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I'm torn about the decline of physical game stores. On one hand, it's nice to just press "buy" on the console and get on with it, but it's also nice to have a

I'm torn about the decline of physical game stores. On one hand, it's nice to just press "buy" on the console and get on with it, but it's also nice to have a physical copy (particularly so when companies can just shut down their digital store front whenever) That being said, fuck GameStop's absurd pricing and trade in models.

dragontamer 3y ago
Tried to buy a game from Gamestop this past weekend. Not in stock. All the Gamestop had was a DLC code that they'd print on a receipt. Went over to the Target down the street: they had 3x physical copies. I picked up 2x copies for my two nieces so that they could play together. Physical stores still serve a good purpose for quickly buying gifts on the go throughout my day. But Gamestop is not a reliable store anymore.
- benatkin 3y ago
  You're suggesting that GameStop had that because they thought DLC codes were an equally acceptable alternative? I think maybe the distribution channels messed things up for the smaller big box company. Could also be bad for independent ones. Or could someone have just come in and bought them before you got there and it happened to be relatively more quick selling than at Target?
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    I vaguely remember this was always a good trick when new big games had come out. Dedicated game store sold out? Check Target and Walmart ASAP, nobody is lining up outside Walmart for a game release, they might have a couple copies hanging around. Not guaranteed but better odds than you’d think.
    - benatkin 3y ago
      Yeah but are the video game stores to blame at all for this good trick? Or is it just the unfair advantage of big box stores? If the latter this is like the story about grocery store mergers from a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264717 Or how medical bills for something routine wind up in the tens of thousands. And it contains little insight about being a savvy SMB except things are broken.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        Oh yeah, sorry, I wasn’t trying to portion out the blame or come up with a counter-argument to you. It was just a tangentially related anecdote that I thought was amusing.
        benatkin 3y ago
        All good you helped me explain my position better I think. I also remember my friends noticing that hack. Good times in spite of the change it was indicating, where megacorps thrive at the expense of others. Which btw fits into the story of some video games, like Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    > I think maybe the distribution channels messed things up for the smaller big box company. Gamestop is not a "smaller" company. They should have more volume than Target with regards to video games. I would expect Target to be the smaller between the two, because Target's video game section is kind of sad most of the time. It is Gamestop who is messing up here, they don't want to stock the goods because Gamestop clearly doesn't have the money to keep their inventory count high. ----------- The Gamestop in question was in a busy mall. I was there for other reasons (food / hangout with family), but realized that an impromptu-buy could help out my nieces. I assume that most foot traffic is like this, I wasn't "planning" on buying anything (If I were planning, I'd have bought it from online). It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. And then they failed to have the stock, so I didn't buy anything. And I don't think "Advance Wars: Reboot Camp 1+2" is that obscure of a game. It was clearly 3x stocked at Target.
    - benatkin 3y ago
      > Gamestop is not a "smaller" company. They're bigger as a company and more successful too. The thing is that yeah Gamestop is putting focus on their product. But do they care? A comparison would be Best Buy vs Apple Stores. Best Buy is bigger than Apple Stores, but Apple Stores is prioritized. But the only reason is because Apple is deeply connected to them to the point of owning them. The mom and pop mac stores get lower priority than Best Buy, even though they focus on selling macs. GameStop is at an arms length from the game publishers. Also I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people walking through the video game aisles in a Target than in a Gamestop. If a gamestop looks quiet it probably is in fact quiet. Whereas there are a lot of bored people wandering Target stores because someone brought them there.
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        I guarantee you there were more people at the mall where I was shopping at Gamestop, and fewer people in the neighborhood Target that I was forced to go to to find my game. If no one was shopping at Gamestop, that was Gamestop's own fault. It was in a very busy location with regards to foot traffic. Gamestop absolutely needs to make sure that these prime retail locations have the inventory to make impromptu-sales. Otherwise, why the hell else are you renting out prime mall real-estate? Source: Myself. I walked by both store locations and know the area.
