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theeipi

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i've been on this board for 15 years and been hearing the same convincing arguments about gamestop's demise the whole time.

 
theeipi said:
i've been on this board for 15 years and been hearing the same convincing arguments about gamestop's demise the whole time.
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Considering they tried (and failed) to find a company willing to buy them out, and the way their stock has been going the past couple years...

I'm just saying it's much more convincing now than it would have been even 5 years ago.

 
theeipi said:
i've been on this board for 15 years and been hearing the same convincing arguments about gamestop's demise the whole time.
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It’s one of the saddest things I see online. Just a bunch of keyboard warriors who think they know first thing about running a huge corporation. Tell me more about what they *should* do, I’m dying to hear it for the millionth time.

But they also never fail to jump on any chance to utilize them when it suits them while calling for their exit. You’ll miss them if they exit the market and we will all be worse off if they do.
 
lionheart059 said:
Considering they tried (and failed) to find a company willing to buy them out, and the way their stock has been going the past couple years...

I'm just saying it's much more convincing now than it would have been even 5 years ago.
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2 years and 5 years are just arbitrary numbers though. its up over the past 15 years. heck, i still remember in Dec 2002 when it went from $10/share to $5 a share people screaming its the end. two months later it was down to $3.50 or so. 5 years later it was up to $60+ a share.

i watched them buy up a bunch of companies. i watched them go privately held. i watched them get bought up by Barnes and Nobles (remember using Barnes and Nobles X% off anything coupons to snatch up all the new games?), I watched them become publicly traded again. They aren't going anywhere for a long time. This isn't Blockbuster.

 
I think everyone  who has a local Gamestop is going to miss it when it's gone. Sure they have shady practices and are cruel to their employees, but when it comes to retail choices, the more the better.

Mine closed late last year and pretended to be MOVING.

They had a sign up one day that said "We're Moving to another location" and told us to go to a Gamestop that's 30 minutes away and has been there for 20 years.

Anyway, I definitely miss them since they're gone. There's only a Walmart and a Best Buy nearby and there's no place that sells  everything that I want. Sure they'll have the mainstream stuff like the Call of Duties and such, but they just don't allot enough shelf space to carry niche or older titles. I remember looking for the Wii Ultimate Shooting Collection (Big shoot em up fan) and they have it at a gamestop about 30 minutes away. Good luck finding things like that at Best Buy.

 
nattybohman said:
I think everyone who has a local Gamestop is going to miss it when it's gone. Sure they have shady practices and are cruel to their employees, but when it comes to retail choices, the more the better.

Mine closed late last year and pretended to be MOVING.

They had a sign up one day that said "We're Moving to another location" and told us to go to a Gamestop that's 30 minutes away and has been there for 20 years.

Anyway, I definitely miss them since they're gone. There's only a Walmart and a Best Buy nearby and there's no place that sells everything that I want. Sure they'll have the mainstream stuff like the Call of Duties and such, but they just don't allot enough shelf space to carry niche or older titles. I remember looking for the Wii Ultimate Shooting Collection (Big shoot em up fan) and they have it at a gamestop about 30 minutes away. Good luck finding things like that at Best Buy.
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My formerly local one did the exact same thing last year. Said they would be "moving" but the location they mentioned they were "moving" to already had a Gamestop there for years. At least I got a free 25% off coupon out of it that I used on my preorder for the Monster Hunter World CE.

 
nattybohman said:
I think everyone who has a local Gamestop is going to miss it when it's gone. Sure they have shady practices and are cruel to their employees, but when it comes to retail choices, the more the better.

Mine closed late last year and pretended to be MOVING.

They had a sign up one day that said "We're Moving to another location" and told us to go to a Gamestop that's 30 minutes away and has been there for 20 years.

Anyway, I definitely miss them since they're gone. There's only a Walmart and a Best Buy nearby and there's no place that sells everything that I want. Sure they'll have the mainstream stuff like the Call of Duties and such, but they just don't allot enough shelf space to carry niche or older titles. I remember looking for the Wii Ultimate Shooting Collection (Big shoot em up fan) and they have it at a gamestop about 30 minutes away. Good luck finding things like that at Best Buy.
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I don't know about others but I won't miss them at all. They offer no incentives for me to go in there at all since I can find used games in better condition on Ebay, gamefly, and Amazon for a lot less. Their new games I can find online for the same price or less. And new releases are msrp and I can find anywhere. I still just buy from bestbuy for new games since I earn points for gift cards I can use on anything they sell and they have sales on games faster than gamestop.

In the past 3 years or so all i got from gamestop near me was like 3 or 4 totaku figures because I didn't want to pay shipping on them from their website.

Not shopping at gamestop saves me time, money and aggravation. To me they are an outdated and useless company that does me no service I can't find someone else doing better. I let go of that game store nostalgia held over from my childhood and now all I care about is who gives me the best service at the best price.

And game selection at like Walmart and bestbuy don't matter much if you have the internet. The internet offers far more than every gamestop store in existence combined.

But to each their own. I'm not disparaging you for liking them, they just are not for me at all.

