Is Gamestop on borrowed time?

[The Crypto Guy]

It's about time. Best Buy earned my money with their Gamer's Club program, so I've been a BB loyalist for years and haven't looked back. I've been against game stores like GameStop ever since I worked there back in high school. The writing has been on the wall for years that they were going to fail, and they never did anything past bringing in annoying merch to try and combat the changing times. I won't miss them, that's for damn sure.

Jesus people still go to Best Buy too? I called Gamestop a dirty, unorganized dump but BB takes the cake on that title.

 

[Papa Francouz]

Jesus people still go to Best Buy too? I called Gamestop a dirty, unorganized dump but BB takes the cake on that title.

Only for the 20% every game I buy deal. Once that runs out for me, I’ll probably just buy everything physical off of Amazon. As for comparing BB and GS in cleanliness, my local GS makes my local BB look like the pinnacle of sterilization. Not sure how it is where you are, but where I’m at the GS is miles grosser than the BB.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Only for the 20% every game I buy deal. Once that runs out for me, I’ll probably just buy everything physical off of Amazon. As for comparing BB and GS in cleanliness, my local GS makes my local BB look like the pinnacle of sterilization. Not sure how it is where you are, but where I’m at the GS is miles grosser than the BB.

Ohh 20% off makes sense. I love when Amazon did that for a few years if you were a prime member. All the BBs in my area are literally dumps with the WORST employees haha.

 

[PullHard]

I support the smaller mom & pop retro game stores, I find EB Games to be devoid of life

It is all toys and kiddy merch (junk) for the most part

The staff are in pure desperation sales mode all the time too because of corporate pressure to upsell and rank highly within the district, etc.

There are a lot of testimonials from former employees about how poorly Gamestop/ EB Games are run

Back when it was just Electronic Boutique they were really cool IMO, I was also more age appropriate for enjoying that sort of store but they seemed to be more genuine - now it is pure corporate nonsense with trade-ins, funkos, etc.

I collect physical games and consoles so the digital route is basically a non-starter for me. I own a couple of digital games on my 3DS and Wii just for ease but right now I am buying all of my Switch stuff physically for example

 

[Papa Francouz]

Ohh 20% off makes sense. I love when Amazon did that for a few years if you were a prime member. All the BBs in my area are literally dumps with the WORST employees haha.

They discontinued the 20% off, so as soon as my 2-year (or I guess now 1-year) membership wears off I'll be saying so long to BB. I wonder why Amazon stopped doing their 20% off deal because that drove me to their storefront over every other competitor. Now I primarily use Amazon for games if my local BB is out of stock or if I'm looking for an older game in mint condition.

 

[chicagoskycam]

Every Best Buy I have ever been to has been clean and well organized. Gamestop is a little cluttered but they are in such small retail spaces in strip malls.

 

[Commander Clueless]

They discontinued the 20% off, so as soon as my 2-year (or I guess now 1-year) membership wears off I'll be saying so long to BB. I wonder why Amazon stopped doing their 20% off deal because that drove me to their storefront over every other competitor. Now I primarily use Amazon for games if my local BB is out of stock or if I'm looking for an older game in mint condition.

Amazon Prime was my go to on new games for quite some time with that 20% off feature. It must not have been profitable...

I got into a pretty good system of buying Prime on new console games for 20% off, and then trading them into EB Games for Steam credit.

For awhile there, if I could beat a game within 3 weeks, there was a $50 Steam card with my name on it on EB's shelves.

 

[David Dennison]

There is a mall near me that for the longest time had an EB Games and GameStop 100 ft from each other, plus another GameStop in a strip mall within the same retail shopping area. One of the two closed down maybe a decade after they companies merged, but it made absolutely no sense.

 

[MayDay]

A brand name Gamestop decided to keep in Canada.

Ah, that would explain it. I haven’t seen an EB Games in decades.

Actually, back when they were still around and I went there, they were still called Electronics Boutique.

 

[Oogie Boogie]

There's a little shop near me called Lost Ark that I love going to. I try to support the smaller business when I can.

 

[Tweed]

I love this guy's channel. He covered GameStop yesterday.

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

GameStop sucks. I don’t know why anyone goes there.

 

[guinness]

I'm holding onto physical media as long as I can, because I prefer actually owning the things that I buy.

