3 ms·

I'm not into the gaming community but I suspect there's a big contigent in the pre-teen/teen age range. GameStop could pivot into a local gaming/community plac

by giarc 6y ago

I'm not into the gaming community but I suspect there's a big contigent in the pre-teen/teen age range. GameStop could pivot into a local gaming/community place safe for pre-teens and teens that is semi-supervised. Parents could feel more comfortable knowing their kid is hanging out at a place where there is at least one adult to make sure they aren't doing bad things.

decafninja 6y ago
That sounds like the LAN Cafes (AKA "PC Bangs" in Korean) of old. They were at their peak pre-broadband, but as far as I can tell, have long since fallen out of favor. Every now and then I see a new one pop up - usually focused more on consoles rather than PC games, but they seem to inevitably go out of business.
- cyberlurker 6y ago
  As of a few years ago, they are still popular in Korea. They do well in metropolitan areas with small apartments where a gaming PC, desk, and chair might not fit comfortably.
  - decafninja 6y ago
    Even in Korea, they are way past prime though. I recall up to the early to mid 2000s you could literally find multiple PC Bangs in the same building (on different floors, etc.). Nowadays I'd say you'd be lucky to find one per block/neighborhood, if even that. And those that are still around seem much more sparsely populated.
    - desuq 6y ago
      Not sure if it's too late to reply, but as a person living in Korea now, I can turn around from the cafe I'm in and see multiple PC Bangs. Visiting one recently, my observation is still quite packed on the weekend, haven't experienced a weekday. This is in a place outside Seoul and slightly near a popular downtown area. Just felt motivated to provide an opposite perspective based on real experience.
      - giarc 6y ago
        Thanks for the perspective. I wonder if there is an opportunity for these places to service office workers during the day, and gamers on weeknight/weekends? More and more people have the option to work from home, but may want a quiet office nearer their home. They could drop into these cafes for a few hours to get work done. Then come 5pm the place turns into a gaming cafe.
throwanem 6y ago
> I'm not into the gaming community but I suspect there's a big contigent in the pre-teen/teen age range Neither am I, but based on strong anecdotal evidence from every trip I've made to Micro Center in the last couple of years, I suspect your suspicion is accurate. Especially when I did a custom PC build a couple years back, and had to visit the support department due to my motherboard needing a firmware update to run with the CPU I'd picked - I found myself all but constantly tripping over infants in Fortnite T-shirts who, I assume, had talked their parents into spending thousands of dollars on top-tier gaming rigs with the argument that it would help them develop a marketable skill. Good on them, I say; at a similar age, I did much the same. (Athlon 600 and a Voodoo3 3000! Back when Alienware was still an upstart doing white-box builds...) But, yes, all of that's to say that I think you're absolutely right, and GameStop would be very well advised to pivot in a similar direction to what you describe. They'd need to poach some expertise from Micro Center, which would probably be expensive, and while I suspect they'd get good bulk pricing on components, there'd still be significant capex there too. But there are a lot of places in the US where GameStop is and Micro Center isn't. Granted, I think the days of the Internet café are over for good in the US, so as a hangout hub I don't see it working. But as a place to go to get custom gaming builds plus support, peripherals, and upsells for same, I think there's real potential there, especially if you're also selling all the consoles and appurtenances thereunto. And most especially if doing all this puts you in the right place to be on the leading edge of the consumer VR boom, when that finally comes...
whymauri 6y ago
Pre-teen and teen gaming is currently dominated by the Minecraft and Roblox brands (more than Fortnite, even!). I'm not sure how GameStop can form strategic partnership with those parties, but I would be targeting that aggressively. The reality is gaming is moving into an interesting extra-social space (complementing social spaces like TikTok), where a lot of the kids I know use these games as a core means of socializing. This is especially true after the pandemic lockdown.

by giarc 6y ago

decafninja 6y ago

That sounds like the LAN Cafes (AKA "PC Bangs" in Korean) of old. They were at their peak pre-broadband, but as far as I can tell, have long since fallen out of favor. Every now and then I see a new one pop up - usually focused more on consoles rather than PC games, but they seem to inevitably go out of business.

cyberlurker 6y ago
As of a few years ago, they are still popular in Korea. They do well in metropolitan areas with small apartments where a gaming PC, desk, and chair might not fit comfortably.
- decafninja 6y ago
  Even in Korea, they are way past prime though. I recall up to the early to mid 2000s you could literally find multiple PC Bangs in the same building (on different floors, etc.). Nowadays I'd say you'd be lucky to find one per block/neighborhood, if even that. And those that are still around seem much more sparsely populated.
  - desuq 6y ago
    Not sure if it's too late to reply, but as a person living in Korea now, I can turn around from the cafe I'm in and see multiple PC Bangs. Visiting one recently, my observation is still quite packed on the weekend, haven't experienced a weekday. This is in a place outside Seoul and slightly near a popular downtown area. Just felt motivated to provide an opposite perspective based on real experience.
    - giarc 6y ago
      Thanks for the perspective. I wonder if there is an opportunity for these places to service office workers during the day, and gamers on weeknight/weekends? More and more people have the option to work from home, but may want a quiet office nearer their home. They could drop into these cafes for a few hours to get work done. Then come 5pm the place turns into a gaming cafe.

throwanem 6y ago

> I'm not into the gaming community but I suspect there's a big contigent in the pre-teen/teen age range Neither am I, but based on strong anecdotal evidence from every trip I've made to Micro Center in the last couple of years, I suspect your suspicion is accurate. Especially when I did a custom PC build a couple years back, and had to visit the support department due to my motherboard needing a firmware update to run with the CPU I'd picked - I found myself all but constantly tripping over infants in Fortnite T-shirts who, I assume, had talked their parents into spending thousands of dollars on top-tier gaming rigs with the argument that it would help them develop a marketable skill. Good on them, I say; at a similar age, I did much the same. (Athlon 600 and a Voodoo3 3000! Back when Alienware was still an upstart doing white-box builds...) But, yes, all of that's to say that I think you're absolutely right, and GameStop would be very well advised to pivot in a similar direction to what you describe. They'd need to poach some expertise from Micro Center, which would probably be expensive, and while I suspect they'd get good bulk pricing on components, there'd still be significant capex there too. But there are a lot of places in the US where GameStop is and Micro Center isn't. Granted, I think the days of the Internet café are over for good in the US, so as a hangout hub I don't see it working. But as a place to go to get custom gaming builds plus support, peripherals, and upsells for same, I think there's real potential there, especially if you're also selling all the consoles and appurtenances thereunto. And most especially if doing all this puts you in the right place to be on the leading edge of the consumer VR boom, when that finally comes...

whymauri 6y ago

Pre-teen and teen gaming is currently dominated by the Minecraft and Roblox brands (more than Fortnite, even!). I'm not sure how GameStop can form strategic partnership with those parties, but I would be targeting that aggressively. The reality is gaming is moving into an interesting extra-social space (complementing social spaces like TikTok), where a lot of the kids I know use these games as a core means of socializing. This is especially true after the pandemic lockdown.