causi 3y ago
After seeing what a nightmare it was moving my copy of Mario Kart 8 to my wife's Switch, I don't buy digital console games anymore. There's still a delay every time the title is launched as Nintendo "checks to see if this game is playable". Meanwhile I can put the cartridge in and go on whatever console or account.
- cle 3y ago
  I was doing the same thing, and then I lost my bag of cartridges.
- randunel 3y ago
  By purchasing that game, you signaled to Nintendo that their practise is OK, making it worse for all of us. I went legal with Steam, but stopped when microtransaction galore got adopted everywhere, on top of DRM. Arrgh matey!
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  I tell friends that digital is great if you have only young children or live in a neighborhood with occasional break-ins - otherwise, it has almost no redeeming qualities. Daughter got a great game for Christmas? She can’t share it with siblings, or friends in real life, or friends from another state (why not mail game cards once in a while?). Kind of a huge shame really if it was a single-player game with a finite beginning and end. It’s dumber though for collecting too. As a collector, if you buy used… the games you bought for $35-40 will probably sell for at least $30-35 (if they are Nintendo). They might even explode like the GameCube or 3DS. And with 70%~80% of Switch purchases being digital, there’s going to be a real physical media shortage when the eShop goes down. (At a minimum though, if they keep even 75% of their value over a 5-year period after you bought them for $38 or so used, you could spend $1000 on Switch games, have it still be worth $750, and have paid about $50/yr to have a ludicrous catalog. Can’t think that way with digital.) Which, that’s just great too. Digital is not very resilient to any kind of cyberwarfare, or AWS having a bad day. Just when you need it most, it’s gone. I rate our odds of keeping electricity available as being much higher than computers and digital equipment. Edit: And while I keep adding reasons; remember that physical means you have the ability to always play the game version physically on the card. (If you update the game after inserting the card, you do need to factory-reset your Switch to go back to that older version for various reasons, but you can still get to it.) This matters quite a bit if a game becomes more bloated and slow over time (Minecraft), or if the game had useful duplication bugs that were patched (Zelda: TOTK). Digital downloads? You're stuck with whatever update they give you.
moate 3y ago
Some thoughts: 1- Physical games don't go away with GameStop, and their decline coincides with a larger contraction around physical retail stores generally as people shift to buying things online (even, ironically, physical copies of games they could have downloaded). And, you can always load up a hard drive with the digital copies and them load them back into the machine when you want to play (depending on your console). 2- I feel like the decline of GS has more to do with your final point, which is that trading in games got to a point where it wasn't fun/useful for the consumer (hey, that AAA title you bought 6 months ago for 70 bucks? 15 dollar trade in, buy used for 40!) combined with the overall decline in physical retail. (edited for typo)
- spywaregorilla 3y ago
  15 bucks sounds great to me. It's kind of preposterous that you would expect a game to be a useful store of value. Gaming is the cheapest $/entertainment-hour you can get...
  - vel0city 3y ago
    To me personally, its not that the used copy was only then worth $15, it is the massive spread between what they'll buy it from you versus what they'll then turn around and try and sell it for. Buy the $60 new game off me for $5 for all I care, but when I turn around and see them immediately stick it on the shelf for $40+ I'll feel like I got a bad deal.
    - moate 3y ago
      Exactly. And obviously the biz model isn't working anymore or they wouldn't be in this situation.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      Do you feel like a bad deal when you buy a movie-ticket for a group at say $15 x 6 (~$90 + food), when about 3 months later you can buy the same movie for just $10 and watch it in the comfort of your own home? Games have values: the value goes up at launch so that you can play it before spoilers leak to the internet. Then, after it is a bit stale, it declines in value a few months later. After a few years, it might go up in value if people have fond memories of the game and it becomes retro, but otherwise it probably becomes completely worthless.
wincy 3y ago
I just go to Walmart or Target. It’s infinitely less annoying than going to GameStop to get a new game.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  I remember a time when Gamestop had a better game selection than Walmart and Target. Its just not true anymore, it seems...
kevinventullo 3y ago
I prefer digital copies to physical, since in my experience the mean lifetime of digital storefronts is still longer than the mean time for me to misplace physical copies.

