city to make such a thing profitable
Gamestop used to be a wonderland of games in my tweens-teens. Like, going there was an exciting event. Even if I wasn’t buying anything, I loved looking through the selections of current and older titles. I walked into one in early 2022 and calling it a shell would be generous. It was all bargain-bin games and Funko Pops and I am not kidding.
@@victoruchiha4550explain to me why I should spend $20 to $60 on a plastic figure that 1) will never rise in value 2) is ugly as hell And 3) brings me basically no joy
I remember when a dude got jumped over a Xbox one console and GameStop employee’s pretended they didn’t see it until someone called for help. By the time they got there they ran off with his console. Dude had to pay for a whole new one. Dudes got into a huge brawl outside of gamestop over the last PS4 which lead to police getting involved to breaking it up.
We have two stores in my city. A couple years ago the north store was robbed by two guys with hammers. They assaulted the only employee and cracked his skull. Imagine being nearly murdered and bleeding out at your shitty GameStop job when you just wanted to lock up and go home
It's crazy they were counting on that "Buy Sell Trade" model to work forever 😭😭😭 That's like everyone's main complaint about Gamestop. Them ripping gamers off has been a meme for a long time
Yeah i shouldn’t have sold my games last week every day it hurts more i should have just saved up for Pikmin 4 my game collection wont be the same ever again and i can say that 21$ wasn’t worth it for the memories
When I was younger, I would trade games basically because I was scrapping money. But as an adult, the trade in value isn’t worth it & I literally only traded in games I straight up didn’t like
I’ve always been an owner, not a renter, not a sharer. I didn’t like to co-own games with my brother. I’d always buy my own copy and I’ve kept all but two games. With the trade-in value offered by GameStop you may as well keep them. Even if you only go back and play it once or twice a year, that’s a better value than what they’ll give you. Hell, even if you never play it…just holding that physical game in your hands and remembering how much you loved it as a kid/teen is worth more than $5 store credit. As an adult I’ve given away games to friends. I’d rather give it to someone who will enjoy it than take 10% of what I paid less than a year ago.
I know I'm the asshole here, but I need to defend the GameStop trade in shit. It's not a rip off. They offer you a price, you agree to it or you don't. It's completely transparent. Whether you like the value or not is on you. I used to work there back in the day, and folks would get pissed off that Madden 2002 was only .05 trade in and 2003 was $50. You wanna know why? Cuz as soon as the new thing comes out, everyone sells the old one and buys the new thing. We had a cage in the back where we keep all the overstock...and there were mountains of shrink wrapped bricks of all the previous sports titles years. No one ever bought the older sports titles once the next year's thing came in. They weren't worth the plastic box they came in. Before game stop, no one would buy your crap because it wasn't worth anything. At least you got something at GameStop . Im not saying it was perfect, but God damn...people are just so frigging entitled. Real life isn't a video game. You can't walk into any store and just sell all your junk to any vendor like it was Skyrim. Not every business is a pawn shop You can't sell your clothes at the gun store and you can't sell your games to a grocer. You buy things. Jeeze.
GameStop has been falling for years. Once digital gaming became a thing. Plus when you treat your employees like crap and make them focus on sales and numbers over customer service and the games themselves they were doomed to eventually fail.
Seeing the raving rabbids games for the Wii on the shelves of Walmart/GameStop is so nostalgic to me for absolutely no reason, I didn’t even play them lmao.
And then there's the continued mismanagement for so many of the stores, the wrongly fired people because the management is having a bad day, the theft and lies by the higher ups, the apathy of management, and the unattainable goals set for employees.
I remember always watching the long midnight line of ppl at GameStop waiting to play the game when it came out, then walk next door into the 24/7 Walmart and bought the game no preorder and without having to wait 2 hours
GameStop’s stock thing was solely a product of people being terminally online and paired perfectly with $1,200 stimulus checks. The whales made a bunch of money off of ‘HODLers’ and rubes who thought they could be retail investors. You kids all got played
I only remember games being sold at a handful of large chains. GameStop, EB Games, Best Buy, FYE, etc. There were probably more, but I was a kid during the 2000s, so I wasn't exactly able to shop around by myself.
There was a pretty good local chain here called "MicroPlay" that had 3 stores in my city (Winnipeg). used to like shopping there between 1994-1999 ish.
@@SkylineFTW97 In the 2000s, even Walmart and Target were selling games. They had 2-3 aisles back then in both stores dedicated to video games, with consoles hooked up for people to play, usually on a screen that was straight up and would result in a 6 year old with a sore neck.
@@PURENT The GameStop I went to was at a local mall that had a target 2 stores down from the GameStop and a Best Buy a few blocks away. Both still sell games. There was also another store called For Your Entertainment (FYE) that sold games. I'm pretty sure it no longer exists. And we also had one of GameStop's old competitors, EB Games. The last 2 went out of business between me starting middle and high school (2008-2011).
Good video! I stopped playing console games around 2010. I only play PC games since then and get almost all of my games on Steam. Used to get all my console games and consoles at GameStop in the 2000s
I could go on and on about the fall of GameStop. I worked there from 08-12 during the “golden era”. When you allow employees to take home a new game to try out that’s not a bad thing, but then turning around and selling those same copies to customers as “new” that were obviously already played and no longer sealed. Then the absurd trade in value (if you want to call it that) that they would give you for games and consoles. Then don’t get me started on how they treated us employees. Low wages, and wanted us to focus on numbers rather than customer service. Most of the head honchos knew nothing about gaming. Then they would hold a conference each year in Vegas (which is cool) but then only the main Store manager was able to attend (which is understandable) but they would then give the store managers tons of free games/collectibles/swag to go home with while us grunts made peanuts and we’re treated like crap. We weren’t even able to take home any extras that were to be thrown away instead. Not trying to have a pity party but it just shows why they are dying. Treat all your employees like they matter and mean something and it’s not just a dead end mindless job. Gaming is about fun, passion, and community. GameStop lost all of that over years to focus on “business”.
🤔 If you were GameStop’s CEO leading the company through its second era of struggle in the mid-2010s, what and how would you have invested the $470M+?
It may be tempting to answer esports or streaming as low-hanging fruit, but consider that esports (including the leading brands like TSM and Cloud 9) are unprofitable businesses subsidized by millions in venture capital.
This episode builds off the live services episode from Season 1, which covered that making video games in themselves are expensive and unpredictable bets that take years of development and millions in costs. That episode analyzes titles like Witcher 3 alongside studios like Rockstar and Square Enix. Good games do not always sell while games that do sell are not always good.
th-cam.com/video/B71mbSBgZ3E/w-d-xo.html
A greater emphasis on the in person experience, which is something people enjoy but can't be replicated online
I would reduce the trasparancy of any financials while trying to preception manage to my advantage like Uber. And would sell this sinking ship the fuck out until its too late 😅
@@SB-mg1wyso GameStop becomes a RadioShack type place.
Shut it all down and give the money back to the shareholders.
@@TheMysteryDriver that would be a crazy great niche for them and they have the coverage and brand awareness to do it.
I just don't think they have the personell. Being able to get into the pc hardware market will require a very strong knowledge as it's not a casual market. I can see them trying to over price whatever graphics cards they saw was popular and getting 1 underpaid guy with no pc experience to run the place, then drop it once it fails to double their revenue need year.
