6 votes

Game retailer GameStop says it can’t sell itself, stock dives 27% to fourteen-year low

3 comments

  1. [3]
    cptcobalt
    Link
    I mean, this basically is a death knell, right? What company basically says "we couldn't sell ourselves, when we needed to, because we're out of money"? It's kind of a shame, really. Not that...

    I mean, this basically is a death knell, right? What company basically says "we couldn't sell ourselves, when we needed to, because we're out of money"?

    It's kind of a shame, really. Not that Gamestop is local mom-n-pop, but it felt better supporting them rather than Amazon when I was buying my Vive last year—even though the entire transaction was a chore, and the salesperson tried to pick an argument with me about the price. (But, really a confirmation of what got them into this mess.)

    5 votes
    1. NaraVara
      Link Parent
      When I KonMaried my gaming collection a while ago I did a trade-in at GameStop and most items only got me 25 cents or so. I know they're selling them for $2 to 5 or more, so I am not at all...

      When I KonMaried my gaming collection a while ago I did a trade-in at GameStop and most items only got me 25 cents or so. I know they're selling them for $2 to 5 or more, so I am not at all surprised they would fold. It's fine since I just wanted to reclaim shelf space and didn't care about the money, but it's not something I would ever actually do in any other circumstance. I'd much rather give them away, getting a quarter in trade isn't worth the time and gas/fare to make a trip to the store.

      While I was there I noticed they had more shelf-space devoted to toys and various collectibles than to actual games. I think they gave over half of an entire wall to FunkoPop figurines. A whole other wall was just other collectibles like random collectors edition swag, lego sets, and statuettes of game characters.

      IMO, brick-and-mortal retail in these times is only going to work if there is either a significant experiential element to your product or people can benefit from specialized expertise while shopping. Apple benefits from a perception of their products as being "nice." They're nice to hold and to use in ways that don't come through on a spec-sheet, so it benefits them to give you opportunities to use them. Makeup stores are a good example of the latter, where they have people there who know the (overwhelming) array of products and can help you with suggestions and advice.

      You would think a video game store would be a great place for this since what's more experiential than a video-game? But Gamestops don't have kiosks where you can see people playing games. There's no venue for trying out demos to decide if you want to try a game out before you buy it. They incent their retail staff largely on selling protection plans and fleecing people on trade-ins rather than how good their customer service skills are. Of course it was going to collapse.

      5 votes
    2. vakieh
      Link Parent
      It was already on its way to dead, all brick and mortar retail is - however, sales of dead companies happen all the time. The issue here is nobody wanted to pay the price Gamestop (and their...

      It was already on its way to dead, all brick and mortar retail is - however, sales of dead companies happen all the time. The issue here is nobody wanted to pay the price Gamestop (and their shareholders) wanted them to pay, which indicated to the market the share price was hella inflated. The share price drops, the price to buy the company drops, and the potential for a buyer increases.

      3 votes