dragontamer 3y ago

Tried to buy a game from Gamestop this past weekend. Not in stock. All the Gamestop had was a DLC code that they'd print on a receipt. Went over to the Target down the street: they had 3x physical copies. I picked up 2x copies for my two nieces so that they could play together. Physical stores still serve a good purpose for quickly buying gifts on the go throughout my day. But Gamestop is not a reliable store anymore.

benatkin 3y ago
You're suggesting that GameStop had that because they thought DLC codes were an equally acceptable alternative? I think maybe the distribution channels messed things up for the smaller big box company. Could also be bad for independent ones. Or could someone have just come in and bought them before you got there and it happened to be relatively more quick selling than at Target?
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I vaguely remember this was always a good trick when new big games had come out. Dedicated game store sold out? Check Target and Walmart ASAP, nobody is lining up outside Walmart for a game release, they might have a couple copies hanging around. Not guaranteed but better odds than you’d think.
  - benatkin 3y ago
    Yeah but are the video game stores to blame at all for this good trick? Or is it just the unfair advantage of big box stores? If the latter this is like the story about grocery store mergers from a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264717 Or how medical bills for something routine wind up in the tens of thousands. And it contains little insight about being a savvy SMB except things are broken.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      Oh yeah, sorry, I wasn’t trying to portion out the blame or come up with a counter-argument to you. It was just a tangentially related anecdote that I thought was amusing.
      - benatkin 3y ago
        All good you helped me explain my position better I think. I also remember my friends noticing that hack. Good times in spite of the change it was indicating, where megacorps thrive at the expense of others. Which btw fits into the story of some video games, like Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  > I think maybe the distribution channels messed things up for the smaller big box company. Gamestop is not a "smaller" company. They should have more volume than Target with regards to video games. I would expect Target to be the smaller between the two, because Target's video game section is kind of sad most of the time. It is Gamestop who is messing up here, they don't want to stock the goods because Gamestop clearly doesn't have the money to keep their inventory count high. ----------- The Gamestop in question was in a busy mall. I was there for other reasons (food / hangout with family), but realized that an impromptu-buy could help out my nieces. I assume that most foot traffic is like this, I wasn't "planning" on buying anything (If I were planning, I'd have bought it from online). It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. And then they failed to have the stock, so I didn't buy anything. And I don't think "Advance Wars: Reboot Camp 1+2" is that obscure of a game. It was clearly 3x stocked at Target.
  - benatkin 3y ago
    > Gamestop is not a "smaller" company. They're bigger as a company and more successful too. The thing is that yeah Gamestop is putting focus on their product. But do they care? A comparison would be Best Buy vs Apple Stores. Best Buy is bigger than Apple Stores, but Apple Stores is prioritized. But the only reason is because Apple is deeply connected to them to the point of owning them. The mom and pop mac stores get lower priority than Best Buy, even though they focus on selling macs. GameStop is at an arms length from the game publishers. Also I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people walking through the video game aisles in a Target than in a Gamestop. If a gamestop looks quiet it probably is in fact quiet. Whereas there are a lot of bored people wandering Target stores because someone brought them there.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      I guarantee you there were more people at the mall where I was shopping at Gamestop, and fewer people in the neighborhood Target that I was forced to go to to find my game. If no one was shopping at Gamestop, that was Gamestop's own fault. It was in a very busy location with regards to foot traffic. Gamestop absolutely needs to make sure that these prime retail locations have the inventory to make impromptu-sales. Otherwise, why the hell else are you renting out prime mall real-estate? Source: Myself. I walked by both store locations and know the area.

causi 3y ago

After seeing what a nightmare it was moving my copy of Mario Kart 8 to my wife's Switch, I don't buy digital console games anymore. There's still a delay every time the title is launched as Nintendo "checks to see if this game is playable". Meanwhile I can put the cartridge in and go on whatever console or account.