If you can't re-sell something, you don't really own it.

Yes. See Google Stadia, and how Google shuts down services after a couple years. There still could be that instance, that a game has connection to a server that goes offline, but that's the shitty thing about modern game companies.

That, and new physical games (not Nintendo) seem to go on sale a lot. If you're at least patient, that $60 game will be $40-50 in a little while, and I still have my BB gamers club discount through January, although the number of new games that I want is zero, but I guess that's saving me money.

The last time I was in Gamestop, was to buy a couple Funkos and get a Fallout 4 DLC promo poster. Their game selection is fine, but prices too high, relative to other options.

 

[MayDay]

Yes. See Google Stadia, and how Google shuts down services after a couple years. There still could be that instance, that a game has connection to a server that goes offline, but that's the ****ty thing about modern game companies.

That, and new physical games (not Nintendo) seem to go on sale a lot. If you're at least patient, that $60 game will be $40-50 in a little while, and I still have my BB gamers club discount through January, although the number of new games that I want is zero, but I guess that's saving me money.

The last time I was in Gamestop, was to buy a couple Funkos and get a Fallout 4 DLC promo poster. Their game selection is fine, but prices too high, relative to other options.

It's not just a remote possibility, it's an inevitability. In fact it's already happened with any number of digital services. E-books, movies, etc.

When you "buy" a digital item, you are only really buying access to that thing for a limited time, until the company goes under, gets bought out, or loses interest and decides to end the service.

When I buy physical media (whether a book, a CD, or a game on physical media) I can continue to enjoy that thing for decades if I want, regardless of what the company that made and sold it does. I truly own that item. I am free to do what I want with it - keep it, sell it, give it away if I want - that I cannot do with digital goods.

Digital is a way that companies try to have it both ways. They want to sell you things without letting you actually buy them.

 

[Unholy Diver]

I don't really get the animosity for one store over another, I will buy something generally wherever I see it cheapest, be it Gamestop, Best Buy, Amazon, or wherever. I'd hate to see gamestop go just because that will mean a lot less places to get games.

As for the digital vs physical debate, I think a lot of people underestimate how many people don't have access to good high-speed internet, The US is huge, and so is Canada, and there are a lot of rural areas where Dl'ing a big game ( and they keep getting bigger) could take you several days or even longer.

As for me, I just like having them on the bookshelf to look at and ponder over which one I will tackle next

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Also completely cutting out the PC games shelving space didn't help either.

I remember the PC shelf at EB back in the day and buying stuff like Postal 2, GTA III, “Mafia”, and the original “Call of Duty” all for the PC from there.

 

[RandV]

I remember the PC shelf at EB back in the day and buying stuff like Postal 2, GTA III, “Mafia”, and the original “Call of Duty” all for the PC from there.

My best find was a Fallout 1 and 2, just the CD and case, for $2.

 

[RandV]

As for the digital vs physical debate, I think a lot of people underestimate how many people don't have access to good high-speed internet, The US is huge, and so is Canada, and there are a lot of rural areas where Dl'ing a big game ( and they keep getting bigger) could take you several days or even longer.

I would think if someone's in a rural area with low bandwidth they probably don't have access to a Gamestop? In which case they're probably better served by Amazon or the like.

I agree in a sense though, on one hand I while game devs would love to go fully digital they're still tied down to some extent to physical retailers. They'll know exactly how much money is coming to them from these outlets, and probably won't be ready to 'cut the cord' for a while yet, so I'm not sure if the market is really ready for their biggest retailer (?) to go under just yet.

For the physical vs digital debate though both sides have their pro's and con's, but I think the idea that with physical you own it and it's always yours but with digital they can just take it away' is a bit disingenuous. Physical copies are not indestructable, you're house could get robbed/burned down/flooded, you can lose them, they can break down or decay, etc etc. Digital can be harder to pin down because there's a variety of different services, but the biggest threat is you back the wrong service and they later shut down their servers. But in general digital can be far more secure than owning a physical copy, like it would probably take WWIII to knock out Microsoft/Google/Amazon's cloud services.

 

[FrozenJagrt]

I would think if someone's in a rural area with low bandwidth they probably don't have access to a Gamestop? In which case they're probably better served by Amazon or the like.