My friend is a manager at my local GameStop and our Zelda launch was awesome. We had pizza and played Mario kart for about 3 hours until everyone got their game at midnight. Really sucks that corporate seems to crap on all their stores and employees. None of their CEOs for the last 10 years have known anything about video games and can’t figure out how to compete with the direct buy online market or digital stores.
We are entering a era where these pompous college educated only book smart ceo's are going to be replaced by people with real world experience and smarts.
Idiot CEOs are smart and prepared people you know nothing about bussines or life pizza and mario kart ? Hahaha
All they had to do was be the place for experiences like these on releases , that would be a good reason why i would go and buy something from them .
I’ll take physical copies over digital any day, unless it’s on steam or GOG
@@ebonhawken574I’ll still get some single player stuff physically (such as from Nintendo) but if it’s primarily multiplayer focused like COD, I’m just gonna use Steam.
My son was 5 when I took him to the midnight opening on Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360. He's 23 now, but he STILL talks about how much fun he had waiting in line for that game. Other gamers were dressed in full battle gear, fake guns, camo face paint, RC cars with Go-Pros taped to them... And the guys letting my son be at the front of the picture, making him look like the leader of the group, is one that I'll always cherish.
Those days don't exist anymore. And the world is worse off because of it.
I remember going to a launch as a teenager with my childhood best friend and airing for a midnight release of COD. I’m 35 and we still talk and joke about it. Nothing like that exists today even if we wanted to do it.
One more thing is that gamers were going more outside to socialise because of it. It was event.
@@vidmantaskvidmantask7134 yup. I would often go down and just hang out in the store talking to other gamers or workers there about games. Hanging out trying new systems and new games they had on display and sometimes even buying something.
Now a days no one wants to chit chat much anymore, there's no display console or game, and the workers rotate out so fast because people hate their jobs you never really get to know them.
@@norcalbowhunter3264 Someday this generation will have to face reality and they will go back to old ways of socialising like it was before. They will have to take care of themselves.
@@vidmantaskvidmantask7134you can’t navigate todays world like the past
One thing not mentioned was their inability to compete with steam on the PC market. They had an amazing opportunity to get users to switch over to their own platform for PC game sales by using physical game exchanges for online credit, but never put any effort into the platform and just let it fail. GameStop really died off because the people running the company did not understand the industry they were in after hitting their peak.
Especially as the Epic Games Store proves, there's a spot in the market for a second retailer that isn't owned by a publisher actively releasing new games (yes, EGS is owned by Epic who has their own games, but the catalog itself is way larger than its first party IP, similar to Steam being much larger than DotA and CS:GO, and in contrast to the respective storefronts of Activision, Ubisoft, and EA)
If Gamestop really wanted to back in the early 2010s, they could have become that second alternative. What a waste of potential.
@@GyroCannonso essentially epic games store is not the second major online retailer after steam? if so, then gamestop truly had wastd potential because that physical game exchange for online credit is brilliant and could’ve actually been what steam is today if it played its cards right
Yeah, as a new pc player in the 2010’s it was very disappointing to see such a tiny pc section in their store. Once I found out steam was a thing I never looked back
@@ryanelliott71698 I bought more PC games from Target than GameStop lol
@@GyroCannonoffice max in the 90s was better even
We'll never have a midnight launch event at a physical store ever again. Sobering
Like if you cry every time 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
My GameStop still has midnight releases I went to Pokémon elden ring and destiny 2 lightfall, it was definitely not the same but still fun
I think the last one i went to was Destiny 1.
There will be midnight launch events again. You just don't know what category the product will be. Unfortunately the company behind it will likely be Apple.
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 I disagree with this take
I saw in person when GameStop became less and less of a game store and predominantly a toy and shitty t-shirt store. Felt like the dying of an era.
The last time I actually bought something there was 2015 when I picked up a New 3DS XL, Smash 4, and the 3DS port of Xenoblade Chronicles. That was also the last time I bought a new game system, with me getting much more into PC gaming and emulation after.
At least it's the only place that has Steam Cards "when available"
@PricelessSweetPrincess yea but the world that has opened up for indie developers has been quite amazing. Baldur's Gate 3's developing team Larian Studios paves the way for crowdfunded indie gaming to make games great again imo.
Hey, it’s better than nothing. Toys R Us used to be a toy store that sold games….now they occupy a 20ft section inside Macy’s.
game stores should die .. why do u think wasting plastic is even morally ok when u have digital copies
I think Gamestops biggest mistake was having more shelves of Funkopops than games.
I work at the mall and you couldn't be more right about those damn things. They have so many that they clearance them to get rid of them but they just rot on the shelf.
The middle of my Gamestop has been filled with clearanced Funko Pops for at least a year, but their shelves are still always full of new ones
THIS. They need to remember that I come to GameStop for you know, _games_ and not consumerist garbage
This is what my local store did a while ago. It used to have a big wall full of shelves with bunch of games for all consoles, and a small stand of POPs to the side. But now they switched them and first thing you see as you get inside is a huge wall of POPs, and if you go out of your way to look for the video games, you'll see a couple of shelves with games at the end of the wall. And those couple of shelves incliude the games for all consoles, so the amount of games for each console is pretty small. It's just sad.
I can’t stand those ugly, cheap looking figures and am amazed they’re so popular.
Also hiring execs that hated gaming, treating employees like shit, and flipping broken systems instead of actually refurbishing them, all helped kill their business also.
This is fact. I know a bunch of people who got gamestop jobs because they enjoyed gaming, but then felt crapped on by the company. They could have transitioned with gaming if they actually cared about gaming. They didn’t
How do they treat their employees like shit ? 💀 all they gotta do is stand there
@@LandingBullyyou need to search some horror stories, shit is as bad as other places if not worse
@@LandingBullyI spent six years working at GS, and the employees did a lot more than “just stand there”. Constant, ever-increasing pressure to meet ever-increasing goals, denying requests for PTO, denying requests for supplies, overly hostile district managers, etc.
It was all for the profit unfortunately.
I remember being a kid, wanting nothing more than to go to a midnight drop but knowing I couldn’t because of school the next day. I always wanted to do it as an adult but by the time I was an adult, there was no need… dang.
I feel this but I have made the “midnight launch” for Red Dead 2 & The Show 23 this year. I was expecting lines out the door & hype a plenty but for AT LEAST Red Dead but I just walked in at 9pm, the only customer, purchased my game & walked out like any other day
@@greetingsmars oh wow. Yeah, not exactly what I’d expect 😅
Sucks. Did it with the wii. Kinda fun but lots of waiting.
Same bro 😢
I can relate to that. I never got to go to a midnight release as a kid and I don't need to go to a midnight release as an adult but I'm a big Zelda fan so I went to the Tears of the Kingdom midnight release and it was honestly a great time.
RIP to those classic stores absored by GameStop: Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, EB Games, FuncoLand, Game Champ, and Software, Etc. Sleep easy, old friends.
Babbages was amazing back in the SNES era. You could go there and see things you'd never see anywhere else. Like Neo Geo.
We had Rhino video games but they bought them out and it became a GameStop
EB and Funco were my jam 😭
EB was sooo much nicer too
Software Etc. was my stomping grounds as a kid. My dad would go there to buy PC games and I loved going with him.