cle 3y ago
I was doing the same thing, and then I lost my bag of cartridges.
randunel 3y ago
By purchasing that game, you signaled to Nintendo that their practise is OK, making it worse for all of us. I went legal with Steam, but stopped when microtransaction galore got adopted everywhere, on top of DRM. Arrgh matey!
gjsman-1000 3y ago
I tell friends that digital is great if you have only young children or live in a neighborhood with occasional break-ins - otherwise, it has almost no redeeming qualities. Daughter got a great game for Christmas? She can’t share it with siblings, or friends in real life, or friends from another state (why not mail game cards once in a while?). Kind of a huge shame really if it was a single-player game with a finite beginning and end. It’s dumber though for collecting too. As a collector, if you buy used… the games you bought for $35-40 will probably sell for at least $30-35 (if they are Nintendo). They might even explode like the GameCube or 3DS. And with 70%~80% of Switch purchases being digital, there’s going to be a real physical media shortage when the eShop goes down. (At a minimum though, if they keep even 75% of their value over a 5-year period after you bought them for $38 or so used, you could spend $1000 on Switch games, have it still be worth $750, and have paid about $50/yr to have a ludicrous catalog. Can’t think that way with digital.) Which, that’s just great too. Digital is not very resilient to any kind of cyberwarfare, or AWS having a bad day. Just when you need it most, it’s gone. I rate our odds of keeping electricity available as being much higher than computers and digital equipment. Edit: And while I keep adding reasons; remember that physical means you have the ability to always play the game version physically on the card. (If you update the game after inserting the card, you do need to factory-reset your Switch to go back to that older version for various reasons, but you can still get to it.) This matters quite a bit if a game becomes more bloated and slow over time (Minecraft), or if the game had useful duplication bugs that were patched (Zelda: TOTK). Digital downloads? You're stuck with whatever update they give you.

moate 3y ago

Some thoughts: 1- Physical games don't go away with GameStop, and their decline coincides with a larger contraction around physical retail stores generally as people shift to buying things online (even, ironically, physical copies of games they could have downloaded). And, you can always load up a hard drive with the digital copies and them load them back into the machine when you want to play (depending on your console). 2- I feel like the decline of GS has more to do with your final point, which is that trading in games got to a point where it wasn't fun/useful for the consumer (hey, that AAA title you bought 6 months ago for 70 bucks? 15 dollar trade in, buy used for 40!) combined with the overall decline in physical retail. (edited for typo)

spywaregorilla 3y ago
15 bucks sounds great to me. It's kind of preposterous that you would expect a game to be a useful store of value. Gaming is the cheapest $/entertainment-hour you can get...
- vel0city 3y ago
  To me personally, its not that the used copy was only then worth $15, it is the massive spread between what they'll buy it from you versus what they'll then turn around and try and sell it for. Buy the $60 new game off me for $5 for all I care, but when I turn around and see them immediately stick it on the shelf for $40+ I'll feel like I got a bad deal.
  - moate 3y ago
    Exactly. And obviously the biz model isn't working anymore or they wouldn't be in this situation.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Do you feel like a bad deal when you buy a movie-ticket for a group at say $15 x 6 (~$90 + food), when about 3 months later you can buy the same movie for just $10 and watch it in the comfort of your own home? Games have values: the value goes up at launch so that you can play it before spoilers leak to the internet. Then, after it is a bit stale, it declines in value a few months later. After a few years, it might go up in value if people have fond memories of the game and it becomes retro, but otherwise it probably becomes completely worthless.

wincy 3y ago

I just go to Walmart or Target. It’s infinitely less annoying than going to GameStop to get a new game.

dragontamer 3y ago
I remember a time when Gamestop had a better game selection than Walmart and Target. Its just not true anymore, it seems...

kevinventullo 3y ago

I prefer digital copies to physical, since in my experience the mean lifetime of digital storefronts is still longer than the mean time for me to misplace physical copies.