I agree in a sense though, on one hand I while game devs would love to go fully digital they're still tied down to some extent to physical retailers. They'll know exactly how much money is coming to them from these outlets, and probably won't be ready to 'cut the cord' for a while yet, so I'm not sure if the market is really ready for their biggest retailer (?) to go under just yet.

For the physical vs digital debate though both sides have their pro's and con's, but I think the idea that with physical you own it and it's always yours but with digital they can just take it away' is a bit disingenuous. Physical copies are not indestructable, you're house could get robbed/burned down/flooded, you can lose them, they can break down or decay, etc etc. Digital can be harder to pin down because there's a variety of different services, but the biggest threat is you back the wrong service and they later shut down their servers. But in general digital can be far more secure than owning a physical copy, like it would probably take WWIII to knock out Microsoft/Google/Amazon's cloud services.

Google's cloud service literally went down a few days ago.

 

[RandV]

Google's cloud service literally went down a few days ago.

I'm not talking about a temporary outage, I'm talking about losing your stuff for good.

 

[Warden of the North]

And, while I believe it isn't a real issue yet, you always run the risk of completely losing access to games you bought if they get de-listed or if the servers for a online game are taken down.

All digital is very convenient but there is a price to pay. So far it had mostly been acceptable but the more publishers realize how much they can get away with, the more they will try to.

If youre console is connected to the internet the console manufacturer can block access to your physical copies too. They'll just block the system from being able to play the disk.

It hasnt happened yet to my knowledge but the ability is there.

 

[Supermassive]

I'm not talking about a temporary outage, I'm talking about losing your stuff for good.

Which is exactly what killed iPhone gaming for me. Pay for an app, watch the developer support stop when iOS is updated, and poof your game is gone. Thankfully Microsoft and Sony are firmly entrenched.

 

[Saskatoon]

Which is exactly what killed iPhone gaming for me. Pay for an app, watch the developer support stop when iOS is updated, and poof your game is gone. Thankfully Microsoft and Sony are firmly entrenched.

I'm mostly a PC and Android guy but my experience with Apple over the weekend really scared me for the future. We have an old iPad mini that Grandma bought for our daughter a long time ago that our niece got permanently locked down by repeatedly entering the wrong password - annoying but not that big of deal. It says connect to iTunes so I downloaded iTunes since who uses that anymore? I go to log into my account on iTunes and it wants to do some two-step verification BS which is fine I guess but our only other Apple device is my daughters iPhone 7. Should be fine but after many tries no verification code was sent. So I go to log onto Apple support and it wants to do the two-step verification process again to access support and mysteriously this does work this time. Spend an hour or two with them and they determine the iPad has to be erased - I don't really care but I could see how that would piss someone else off. Go through another hour process that felt like we were summoning an eldrtich demon to get the ipad into recovery mode. But then in recovery mode it still couldn't restore the iPad. The support rep hopes restarting my computer will fix the issue and tells me to do that before sending me on my way (it was online chat). I restart and thankfully that works; the ipad is restored to factory.

You would think that would be the end of my misery but you would be sorely mistaken. You have to add you Apple Id to the device which knowing the login and password you figure it would be no big deal. But alas, they want you to enter a password from another Apple product you own. My daughter is a bit of a snob and despite my best efforts to keep her off the Apple stream(i.e not personally buying her any Apple products) she has managed to get herself exclusively Apple products and has owned a few over the years. She had just swapped her iPhone 6 and some cash for an iPhone 7. But the devices it said it would accept a password from she doesn't have anymore. Also was strange that it had to be a 6 digit pin - it would not accept a 4 digit pin which my daughter was pretty sure she only used 4 digit pins. So ok I say I don't know any of these passwords and then it wants to do the two-step verification again; and like the first time it would not send one to the other Apple product we actually had in our possession despite repeated attempts. It also says I can approve the device in iCloud which again needed two step-verification for access but for some reason that decides to work to give me access to iCloud but doesn't actually let me approve the device.