I'm surprised GameStop has lasted this long. I would have thought they would have gone bankrupt years ago. They were too heavily reliant on used game sales and gave you next to nothing for trade in value. Not to mention how they treat their employees and how they have unrealistic expectations of their employees.
2020 stock meta made them millions lol
I prefer physical games to digital (at least on console), and I drive for a living, spending more time on the road than at home, so I can't just get it tomorrow by ordering off amazon, because I won't be home where they ship it. The fastest way for me to get a physical game is usually for me to drive to a nearby store than download a game on my hotspot or public wifi. (Assuming no game patches, of course)
The next too nothing trade in value is why I gave up on them. I remember coming in too trade in about 5 games or so that were barely a year old I was offered $15 for all. Mind you I wasn't expecting even 40% value but I was flat out insulted at the offer. It was a wake up call too me
@@tripx3033I’m sure that’ll keep them afloat for another couple years but GameStop should’ve been taken out back and shot a long time ago. It’s still a sinking ship
So they've actually got very little debt, and raised cash with stock sales and a split. Their cash reserves alone would be able to float them for awhile asuming they did not make any improvements. They're probably still gonna be around awhile. I'm interested to see what happens.
My favorite place to shop for used games these days are the real retro stores that go all the way back to Atari instead of just offering current gen and last gen. GameStop can't really just switch to that model since it's too much of a niche business to work with as many locations as they have.
Trueeee. There's definitely a market for this! I recently spent like 70 bucks for a DS game that is very hard to find anywhere but ebay. They could be the "antiques" store of video games. I do think there is a niche market for that, considering we lose so much gaming history every time a new console is released.
And they sold off all that inventory they once had obtained so cheaply. I thought full retro was the natural course for Gamestop in the early 2010s and it just never materialized
Instead of Gamestop trying to convert their income source..Aka Gaming store.. into everything from geek store, Iphone store, Dvd store.
They should instead have opened up side stores that focus on other parts of Gaming. Of which let their game store be free of Funko pops.
Heck, they could have opened up a retro store in cities where there is a market.
They used to be a go to spot for retro games. Not sure why they bailed on that a decade or so ago
They used to be a go to spot for retro games. Not sure why they bailed on that a decade or so ago
I remember in late August 2012, I went to a GameStop and they were selling City of Heroes, despite: 1) the game being available free to download and 2) the game (an MMO) shutting down in November 2012. I told the employee they probably shouldn't be selling that, and he told me he knew, but management had instructed them to leave it on the shelves. It kinda changed how I saw the company after that.
Crazy idea- Game Stop should try to sell community. A place where gamers can socialize etc. Might allow them to get back in the game
It's too late for that like far too late for that.
Nah, there's little monetization potential there. Independent games shops (boardgame/cardgame/wargame) fill a similar niche and barely eke out an existence, that model can't support a multibillion dollar corporation.
@@ausaskar I mean there is Games Workshop, they seem to doing really well and are not too far off multibillion dollar scale, even if they seem to be squandering their gains recently
@@mb9822 Games Workshop sells models. Most of their revenue comes from selling plastic.
@@ausaskarso basically what happened to bookstores. The big ones died out or nearly Dead
Loved GameStop and even worked for them. Don’t feel bad for em at all because they did this to themselves
💯
For us old timers, I'm not sure I'd characterize the era before 2006 (which seems/feels like 2-3 years ago) as when gaming was "Niche". The launch of the PS1 in 1995, PS2 in 2000, heck even the Dreamcast launch in 1999 generated a lot of hype at the time. Not to mention that glorious Christmas that was 1991 when the SNES launched in North America (that was a magical time). Gaming was always pretty "mainstream" as far as the target demo was concerned as it is now. I don't know why this mischaracterization persists. I don't think I even knew any other kids my age that didn't own an NES or C64 in 1989 while i was in elementary school. The only thing that's changed is the original kids like myself that grew up with games simply didn't "Grow out" of games as our parents told us we would. Instead we largely kept with them like we did with all other media: movies, books, music, etc. It wasn't that gaming gained some kind of adult audience afterwards, it was simply that we didn't grow out of it and give it up and grew up to be middle agers.
Haha yeah I'm almost 40 and my gf of almost 10 years still thinks I'll "grow out" of gaming. LIke I was 30 when you met me and I'd already gamed for basically my entire life, what is there to grow out of? lol I don't get to play for hours and hours like I used to but I still enjoy a bit of gaming from time to time.
There's a metric ton of just...wrong info at the beginning of this vid. Acting like the big chain stores only had a single end cap worth of games is pretty ridiculous, given that Target alone had multiple aisles of game cases in the early '00s. Also, "In the era of print media, gaming content was nearly impossible to find." I don't even know where to start with that one.
@@YaleStewartArt Yes, it gets really frustrating because I can tell it's largely because you have very young people who weren't there, didn't know the context of the time, trying to describe nuance that they couldn't possibly have. You see it all over youtube. Youngin's trying to make polemic videos; they just don't have the life experience. Sorry they just don't! The older i get, the more frustrating this becomes 🙂
Depends how you define niche. Objectivley it has grown way past what anyone would have guess even 10 years ago.
@@TheACcam but its still largely the same demographic, primarily male, lots of teens. Perhaps more adults but Id argue far fewer actual kids (besides Nintendo, the companies seem to want to cater to the manchildren rather than the actual children anymore 😂). But setting aside Wii bowling, my grandmother still isnt interested in gaming. Id argue the demographic really hasnt expanded all that much in the past 30 years, not to the degree that is claimed by the gaming press. it’s still very demographically limited as it always has been. The moment I see a horde of 75 year old grandmothers lineup at midnight to buy the latest playstation I’ll eat my words.
I love that the video is on the fundamentals of the company and not on the recent finance shenanigans
Because at this point it's just a cargo-cult of smoothbrains who believe they can will a company to success, like The Secret.
I’m out of the loop. What shenanigans?
I miss the days from the 90s and early 2000s where regulars at a game store were freely allowed to ask to play or try any game on any console setup at the store turning it into a pseudo arcade and made the place much more of an after school hangout and the conversations and friendships that could develop organically just by sharing a love of gaming.
Miss those days is not the same anymore but maybe we should be the generation to bring that up and make it happen.
@@jasonanderson5034 you are using electricity and internet on an unsustainably made device get off your high horse mate if it is just for limited edition pop up drops the boxes could be made of recycled cardboard or plastic for all I care. Think about solutions rather looking to tear people down.
@@Shaijn815 yea i am thats not a arguementat all their is no digital computers their are digital verison of all games use your head u have the resource to waste less plastic well still having entertainment but u choose not to
@@Shaijn815 get off my high horse are u delesional we all got a device do we need to waste more plastic the keeyword is more no we dont we can use digital copies
@@Shaijn815 thats a flawed arguement we have digital copies of games we dont have digital consoles or digital computers we can save plastic and waste by keeping stuff digital so we only have one hysical device instead of trash bags full of games ontop of that so becasue we destory the planet a little bit that means we should do more damage
I remember when GameStop was hated by a lot of gamers for being a soulless and corporate alternative to local/independent shops and putting many of them out of business. I understand the passage of time but it’s still incredibly weird to me that anybody would be nostalgic for GameStop
So true the people pumping the stock and referencing a nostalgia that never existed
I worked at a gamestop in college in 2013 and 2014 and the writing was starting to be on the wall. Around 2014 is when they really wanted us to push the Pro membership trying to get all the money they can. Just 2 years later in a business class we had to do a project on a struggling company and gamestop was on the list of acceptable companies
It was before 2014 my friend. I worked at GameStop from 2008-2012. They had us pushing Gameinformer magazine memberships long before the Power Up Program began. Had to maintain a certain percentage of sub sales to overall sales or we would get written up. Part of the reason I left to begin with. Was more about numbers and sales than the customer service and the games themselves.
