While classic retail staples such as Blockbuster and Toys 'R Us failed to innovate after decades of unrivaled success and ended up fading away, one company continues to struggle and desperately try to stay relevant despite changing times. After financial concerns and rumored imminent buyouts earlier this year, GameStop has announced their latest attempt to revitalize their brand. The company will be teaming up with the designer firm R/GA, and plans to renovate some of its stores in order to spice up the "GameStop experience". A few of these ideas include letting consumers play games before they buy them, changing the store layout to "appeal to gamers", offering competitive e-sports sessions in-store, and selling more retro games. R/GA will be implementing these ideas in select stores across the United States. As to whether this is enough to prevent GameStop from becoming a mere relic of the past is uncertain, as one of their previous ventures--trying to pivot into selling mobile devices--resulted in major financial losses for the retailer. It also appears that GameStop's most recent focus, trying to sell more collectibles and toys has not been significant enough to secure the company's future alone.

The partnership with R/GA’s Austin and Chicago teams is part of GameStop’s broader business transformation strategy to evolve its efforts in cultivating innovative customer-centric opportunities to bring video game culture to life in every neighborhood. GameStop’s renewed customer-first focus stems from qualitative and quantitative research led by GameStop and R/GA that identified four major motivations gaming fans have for playing video games – immersion, achievement, creativity and community.

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[Sheimi]

I've heard that GS employees are pushed to sell second hand over new, including one story where someone sold a new game as second hand, so that might be one reason why they hate PC copies.

Gamestop tried the opposite on me where they wanted to sell me a "new" Luigis Mansion Dark Moon opened and said it was new. Was a few years ago

 

[Kioku]

...or...and hear me out, here. You could just use common business sense and give gamers a reason to actually buy from you. Your elite pro membership was great. Shame you stripped that.

 

[Reecey]

Gamestops in California should convert into a weed shop

Play games and smoke weed

Is that what youth of today do... smoke weed and play games! Thank god I lived in a normal era when you went out to a club, went cinema and maybe through in a game of bowling now and again for excitement! That’s quite sad by the way.. get a life!

 

[spotanjo3]

GameStop need to go and be extinct forever. Really.

 

[codezer0]

Gamestop has been nothing but a bane to me growing up, especially when they merged with EB because back east, they had an effective monopoly on being able to get second-hand games, systems, et al. To put it in perspective, some communities that were near me had a hard ban on pawn shops, but thanks to a legal loophole, gamestop was able to exist there. So there would be four to eight Gamestop shops within a two mile radius, but the nearest pawn shop with video games would be more than twenty away. And as a kid without a credit card, there wasn't a thing i could do about it.

And what did i get for the trouble?
Used copies of games sold as new.
Defective consoles, nearly every time.
Damaged disc games.

So yeah, i won't miss Gamestop in the least if they got Thanos'd out of existence.

 

[npiet1]

Just do what the Australian version does and sell all the gamer crap too.

 

[Something whatever]

Really need to get rid of the murch and non gaming items, the one next to me still sell and buy cell phones and it takes up a big chunk of the wall that could be used for...hmmm idk game?!

 

[Kraken_X]

A few of these ideas include letting consumers play games before they buy them, changing the store layout to "appeal to gamers", offering competitive e-sports sessions in-store, and selling more retro games.

Does anyone else remember Funcoland? They had a massive list of games with standardized prices and a whole bunch of consoles set up playing different games and the staff would switch which game was playing with anything they had used. Staff were knowledgeable and friendly, and there was no pressure, but I almost always bought something cheap to help them out.

Then Gamestop bought them.

 

[DRAGONBALLVINTAGE]

I got that snail internet so I hope GS is ok

 

[djnate27]

Does anyone else remember Funcoland? They had a massive list of games with standardized prices and a whole bunch of consoles set up playing different games and the staff would switch which game was playing with anything they had used. Staff were knowledgeable and friendly, and there was no pressure, but I almost always bought something cheap to help them out.

Then Gamestop bought them.

I remember when Funcoland only had a handful of stores, so we had to order games from their catalog.
Ordering Baseball Stars for my NES and waiting over a week to receive it in the mail is something I will never forget.

 

[Clydefrosch]

We call this throwing good money after bad.

 

[the_randomizer]

I haven't been inside a Gamestop store in months, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

[Roxasorg13]

I have never understood this Gamestop hate circlejerk.
I mean if you think some games are expensive or that the amount they give you for your used games is low, then dont buy/sell them in gamestop. But people seems to critizice the store for every single thing they do, which is not fair.
I always enjoy going there to waste some time (they have cool merch and gaming items) and there are lots of times when im able to grab some pretty good deals.

 

[osaka35]

I like the huge discounted goods, the promotional posters, and seeing what neat stuff is available for sale. Corporate seems to hate the employees, so they don't particularly like the company. There are a lot of things they can do to help prop themselves up, but with sony and microsoft trying to remove ownership from gamers, it's hard to be in the business of selling.

Actively trying to be a part of the community is honestly one of the best things they can do. That and treat their employees properly. It's something smaller stores try, and what they're trying to emulate. Provide a gamer-friendly space. I doubt it'll be successful, but it's not a dumb decision. they just don't have many good decisions left. Just hope it isn't a few kiosk to play games like there've always been in the past. Gamestop-local tournaments, promotional goodies, weekly events and the like. Make it the place to go to play with fellow nerds and it'll definitely help with folks coming in the door...though if that'll translate to sales, who knows.

Wonder how long before they have a backroom for folks playing magic the gathering

 

[Hells Malice]

Through no real fault of their own, I don't think Gamestop will last. It's possible but they definitely would have to change a lot.

It's actually pretty impressive they decided to fight against time instead of just accepting the inevitable. Things like Blockbuster really just crawled into a corner and died overnight.

You can already tell when you go in, they have tons of merchandise these days to supplement sales. Carrying more retro games is a very smart idea, it's one of the things that keeps smaller game stores alive.

 

[Redhorse]

First, they supported retro, then they bailed on it, now they're back to supporting it? They need to remain constant to one idea and follow it through, win, lose or draw. They need to stop lying to their customers for starters..., then limit selling to employees of limited items...

 

[Foxi4]

Gamestop tried the opposite on me where they wanted to sell me a "new" Luigis Mansion Dark Moon opened and said it was new. Was a few years ago

It probably was new, just without the cellophane. Most game stores open one or more mint copies in order to produce controls, as well as display cases. Licensing-wise the game is "new" until it was sold to a customer, only games that were traded in are considered pre-owned, since they had a previous owner.

 

[the_randomizer]

First, they supported retro, then they bailed on it, now they're back to supporting it? They need to remain constant to one idea and follow it through, win, lose or draw. They need to stop lying to their customers for starters..., then limit selling to employees of limited items...

Yeah, I didn't even know they stopped retro games, I knew they had them for a while. I mean, I've been tempted to collect retro games for a while, but now that I've had an SD2SNES for over a year *shrug*

 

[Bladexdsl]

what they have to do is stop selling xbox games because no one buys them anymore

 

[H1B1Esquire]

Assuming the pricing isn't ridiculous,

They're fairly priced. Although, you'll get a few titles, like SNES Batman and Robin for $75.00 and Earthbound for $199.99.

If Game$top can't get it together, they'll probably be an online retailer and just have warehouses that fulfill orders.

I have a better solution that would make more sense and money, but they aren't paying me.....so....