The death of GameStop and physical media going forward

[MysticalWar]

It's really over...

[Tpaktop2_1 NA]

Is this the same company that was in the stock war? A similar subject was talked about board game stores too by Extra Credit in their video.

 

 

[Humility925]

Gamestop had been dying for long time. 

[MysticalWar]

4 minutes ago, Tpaktop2_1 NA said:

Is this the same company that was in the stock war? A similar subject was talked about board game stores too by Extra Credit in their video.

Sadly Board games might also go bye bye too.

 

[MysticalWar]

Just like with the Wargaming trilogy (Wows , Wot and Wop) The internet takes over all distribution of Games in future.

[Admiral_Karasu]

This isn't just about games. All retail businesses are having problems, not just the small ones like it used to be.

[Humility925]

I guess most people prefer order online and ship to home while avoid crowd of people, avoid paying more gas, it's help save lot of time, so go on, I think is why retail businesses had issues, but still most people do come to retail sure as food store, everyone had to go get food at one point, like cold or freezer food, you can't order and ship that, well in within reasonable prices. 

Edited January 18 by Humility925

[Admiral_Karasu]

10 hours ago, Humility925 said:

I guess most people prefer order online and ship to home while avoid crowd of people, avoid paying more gas, it's help save lot of time, so go on, I think is why retail businesses had issues, but still most people do come to retail sure as food store, everyone had to go get food at one point, like cold or freezer food, you can't order and ship that, well in within reasonable prices. 

Probably that in part, although I think one of the factors is that online stores can offer a larger selection. The trend's been there for a very long time, and I put a chunk of the blame on VAT, because what it means for the retailer is that a much more of your money is tied in the stock. The solution apparently was limiting what you kept in stock, and for the consumer having to buy more and more things on order is less convenient. When you walk into a typical retail shop these days, you immediately notice how sparse they look compared to the past.

Of course, they still couldn't compete on pricing, no matter what. The best solution would have been to combine retail outlets and online orders. Some businesses did that, others didn't. The latter got into trouble.

[Snargfargle]

12 hours ago, Humility925 said:

everyone had to go get food at one point

When my family moved out here in 1961, there were two-dozen small businesses in a town of less than 400 people: two hardware stores, dry goods store, feed store, beer joint, two barber shops (one for the men and one for the ladies), two hotels (full during harvest when the custom cutters came in), cafe, two grocery stores, lumberyard, two actual service stations where you could get your tires fixed, pool hall, "youth" recreation center, roller rink, TV sales & service shop, bank, drug store and soda fountain, welding shop, and mechanic's shop.

Now, there is a convenience store on the highway and a drive-in bank annex. There are still a lot of jobs because an international pork production and shipping company put its headquarters and truck maintenance station here. There is so much activity at that company, in fact, that that they actually run two shifts. Add to that local farming and oil and gas production plus teaching and things like shingling roofs after it hails and home maintenance and there are plenty of jobs, just no local retail businesses left in most of the smaller towns anymore. You can hardly blame people as you can't compete with Amazon and can work for fewer hours and more pay for some large outfit than you would if you operated your own business. There are still hardware stores, lumber yards, etc. but they all have consolidated into the single largest towns of the counties around here.

Back in the 60s, almost everything was shipped in by train or grown and processed locally. Now, even local-addressed mail takes a three-hundred mile round trip before it comes back to be put in the boxes. Our local grocers used to buy cattle from the farmers directly and butcher them in small slaughterhouses behind their grocery stores. Back then, the ground beef was so clean that you could eat it raw. Now, the beef gets shipped on a two-hundred-mile round trip before returning as E. coli-tainted meat that you have to cook very-well-done unless you want to get sick. A local carpenter and hotel owner used to operate a greenhouse so we had fresh vine-ripened tomatoes all year. We got our milk and eggs from a local farmer who lived outside of town and grew most of our vegetables ourselves, which Mom canned for the winter. Even in town, we raised a few meat chickens and a pig or two in the back yard. The government finally told the farmer he could no longer sell raw milk and the grocers that they could no longer process beef and locally-raised pork for "health reasons," even though nobody ever got sick from eating the locally-processed milk and meat.  People can still grow and process their own stuff but few do. It's time consuming to grow, process, can, and cook your own produce and I guess we all are now just used to eating the crap they sell us in stores. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway shut down and all the depots were sold and removed. There is a local railroad spur train that hauls grain to Dodge City but it can only travel at ten miles an hour until they upgrade the tracks to 20-miles-an hour capability. It's mostly all semis now. They used to be a relatively rare sight around here. Now, I can look out my bedroom window and see a dozen semis come into town every half hour, and that's not even on the main highway.