Could you guys play the games at gamestop
@@schemar17 like on the clock? No. We actually got in trouble for playing hand helds while on the clock. But they would let us take games home to try.
@@TheReplacementsGaming any game? How about consoles?
they still push it. "oh your membership expired. blah blah." . i tell them; ill get it when i get my tax return. that is a lie LOL
Here before the grifters come in
Reddit and it’s consequences have been disastrous for the human race
I worked at GameStop during the time they really started pushing Cricket. It was horrible. We were expected to know how to use this cell phone activation portal with little to no training and for the same pay. To top it all off, they wanted us to upsell plans to everyone who walked in the door. Unsurprised it never went anywhere.
Big box stores actually did have trade in programs, for a bit. Walmart, Best Buy, Toys R Us, and a few others entered the market at one point in the late 2000s early 2010s. Hell, even amazon had a program where you could sell your games directly to them. Often, these competitors even offered more than gamestop in trade in value.
Toys R Us... man you're giving me the feelies.
Our Toys R Us had two entire supermarket-sized aisles devoted to what seemed like every NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis game.
Hard to describe the feeling I got walking into that store... like it was Christmas morning even when it wasn't 😊
I remember when my friend and I went to the Halo 4 midnight release. His mom had to take us and when we showed up, the line was insane. They were giving away merch, posters, etc. All while gearing up for a H4 tournament and all of this would culminate in the midnight release. It was amazing, an insane experience. Played well into the night and stayed home all day the next.
Then…. Fast forward to Assassins Creed: Origins. Pulled up around 10-11, not sure if there’d be a line or what would be going down. Door was propped open, nobody in sight. Walked in and grabbed my copy and asked where everybody was? Answer was I was one of very very few who showed and that “midnight releases” were a thing of the past. Never preordered from them or really anyone, again.
The whole thing always weirded me out. I would buy at Gamestop/EB Games as a necessity back in the day, but their shit trade-in values put me off. When it came to selling my used games, online marketplaces like FB Marketplace got me way more money in private sales. I could sell a Pokemon cartridge for 50 dollars or more in a private sale. GS would probably have offered me 12 dollars. Now their stock mostly consists of cringe gimmicks like Pop figures.
Correction. GameStop would’ve sold you that Pokémon game for 5 dollars
Although those Pokémon games are worth $100-200 now lmao
GameStop is a middle man. They give you 20 dollars and sell it for 40. But you could easily sell it for 30 yourself and cut them out
I mean this isn’t uncommon though. Take a game or system to a pawnshop and see how much they offer you for it. They’ll offer you the same price if not close to it as GameStop did. Heck when Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon had their used game programs they hardly offered more than GameStop did.
If you’re taking something to a store to sell to them so they can resell it, they’ll never offer you as much as you can make in a private store.
Go to a pawn shop and try to sell them something and when they offer you less tell them you can make more in a private sale. I 100% guarantee you they’ll say “They go sell it in a private sale. We’re a reseller. We will never offer you that’s much.”
I get it. It sucked they wouldn’t offer you a lot for games, but comparing the price they offered to what you could get in a private sale never made sense. Because it’s literally what’s every other shop out there would have done to you. It wasn’t a GameStop problem. It’s the nature of selling stuff to a reseller.
"their shitty trade in values" Well, it was your choice. You could have sold on eBay and waited all that time and shipping to make your money back, but GameStop was convenient
I worked there from the early PS360 generation until about mid PS4 era. Having to learn how to trade in every phone ever made, selling credit cards, making sure people had internet access so they could use the DLC I was told to push or the games that required internet to even play was all a nightmare. I just wanted to sell games.
I remember wanting to work at a GameStop but never got hired. When I got older and learned how they treated their employees, I am glad I didn’t get hired. It might have killed my passion for the hobby,
@@norcalbowhunter3264we're living the same life. I was denied hire around when gta 5 came out
As a frequent customer I can tell you…all we want to do is buy games. The constant push for memberships is annoying. I work for Rite Aid. We have to push the membership number for customers to get the advertised sale price. I wish we could just sell shit.
My love for Gamestop as a kid was crazy. I barely went due to being broke but when i was able to shop i was in a candy store
When i go into a gamestop these days the employees act like they have been stranded on a desert island and haven’t seen a real person in years
One of my favortie things about going to gamestop was becoming friendly with the employees. I'd also go to one in Jersey at my local mall when i live there and all the employees with hella cool. Talking about what we're up to and games we're playing, they'd always have to deal with bs but despite that they where always really kind and welcoming
Yup. GameStop was a social experience. I remember not just talking to the employees but other people you’d see there too. It was a place where people with a similar interest as you would go to. Sometimes just hanging out playing on the display systems and looking at all the new games.
If you wanted to just walk in and buy a game and leave without ever socializing, we had Walmart. GameStop was something much more than a game store. It was a culture. That had long since died off. I still go to my local store and try to chat people up and socialize with the employees. But it’s not the same and the employees cycle out so fast that it’s hard to build friendships with them anymore.
As a kid I loved GameStop because of the atmosphere and because I could sell of games I didn’t use to buy something new. And for a while, the buy back price was actually decent.
However, I noticed a big change around 2013. I bought Battlefield 4 like a day after it released. Played it and despised it, and then brought it back to GameStop to trade it in. Mind you, this game had only been out a few days and was selling well for $60. They offered my $7 *in store credit* or $5 cash.. it was in that moment I realized GameStop was no better than any corner pawnshop.
I think Canadians can sympathize with me when I say I miss the days when a triple A game would be $70 and now its starting at $100 ;(
actually they used to cost 60$ CAD back in 2015
Man seeing that 89 dollar tag hurts
@@aymane.bencheikh Remember when we got a discount for preordering on Amazon too
@@SWERIC1 I was too young to be ordering off of Amazon at the time, I used to buy them from GameStop (EBGames), Walmart and local gaming stores back then
Back in the late 90s, premier SNES games would be in the $100+ CAD range. Feel sorry for all the parents
The atrocious trade in values at GameStop is what taught me how to sell games on eBay when I was 13. I could sell a $60 game for $50 on eBay instead of $10 at Gamestop. 😂
Your videos are totally awesome. I learned quite a lot from your videos and gread analysis. Please keep up your great work.
I worked at one of my local GameStop stores for a little over a year and a half as a secondary job back in 2014-2015. Whenever they started adding Funko-Pops, tshirts and toys/figures inside the store, I could tell that was the begging of a steep downfall. The last midnight launch I worked was Fallout 4 and about 30 ppl showed up. They’ve been on the decline for over a decade at this rate.
Those were attempted fixes for the downfall, though, not the cause. Physical media is dying, sadly.
