• Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    There’s literally no point to me going into a game stop anymore. I used to buy their bargain bin games, but now with psplus and a library card, I don’t need to buy games at all. GameStop here mainly just sells products and pop figures now

    • sugar_in_your_tea
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      2 months ago

      And their games aren’t competitively priced. Why would I pay $40 for a used game there when I can get it for $20 on eBay? And they frequently don’t have the used games I want anyway, so there’s even less reason for me to check it. And if they do have a sale on something, it’s usually not as good of a sale vs their competitors (e.g. I bought my Switch from Target instead of GameStop, which is in the same parking lot, because Target had the better offer).

      I used to go to GameStop because they had a great selection of used games for good prices, and there were perks to buying pre-release games from them.

      If I were in charge, I’d change the whole model of the business, for example:

      • host tournaments with prizes and whatnot
      • host live game exchange events, where instead of selling to and buying from GS, it would arrange swaps directly between locals (i.e. safer than Craigslist/Facebook marketplace/etc); they could pay a small fee to test the game in the store and appraise the quality of the game, as well as clean it up
      • have an option to rent games before buying; it wouldn’t be a big part of the business, the main goal is to keep people coming back
      • sell retro games/consoles, international treats (esp. Japanese), and other nerdy stuff

      Right now, when I got to GS, all I see is overpriced crap, and I want to leave as quickly as possible. If they’re going to survive, they need to be a place people want to go, otherwise they’ll just play at home.