Edited January 19 by Snargfargle

[MysticalWar]

How GameStop fell apart , The History.

[meatgrindr]

On 1/19/2024 at 3:00 AM, Snargfargle said:

When my family moved out here in 1961, there were two-dozen small businesses in a town of less than 400 people: two hardware stores, dry goods store, feed store, beer joint, two barber shops (one for the men and one for the ladies), two hotels (full during harvest when the custom cutters came in), cafe, two grocery stores, lumberyard, two actual service stations where you could get your tires fixed, pool hall, "youth" recreation center, roller rink, TV sales & service shop, bank, drug store and soda fountain, welding shop, and mechanic's shop.

Now, there is a convenience store on the highway and a drive-in bank annex. There are still a lot of jobs because an international pork production and shipping company put its headquarters and truck maintenance station here. There is so much activity at that company, in fact, that that they actually run two shifts. Add to that local farming and oil and gas production plus teaching and things like shingling roofs after it hails and home maintenance and there are plenty of jobs, just no local retail businesses left in most of the smaller towns anymore. You can hardly blame people as you can't compete with Amazon and can work for fewer hours and more pay for some large outfit than you would if you operated your own business. There are still hardware stores, lumber yards, etc. but they all have consolidated into the single largest towns of the counties around here.

Back in the 60s, almost everything was shipped in by train or grown and processed locally. Now, even local-addressed mail takes a three-hundred mile round trip before it comes back to be put in the boxes. Our local grocers used to buy cattle from the farmers directly and butcher them in small slaughterhouses behind their grocery stores. Back then, the ground beef was so clean that you could eat it raw. Now, the beef gets shipped on a two-hundred-mile round trip before returning as E. coli-tainted meat that you have to cook very-well-done unless you want to get sick. A local carpenter and hotel owner used to operate a greenhouse so we had fresh vine-ripened tomatoes all year. We got our milk and eggs from a local farmer who lived outside of town and grew most of our vegetables ourselves, which Mom canned for the winter. Even in town, we raised a few meat chickens and a pig or two in the back yard. The government finally told the farmer he could no longer sell raw milk and the grocers that they could no longer process beef and locally-raised pork for "health reasons," even though nobody ever got sick from eating the locally-processed milk and meat.  People can still grow and process their own stuff but few do. It's time consuming to grow, process, can, and cook your own produce and I guess we all are now just used to eating the crap they sell us in stores. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway shut down and all the depots were sold and removed. There is a local railroad spur train that hauls grain to Dodge City but it can only travel at ten miles an hour until they upgrade the tracks to 20-miles-an hour capability. It's mostly all semis now. They used to be a relatively rare sight around here. Now, I can look out my bedroom window and see a dozen semis come into town every half hour, and that's not even on the main highway.

Amazing post, highlighting the macrocosm of the government-retail complex, outside the bounds of the topic yet completely relevent.  Just my opinion of course, but I do not feel cleaner, safer, or in any way enhanced by regulating the Mom and Pop's out of business.  Those folks were our friends and families, proving actual service with a genuine smile and happy to eek out a living doing it. (Used to stop at a gas station for a fill up and get your oil checked and windshield washed, lol.......now you can stand out there and pump your own 4 buck a gallon gas while interacting with nobody but a commercial on the screen at the pump.."progress!"),   The major problem was that they were not extracting money out of the general population fast enough, smiles be damned.  So now they are all but gone, and we get to watch Kroger trying to buy Albertson's, which will make a tidy package for Wal-Mart to gobble up in the next decade or so.  Suffice to say, I am not a fan of watching my grocery sources monopolize.  I say that is not a positive for Joe/Jane consumer.  As related to Gamestop, I used to be able to get something back for investments in gaming, consoles, game cartridges, controllers- all worth something down at Gamestop.  Now?  Cut your "increased" losses and move on.

[Wolfswetpaws]

On 1/18/2024 at 4:48 PM, MysticalWar said:

It's really over...

For years I had a membership card for "Blockbuster" video-rental stores.  I could rent a VHS or DVD movie for a reasonable price and explore a variety of obscure and/or international movies.

As many of you know, Blockbuster has significantly changed (as a company) over the years and has eliminated most of its storefront locations, including the locations in my area.  I still have my Blockbuster membership card, as a souvenir, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_(retailer)