@@JM1993951 Physical media is on a decline but I think a major factor to people not going to brick and mortar is because a lot of people just order their physical games off of Amazon and have them shipped to their homes.
I miss their old marketing campaigns with the rabbit. Had so much charm and brand recognition.
They brought back the rabbit in the form of NFTs on their own marketplace. You can even play as it in a developing game called Kiraverse which is seeking to create 3D models out of NFTs to bring attraction back to GameStop. I think there's more to Kiraverse as they seem to be collaborating a lot with GameStop's NFT side of the business. If they are able to drive demand to their game by offering the ability to play as your own NFT, I think they could provide a valuable use case for their new ventures into Web 3.
Big missed opportunity is that Gamestop never created a Gamestop TV TH-cam channel. Stores could do monthly events, interviews with developers, TH-camrs and Twitch streamers. Employee reviews of games, trailer launches and breakdowns.
THIS! Gamestop was the gaming culture in its peak, everything about it was a representation of gaming, if they made a tv show or TH-cam channel in which they interview developers, professional gamers, or go one step beyond and make documentaries on gaming, they would still be a massive company instead of being what it is now
Keep these channel going. These episodes are amazing
I think collectables are a great synergistic avenue for video games if executed correctly. They should of tried to buy or start they're own publisher for casual gamers, bought Frys Electronics and restructure it in a way that it supports the gaming side.
Why would they buy Fry's Electronics to support the "gaming side", which I assume means sell PC build parts and components? There's no reason to buy that stuff in person when you can find exactly what you want online, which is exactly why Gamestop is a useless business. The same is true for collectables. None of those things need to exist in a brick and mortar store, and it's cheaper to sell it that way.
@@painfulsilence316 obviously you’ve never been to a micro center. In most cases it is cheaper to find on line, key word is FIND. Micro center has deals with a fair amount of graphic card manufacturers so they can usually source them where other online locations can’t. It one of the very few things that you see people standing in line for these days. The same can be said for collectibles, if it’s based off a hit IP, it’s going to be hard to find it online for the original price. Do you not remember that it took close to THREE YEARS for people to get the PS5 after launch? Mainly due to scalpers and bots. Your viewpoint on online retail is based SOLELY on the fact that the people selling the product HAVE it in their inventory and are not willing to price gouge you for the item because of how in demand it is. Then there’s the fact that with digital downloads from the publisher, have twice as much control over their refund policies versus you getting the physical copies from a third party. In most cases they make so hard to get a refund, most don’t even bother. Every path has a plus and a minus, it’s about weighing your options and risk to see which one is better.
That stuff sells mostly as an add on but isn’t what draws a person into a store. TBH, nothing would save GameStop unless they would have lucked out with an online platform. But, keep in mind that a lot of their customers hate this company. People don’t forget being ripped off on trade ins when they had very few other options.
@@kristianFL even though the collectibles are a great complementary source of income, they contribute to the bottom line nonetheless. Also, that could easily pivot to exclusive deals with various media companies for any major release. I still think GameStop could of been saved but like most companies that go bust, greedy incompetent individuals are the ones who have the last say.
Nothing could have saved it, put on life support but that's it
I feel like GameStop, was always destined to fail the same way blockbuster did. As much as people hate to admit it digital media is the future of entertainment as it cuts out the middle man completely and developers make the most profit, and in my personal opinion as sad as it is to see digital media is great for indie developers and the convenience is unmatched compared to having to drive to a store
But that opens another can of worms when it comes to actually owning your media vs your games being forever at risk of being removed for whatever reason.
@@pkkingcrimsonrequiem1332ever heard of Gog, my friend?
@@Nomad7222it's still online, and can be removed from download at any time
Didn't even scratch the surface of the 2005 to 2010 game library there were so many amazing games!
Once things began moving from physical to all digital I fell off. I don't think I've put more than an hour into actually sitting down to play a video game since 2018. But I basically stopped buying games after 2013
All games I got from games top were used besides black ops 2 which I pre-ordered. Pretty pointless to buy a disk game nowadays considering you need to download an extra 100gb of content anyways
Anyone else remember when every game had a little spot in the box for your memory card? Or the nice instruction manuals games used to come with…
Haven't seen that since the days of GameCube games.
@@SkylineFTW97 The Sega Genesis/Master System cases were the best imho, a nice sturdy hard plastic case with a satisfying click/crunch when you inserted the cart back and out of it.
Oh man, that’s throwback
I mean the memory card thing was just a requirement on old systems because the devs couldn’t be bothered to include a few megabytes built in storage for whatever reason. We’ve moved past needing that thankfully
The loss of manuals is sad; even if the internet is more practical, it was always fun to read them
Yes
I worked for Gamestop from 2007 to 2015 and this video is spot on in terms of facts.
Another thing too, the corporate structure of the company was/is a joke and they always treated employees in the retail stores like garbage.
I worked at GameStop and I witnessed first hand how bad the decisions being made were at the top of the corporate chain. Nothing they did ever made sense
I enjoyed gamestops. Going there and playing the test systems they had out, browsing games and sometimes even buying one, talking to other people you knew shared an interest with you. It was a social place for gamers. Slowly that died off and now it’s about getting in and out as fast as you can while trying to avoid the 200 upsales the employees are pushed to do by upper management.
I still enjoy going to them. It’s like visiting my childhood, but they’re not the same.
You did some serious homework here with considerable editing, well done, you can be proud of this essay, well done.
Really informative and well researched video. Took me down the memory hole of my own career in gaming and as a regular gamer through these years. Interestingly, I always looked down a bit on GS. I think my first experiences of getting scratched 2nd hand discs, then the time I bought a new title for $60 only to find it had obviously been played (maybe by an employee) soured me on the retail outlet. I bought all my games from Best Buy from 2005 - 2015 or so until I grew tired of them not unpacking the newest title. After that it was Amazon with frequent pre-order d discounts then fully online for the convenience.
Interesting footnote, I worked for almost 2 years with the future CRO of kongregate who must have been there during the GS buyout. Very nice guy.
Forgot about Game Informer. The subscription that came with new consoles felt like such a luxury in my late adolescent/early teen years.
That was a great magazine and a great memory. I would read and re-read those things constantly. read the previews and subsequent review of many iconic games in that publication. ‘San Andreas’ preview issue cover art anyone? Classic 😊
The last time I ever bought anything from GameStop (2016) first off, there were 2 copies of a certain game that I was looking for in stock at this GameStop location. I was curious to see whether or not the salesperson would choose to do the right thing and he did not. Originally, he tried selling me a copy that was in terrible condition. I mean, really scratched up. Literally, I have never spent another dime at GameStop because of this and I never will.
Overpriced
Used
Trash.
Out, GameStop.
Did you make this video to buy games as tax write-off?
😂
The call of duty midnight launches were so fun…… had I known I was living in a peak times I would’ve cherished it more.
I think the big factor that everyone is missing is...game prices have not coincided with inflation. Paying 60 bucks for a game 15 years ago was a big deal. You wanted to trade it in when youre done. Nowadays, 60 bucks for a new game is really a drop in the bucket when a big mac meal costs like 10 bucks so people are fine with spending it on digital download with no way to recoup
u can recoup on a digital download if u sell your console wiith the game downloaded on it lol and that isnt a reason to jsutify wasing plastic its kinda sick hoow 99.99 ercent of the gaming community is so selefish they wont give up plastic for the good of the plant
@@jasonanderson5034 Nonsense comment, if they want to be ecologically concerned they just need to make digital games cheaper, a digital game is 70-80€ a physical with way more men in the middle is 50-60€, blame those companies not gamers, stop being a company shill.