At this point it was personal. I didn't need the old iPad all that badly but I had already invested so much time into fixing it. I was about ready to drive down to nearest Apple store (which even isn't in the same province as me) and fling the damn thing at the store managers face when I realized I can just create a new Apple Id. So I do this - no two step verification needed and the device works fine

The final plot twist - I go to download my first app on a brand new Apple ID and it says my Apple ID is the old one and it asks for the password from the old Apple Id that it wouldn't even let me use.
The next morning I was getting my daughter's iMessages confirming that it made me sign up for a new Apple ID for absolutely no reason

But anyways morale of the story how difficult it was to access a product that I legitimately own and know the password to the account has me scared stuff like this becoming more regular. I also wonder what the point of it all was - like even if it was stolen I could still restore it and just create a new Apple Id. Also I am fairly tech savvy and can't imagine how much worse that experience would been for someone else. Imagine buying a new PC, PlayStation, Xbox, or Switch and having it be a brick because some multi-step verification didn't work properly-

 

[PK Cronin]

I'm mostly a PC and Android guy but my experience with Apple over the weekend really scared me for the future. We have an old iPad mini that Grandma bought for our daughter a long time ago that our niece got permanently locked down by repeatedly entering the wrong password - annoying but not that big of deal. It says connect to iTunes so I downloaded iTunes since who uses that anymore? I go to log into my account on iTunes and it wants to do some two-step verification BS which is fine I guess but our only other Apple device is my daughters iPhone 7. Should be fine but after many tries no verification code was sent. So I go to log onto Apple support and it wants to do the two-step verification process again to access support and mysteriously this does work this time. Spend an hour or two with them and they determine the iPad has to be erased - I don't really care but I could see how that would piss someone else off. Go through another hour process that felt like we were summoning an eldrtich demon to get the ipad into recovery mode. But then in recovery mode it still couldn't restore the iPad. The support rep hopes restarting my computer will fix the issue and tells me to do that before sending me on my way (it was online chat). I restart and thankfully that works; the ipad is restored to factory.

You would think that would be the end of my misery but you would be sorely mistaken. You have to add you Apple Id to the device which knowing the login and password you figure it would be no big deal. But alas, they want you to enter a password from another Apple product you own. My daughter is a bit of a snob and despite my best efforts to keep her off the Apple stream(i.e not personally buying her any Apple products) she has managed to get herself exclusively Apple products and has owned a few over the years. She had just swapped her iPhone 6 and some cash for an iPhone 7. But the devices it said it would accept a password from she doesn't have anymore. Also was strange that it had to be a 6 digit pin - it would not accept a 4 digit pin which my daughter was pretty sure she only used 4 digit pins. So ok I say I don't know any of these passwords and then it wants to do the two-step verification again; and like the first time it would not send one to the other Apple product we actually had in our possession despite repeated attempts. It also says I can approve the device in iCloud which again needed two step-verification for access but for some reason that decides to work to give me access to iCloud but doesn't actually let me approve the device.

At this point it was personal. I didn't need the old iPad all that badly but I had already invested so much time into fixing it. I was about ready to drive down to nearest Apple store (which even isn't in the same province as me) and fling the damn thing at the store managers face when I realized I can just create a new Apple Id. So I do this - no two step verification needed and the device works fine

The final plot twist - I go to download my first app on a brand new Apple ID and it says my Apple ID is the old one and it asks for the password from the old Apple Id that it wouldn't even let me use.
The next morning I was getting my daughter's iMessages confirming that it made me sign up for a new Apple ID for absolutely no reason

But anyways morale of the story how difficult it was to access a product that I legitimately own and know the password to the account has me scared stuff like this becoming more regular. I also wonder what the point of it all was - like even if it was stolen I could still restore it and just create a new Apple Id. Also I am fairly tech savvy and can't imagine how much worse that experience would been for someone else. Imagine buying a new PC, PlayStation, Xbox, or Switch and having it be a brick because some multi-step verification didn't work properly-

Apple is the absolute worst with that stuff. They tout it as a safety feature, but in reality it's just a pain to do the simplest of tasks. I do a bit of troubleshooting with the public at my job and if they have an issue with an Apple product it's nearly impossible to help them because of all the hoops you have to jump through. It blows my mind that people pay their prices for the inconvenience of it all.

 

[chicagoskycam]

I'm not talking about a temporary outage, I'm talking about losing your stuff for good.

You're talking about something that has never actually happened but as previously posted; these consoles verify and install discs most of the time anyway. It's no different in that aspect.

The much higher probability is that you damage your disc or the consoles disc reader will fail.