What is actually sick is you not understanding that although it's pretty clear where the problem lies, but I guess it's easier to blame gamers in a Redditor fashion other billion dollars companies
Everyone is missing it because it's nonsense, if there is an inflation then people are less likely to buy games, since everything is more expensive you cut on non essential things, there is an inflation but incomes haven't increased that much. You're acting like incomes went higher and followed the inflation. Seriously what's this reasoning ? It's like saying people would buy more [insert non necessary thing that hasn't been touched by inflation that much] now more than back then just because of proportionality, doesn't make sense at all, with your logic third words countries were inflation is crazy would buy more entertainment stuff than ever. During inflation you optimize the money you sent, it's not the other way around.
The only reason are :
1) Peoples are dumb, they may don't even know a console physical copy costs less, can be resold and take less disc space, the only market where it makes sense is on PC where games are cheaper and not tied to a single official store.
2) People are playing less games, sales are only higher because there are way more gamers than 10 or 20 years ago, the average gamer buy less but there are more gamers, we haven't stoped playing while now all kids are playing.
3) People play f2p like LoL/Valorant/PUBG/Fortnite more than ever and thus don't buy much games and don't care about those physical stores or the possibility of trading
4) People play FIFA/2K/Madden/COD/AC etc (most played game) which have a retail value of 2€ at the end of the year
What can they do outside of diversifying their company when ALL publishers are cutting the middlemen, though? Making their own games is the only viable solution to me, but capturing miliions by being a middleman is a completely different thing than being a creator. Valve seems to be the only one that is able to do this, too.
it feels like they were doomed to fail. their experience as videogame retailer just did not translate into a wider game industry expertise. they failed to see potential in streaming and made a mindboggling bet on kongregate, not sure they understood game industry all that well. in another world they would have used their cash to invest in streaming, esports, and, as you said, game development and publishing
@@othertriangle Gamestop would have never invested in any of those things and streaming didn't become profitable until very recently in the timeline. Esports was extremely niche and still is - it is only as big as it is today thanks to streaming. They would have never stepped foot into game dev because that is a whole other beast of an industry - amazon tried and failed at it - netflix is trying and will fail at it.
@@corail53You are right, Gamestop would have never done this, that's why I said "in another world", imagining possible scenarios. It's farfetched, but I think it's not impossible: after all, they bought Kongregate and Impulse, they showed SOME interest in game publishing and online content delivery. Not hard to imagine few more dubious decisions: sponsoring esport teams, buying game development studios
Valve did to online sales that GameStop did offline: fill a niche everyone was ignoring. If Gamestop was willing to to do a well made online marketplace at the same time as Valve they could've easily dominated. But the boat has sailed.
@@corail53you're usually always wrong when you say "never" notice how I said usually? Decent argument but that doesn't make you correct unless you can prove that you can see into other timelines.
GameStop made me homeless I hate them. They really messed my life up so bad like I need to sell my collection to stay in my home. I offered them 100,000 games & they only game me $4.62... ive lost all hope now its cold... its dark... im scared
I remember being in line for a Brink midnight lauch and in line later that same day to return it.
at 25:03 I like the Yakuza font on the pictures of the gamestop execs, nice touch
There was this GameStop that used to be next to a Subway in the same suite plaza. And everytime you would go in the GameStop, it would smell like Subway because the smell would creep through the vents. So everytime I smell Subway, I think of GameStop. 😂
It's nostalgic for me because it was back in middle school. (2008)
Pre pandemic GameStop actually had a good database for their older Gen 6 and 7 games. You could see online which stores had what and I could hunt for Wii games or even still trade in N64! Made me visit a lot of branches I normally wouldn’t before I found better thrift stores and goodwills.
The pandemic screwed them up royally because they tried to push shipping games from a warehouse and stopped keeping track of their in store inventory. Even current Gen games that aren’t New releases can be very difficult to find because the inventory is only the warehouse, not the store.
What little advantage they had with retro gamers completely evaporated, and now they are more focused on Pokémon cards and Funko pops
I used to frequent GameStop once a week. I think the day I stopped was when they announced that they would not be carrying PS2 games or earlier generation and eliminating them from their warehouses completely. I think they really missed the mark. I would go there to often look for classic retro gems. Console games are not as fun as they used to be. If Gamestop wanted to get the community together, get rid of most of their collectibles (which take up shelf space of stuff a very miniscule audience wants) and just run sponsored tournaments with winners getting store credit. Get people coming in and test their gaming skills while uniting the gaming community together with such a small cost. Use their pro membership or charge a small fee as a way to enter tournaments and recoup costs of doing that.
I’ve always wondered why they never bought GameFly up and went the direct to consumer route since they already have the physical stores to hold all the games
Gamestop had a no questions asked return policy for the used games within a week so why would anyone pay membership for something free. Gamestop kept hiring bad leaders who would pass on their bad habits to their employees making the work environment unbearable.
This channel is a gem!
I’ll never forget the wonderful time range we had when preorders meant you were getting a really cool physical piece of merch. It shifted to special DLC and then a lot of times pre ordering has no reward at all except possibly an amazingly buggy game for early adopters. For me the weird exclusive bonuses always had me asking what’s coming out next and risking preordering games I knew nothing about it it was a publisher I trusted. It’s still so sad to me that I live in a huge city and all of the remaining convenient gamestops closed. The closest one now is a 3 hour bus commute round trip.
Amen. Give me a dumb trinket! When Pokemon started giving you pokeballs for preorders I stopped
Dude, every one of your videos thoroughly slaps. Great work.
Gamestop really should to into the retro market. It's already known as a place to sneakily get deals. I know my local shop even has a single shelf dedicated to older games. It's usually only wii u, eii, 3ds and the like, but still they're usually pretty low. I think given their reach, it'd be a profitable point if done right.
It's too niche for a national chain to ever truly profit from. Retro gaming stuff is more for a local or regional chain
I'm guessing that market requires more training, expertise and subject knowledge than the min-wage workers they're willing to hire.
@@ausaskar their loss
Y’all are delusional if you think the nft marketplace from GameStop is worth anything. It’s dead. It’s only worth the initial release, capitalizing on hype, greed from day traders, coping crypto bros. There’s absolutely no long term success. (Coming from a crypto/stock trader hence the name)
GameStops most valuable thing for me is used games, trading in games, and there pro rewards membership, as it gives a $5 coupon every month. And if there’s not something you want to buy you can use it on gift cards for later.
It still depresses me to think about Gamestop. During the Summer of 2020, I saw how low their stock was and nearly put $2000 into it. I figured that it was so low that if they somehow made a comeback, I could make bank on it. Worst case, I lose $2000. Decided against it just because employment wasn't guaranteed at the time. I could have made hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling that stock during the short squeeze. I'm a broke 27 year old so it would've been huge to make that kind of money lol
I know that you can't kick yourself for missing out on huge investment payoffs but this Gamestop stock scenario just hurts to think about because I had everything selected in the app and just had to click confirm 😢
Could be worse. If you think about all those that bought at $100+ and look at it now.
That's the name of the game... Just like someone who lost $10 in a slot machine could have gone to the next one and possibly made $30,000.
My biggest turn off was when I went to get Skyrim for Xbox one. They still had at full $60, then I went across the street to Walmart who had it for $30
Now GameWare is where my business goes because I can find old games too. I’m a big fan of finding old classics that I missed as a kid
This is a fantastic, and fascinating video!GameStop will be missed by those of us who were around in it's heyday. Much like Blockbuster. They had their issues for sure, but it was always a fun experience compared to now. I held out quite some time in physical releases. Only recently buying mostly digital. Sony, Microsoft, and other big publishers have been trying to get rid of game stop for years as they only make money on the initial purchase. I give you, Greed & Capitalism. 😂😢
Going to blockbuster pizzhut/Domino's and GameStop on a Friday night brings about a bittersweet nostalgia for me. Miss those times
@@rushpatriot2866 yes sir. Me 2.
GameStop isn't going anywhere. They have no debt and 1.2 billion in the bank
Before Gamestop we had 3 video game stores at my local mall. They all got bought out by Gamestop. Trade in value dropped and used prices went up as there was no more competition. One thing I forget is if Gamestop ever carried PC titles. If they did it certainly wasn't to the extent that the guys they bought out did.
It wasn't all bad though. For new stuff Gamestop was great and Game Informer was a nice magazine. I also used to buy PSN cards there as I didnt trust Sony with my payment info after that big hack.
Great video, and well researched! I disagree with your tone that GameStop appear to be doomed for failure. The video game industry has grown to more than just digital assets and properties, though that's obviously the majority of it. There will always be gaming related physical merchandise to sell and so long as that is the case, GameStop will have a bright future.
Having worked for major vid game publisher 8 years and worked closely within the relationship of this company in handling retail finance matters, I can say this is a brilliantly surmised video!
Except for the present day/future tone which I will say is outright incorrect, they are still very much a core-retail business and they know it and will invest more in retail, and they will not transfer into primary digital as your video suggests.
GameStop short squeeze fiasco on the stock market shows a massively passionate culture aware that they need to help otherwise digital direct sales will render Video Games absent as a speciality store in retail sector. They were/are not short-squeezing wanting Gamestop to become digital!
GameStop KNOW their company value is in being the only (in many countries) specialised retail venue for the biggest entertainment industry in the world. They have a place in the future, just like bookstores do in spite of the challenges they face from Amazon, and e-books etc. Video Game shops are NOT the video stores of the eighties; they are different and can stand alone in a digital future where video stores could not.
An example; in Australia (a smaller market) Gamestop operate as EB Games (as they do in UK) and they have about 310 stores nationally (which is impressive). They also own/operate collectible reatil stores (name Zing). 117 of the 310 stores are actually dual branded, physically, commercially it is one store (one lease, one set of employees etc). Literally split in half down the middle of the shop space; one half of the store is EB Games, the other half is Zing. But where the evidence of a confident and successful current day retail existence is revealed is in the presence of 46 Zing only stores, all placed in the same shopping centre and usually the shop immediately next to EB Games or extremely close. These 46 stores could easily adopt the split store retail branding strategy of the 117 dual branded stores but instead the GameStop / EB Games management decide to sign additional leases, pay additional rent, invest more in shop fitout upfront costs and need to employ separate staff.
This example above (albeit a small one) says the complete opposite to the video's ending tone and suggestive narrative about Gamestop going digital and gloom for retail future success. But your actual video explains why better than this example; gamers want their game store to survive, they do not want to lose their passion to the bigger department stores which wont represent their passion as well as a independent store does.
If every failing retail store type had fans this passionate they would not fail!!
@@jaadotech Damn I learnt more from this comment alone than the entire video
I can remember when I first stepped into GameStop like it was yesterday. I was also one of the ones that said that I couldn't do digital copies of anything but after receiving a PS5 digital a gift i see why GameStop is failing. Is responsible for a lot of fond memories of me and friends gaming all weekend but all things must come to an end one day. My suggestion would be that the start hosting or sponsoring tournaments because it's a no brainier butni highly doubt they'll do it.
In my hometown growing up, they had THREE gamestops. It was awesome because if one store didn't have what you were looking for, you still had two other options. I was sad to see when I went back last year two of the three were closed and the last one was basically just a funkopop/digital download card dealer.
game stores should die .. why do u think wasting plastic is even morally ok when u have digital copies like really get your morals straight how can the entire gaming community just support wasting plastic ...its nuts your worse then rednecks vs hybrids
@@jasonanderson5034 womp womp
Gamestop was great when pre-owned games were half the price of new games. However, having just $5 off these days is ridiculous. As a formor employee of gamestop, it became harder and harder to justify my alliance or shady buisness practices that the worker is of course blamed for rather than the company as a whole. I say let it go, your time has past and it was fun while it lasted but ultimately have become the villain.
For newer games you may as well just get a new copy for Al the dlc and deluxe edition add-ons. But games 5 years old or older are dirt cheap used. The other day I got Battlefront 2 for $2 and God of War for $8.
If I was GameStop at the time I would have made major investments to also become a publisher. Specifically investing in cost-efficient indie games that were on the rise at the time and maybe localization of overseas games. Operate a like a Limited Run games. In addition to investing to be a competitor to Steam as well as a combination of social integrations of other console platforms.
Honestly I’d really love to see GameStop go for the retro market more. They sell retro games online but it’s really hit or miss if you can actually find those games in a physical store and see the condition of the game.
I remember how about 3 years after the ps4 launch, they Gamestop had a huge sale to get rid of old ps3 and 360 games and you couldnt get them pre used anymore
I didn't even know Gamestop sell NFTs. Are NFTs still a thing? Is there a single person today thinking "I should buy some NFTs"?
Very few tbh, mostly seen shameful for owning one that you hesitate to buy one
GameStop built an NFT marketplace with the intention of having a platform to onboard gaming studios developing games on a Blockchain.
Meaning in-game items will be traded, bought and sold as NFTs, giving the players real ownership of their in-game items/skins. That's the goal with Web3 gaming, to kill the predatory micro-transactions by creating real world value for the items/skins you buy. Items/skins you can re-sell on the marketplace when you get bored of a game and recoup the money you spent.
But the NFT marketplace is still in beta and will probably remain in beta until studios actually start releasing good quality games that people wanna play because they're fun. Ideally they wouldn't even know that they're trading NFTs, just that the $1.000 they spent on Fortnite skins wasn't a 100% waste of money, in tangible terms.
NFT could be anything. Could be a game. Imagine you have an NFT that represents a game you download when you want to trade or sell that game you trade or sell the NFT then another person has the game on their console or pc.
Physical will always better than Digital.
It's a bummer to see retail go, it's being done on purpose, all transactions and currency will be digital soon i'm afraid. Gamestop as a company i won't miss, i liked the days before Gamestop bought up EB Games and the trade in values were good. Once Gamestop took over they really started to rip people off on trade ins. Looking back i wish i kept everything i ever traded. But at least EB gave you a fair shake.
EB games era was peak gaming. miss those days
I just go to Retro Game Trader because GameStop doesn’t have what I’m looking for about 90% of the time. Probably because they’re using all their space for toys and funko pops. GameStop needs to remember they’re a game store and not a ToysRUs.
When I started walking into GameStops and seeing half of them being toy stores, I just said forget it. Started ordering from Amazon and never looked back.
Just a bad acquisition after another..... game stop could just buy a gaming studio and start making their own games.
They still would have failed at that because they would have run it like they did the stores. Running a game dev company is a whole different beast then running retail and they sucked at that.
Their entire business model revolved around reselling physical media. When media went digital, suddenly they no longer had anything to sell. Pivoting to a game merchandise style operation would have worked but theyd need to reduce themselves down to a single store per city to make such a thing profitable
Gamestop used to be a wonderland of games in my tweens-teens. Like, going there was an exciting event. Even if I wasn’t buying anything, I loved looking through the selections of current and older titles. I walked into one in early 2022 and calling it a shell would be generous. It was all bargain-bin games and Funko Pops and I am not kidding.
Funko pops are good tho. 😢
@@victoruchiha4550ew
@@victoruchiha4550no they aren't. I have maybe 20 and they are all unique. Many Funko pops are boring and super basic.b
@@victoruchiha4550explain to me why I should spend $20 to $60 on a plastic figure that
1) will never rise in value
2) is ugly as hell
And 3) brings me basically no joy
I remember when a dude got jumped over a Xbox one console and GameStop employee’s pretended they didn’t see it until someone called for help. By the time they got there they ran off with his console. Dude had to pay for a whole new one. Dudes got into a huge brawl outside of gamestop over the last PS4 which lead to police getting involved to breaking it up.
We have two stores in my city. A couple years ago the north store was robbed by two guys with hammers. They assaulted the only employee and cracked his skull. Imagine being nearly murdered and bleeding out at your shitty GameStop job when you just wanted to lock up and go home
It's crazy they were counting on that "Buy Sell Trade" model to work forever 😭😭😭 That's like everyone's main complaint about Gamestop. Them ripping gamers off has been a meme for a long time
Yeah i shouldn’t have sold my games last week every day it hurts more i should have just saved up for Pikmin 4 my game collection wont be the same ever again and i can say that 21$ wasn’t worth it for the memories
^This is Primms......Hes a all star^
The trade in concept was always weird to me. I mostly played/ got games that I knew I wanted to keep
When I was younger, I would trade games basically because I was scrapping money. But as an adult, the trade in value isn’t worth it & I literally only traded in games I straight up didn’t like
I’ve always been an owner, not a renter, not a sharer. I didn’t like to co-own games with my brother. I’d always buy my own copy and I’ve kept all but two games. With the trade-in value offered by GameStop you may as well keep them. Even if you only go back and play it once or twice a year, that’s a better value than what they’ll give you. Hell, even if you never play it…just holding that physical game in your hands and remembering how much you loved it as a kid/teen is worth more than $5 store credit.
As an adult I’ve given away games to friends. I’d rather give it to someone who will enjoy it than take 10% of what I paid less than a year ago.
I know I'm the asshole here, but I need to defend the GameStop trade in shit. It's not a rip off. They offer you a price, you agree to it or you don't. It's completely transparent. Whether you like the value or not is on you.
I used to work there back in the day, and folks would get pissed off that Madden 2002 was only .05 trade in and 2003 was $50. You wanna know why? Cuz as soon as the new thing comes out, everyone sells the old one and buys the new thing.
We had a cage in the back where we keep all the overstock...and there were mountains of shrink wrapped bricks of all the previous sports titles years.
No one ever bought the older sports titles once the next year's thing came in. They weren't worth the plastic box they came in.
Before game stop, no one would buy your crap because it wasn't worth anything. At least you got something at GameStop .
Im not saying it was perfect, but God damn...people are just so frigging entitled. Real life isn't a video game. You can't walk into any store and just sell all your junk to any vendor like it was Skyrim. Not every business is a pawn shop
You can't sell your clothes at the gun store and you can't sell your games to a grocer. You buy things. Jeeze.
GameStop has been falling for years. Once digital gaming became a thing. Plus when you treat your employees like crap and make them focus on sales and numbers over customer service and the games themselves they were doomed to eventually fail.
Seeing the raving rabbids games for the Wii on the shelves of Walmart/GameStop is so nostalgic to me for absolutely no reason, I didn’t even play them lmao.
Their business model relied on games being worth playing
And then there's the continued mismanagement for so many of the stores, the wrongly fired people because the management is having a bad day, the theft and lies by the higher ups, the apathy of management, and the unattainable goals set for employees.
We done this to ourselves gamers….
I remember always watching the long midnight line of ppl at GameStop waiting to play the game when it came out, then walk next door into the 24/7 Walmart and bought the game no preorder and without having to wait 2 hours
Greed killed the store
GameStop broke my heart . I once loved that store but they don't care about us gamers
GameStop’s stock thing was solely a product of people being terminally online and paired perfectly with $1,200 stimulus checks.
The whales made a bunch of money off of ‘HODLers’ and rubes who thought they could be retail investors.
You kids all got played
Amazing video! Definitely deserve way more subs
I remember when independent videogames stores were common. It sucks that game stop bought everyone out so we only had one crappy expensive brand
I only remember games being sold at a handful of large chains. GameStop, EB Games, Best Buy, FYE, etc.
There were probably more, but I was a kid during the 2000s, so I wasn't exactly able to shop around by myself.
There was a pretty good local chain here called "MicroPlay" that had 3 stores in my city (Winnipeg). used to like shopping there between 1994-1999 ish.
@@SkylineFTW97 In the 2000s, even Walmart and Target were selling games. They had 2-3 aisles back then in both stores dedicated to video games, with consoles hooked up for people to play, usually on a screen that was straight up and would result in a 6 year old with a sore neck.
@@PURENT The GameStop I went to was at a local mall that had a target 2 stores down from the GameStop and a Best Buy a few blocks away. Both still sell games. There was also another store called For Your Entertainment (FYE) that sold games. I'm pretty sure it no longer exists. And we also had one of GameStop's old competitors, EB Games. The last 2 went out of business between me starting middle and high school (2008-2011).
@@SkylineFTW97 Sounds like the mall I used to go to back when I lived in Michigan. 😂
Good video! I stopped playing console games around 2010. I only play PC games since then and get almost all of my games on Steam. Used to get all my console games and consoles at GameStop in the 2000s
I could go on and on about the fall of GameStop. I worked there from 08-12 during the “golden era”. When you allow employees to take home a new game to try out that’s not a bad thing, but then turning around and selling those same copies to customers as “new” that were obviously already played and no longer sealed. Then the absurd trade in value (if you want to call it that) that they would give you for games and consoles. Then don’t get me started on how they treated us employees. Low wages, and wanted us to focus on numbers rather than customer service. Most of the head honchos knew nothing about gaming. Then they would hold a conference each year in Vegas (which is cool) but then only the main Store manager was able to attend (which is understandable) but they would then give the store managers tons of free games/collectibles/swag to go home with while us grunts made peanuts and we’re treated like crap. We weren’t even able to take home any extras that were to be thrown away instead. Not trying to have a pity party but it just shows why they are dying. Treat all your employees like they matter and mean something and it’s not just a dead end mindless job. Gaming is about fun, passion, and community. GameStop lost all of that over years to focus on “business”.