 
While I certainly don't feel very sad that they might be going out of business eventually they did offer good deals on occasion to take advantage of like the 4 for 10 and 20 deals.  I rarely used them though.  I miss gohastings and cowboom far more.  Got so many great deals off of those. Oh and record exchange. 

Gamestop shot themselves in the foot though with their poor management and shady things they've done.  The xenoblade incident being one of the scummiest things they have done in recent memory.

 
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still not sure why people got so bent out of shape about xenoblade.  every store around me had 3 copies used.  every B2G1 sale I'd buy all 3 and sell them all on ebay for a profit.  i'm pretty sure that the ebay price was functionally the same price as the gamestop price, so why shouldn't they sell their inventory at market value?

if i found a whole ton of vintage harry potter lego sets unopened in my garage, i wouldn't sell them at MSRP i'd sell them at whatever the market would pay for them.

 
theeipi said:
still not sure why people got so bent out of shape about xenoblade. every store around me had 3 copies used. every B2G1 sale I'd buy all 3 and sell them all on ebay for a profit. i'm pretty sure that the ebay price was functionally the same price as the gamestop price, so why shouldn't they sell their inventory at market value?

if i found a whole ton of vintage harry potter lego sets unopened in my garage, i wouldn't sell them at MSRP i'd sell them at whatever the market would pay for them.
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I think the issue with Xenoblade is that it was a Gamestop exclusive to begin with, and magically finding tons of "used" copies months later when the secondhand price had gone up was shady AF. The prevailing thought is that they held back inventory at the outset, and instead of selling it as new from the start they converted it all to used to cash in on the higher price driven by the rarity they created.

You know, kinda like they did with holding back stock of the NES classic, so they could bundle it with other inventory that wasn't selling and require you to buy a $150 bundle instead of just the console.

 
I think charging a "refurb fee" on a game that they do nothing to and then charge full price for is a far shadier practice.
 
theeipi said:
still not sure why people got so bent out of shape about xenoblade. every store around me had 3 copies used. every B2G1 sale I'd buy all 3 and sell them all on ebay for a profit. i'm pretty sure that the ebay price was functionally the same price as the gamestop price, so why shouldn't they sell their inventory at market value?

if i found a whole ton of vintage harry potter lego sets unopened in my garage, i wouldn't sell them at MSRP i'd sell them at whatever the market would pay for them.
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The issue was that they reprinted it and sold it as used to undercut msrp which is hella shady as fuck and should be illegal. They were never used copies being sold when it had a sudden massive amount appear. People assumed they were original copies used because they had the trade ins prior but obviously not that many people were trading in copies of xenoblade when it was a low print. It was easy to tell they were reprints since they had different boxes and such than the original copies if you do a side by side comparison but people labeled me as a tin foil hat despite all that evidence. Only to eventually realize it months later in hindsight as true.

lionheart059 said:
I think the issue with Xenoblade is that it was a Gamestop exclusive to begin with, and magically finding tons of "used" copies months later when the secondhand price had gone up was shady AF. The prevailing thought is that they held back inventory at the outset, and instead of selling it as new from the start they converted it all to used to cash in on the higher price driven by the rarity they created.

You know, kinda like they did with holding back stock of the NES classic, so they could bundle it with other inventory that wasn't selling and require you to buy a $150 bundle instead of just the console.
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No, they reprinted it along with other rare titles like the metroid trilogy iirc. Also it wasn't a gamestop exclusive. That is another common false fact people parade around much like they did with Tales of hearts r. It was only a brick and mortar exclusive for gamestop. You could order xenoblade through nintendos online store as well at the time it released.

 
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shadowysea07 said:
No, they reprinted it along with other rare titles like the metroid trilogy iirc. Also it wasn't a gamestop exclusive. That is another common false fact people parade around much like they did with Tales of hearts r. It was only a brick and mortar exclusive for gamestop. You could order xenoblade through nintendos online store as well at the time it released.
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Oh, I didn't realize it was actually a reprint. My mistake.

I was referring to it as an exclusive because it was a B&M exclusive. I could care less if it was offered on nintendo.com when I'm referring to going into a retailer and buying it off the shelf.

 
Problem being for niche games like xenoblade you won't be doing that 9 times out of 10.  Only way you would have gotten it at launch is preordering since most gamestops do not order multiple copies of niche titles for people to buy.  At best you'd have maybe 3 in a store.

 
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shadowysea07 said:
The issue was that they reprinted it and sold it as used to undercut msrp which is hella shady as fuck and should be illegal. They were never used copies being sold when it had a sudden massive amount appear. People assumed they were original copies used because they had the trade ins prior but obviously not that many people were trading in copies of xenoblade when it was a low print. It was easy to tell they were reprints since they had different boxes and such than the original copies if you do a side by side comparison but people labeled me as a tin foil hat despite all that evidence. Only to eventually realize it months later in hindsight as true.

No, they reprinted it along with other rare titles like the metroid trilogy iirc. Also it wasn't a gamestop exclusive. That is another common false fact people parade around much like they did with Tales of hearts r. It was only a brick and mortar exclusive for gamestop. You could order xenoblade through nintendos online store as well at the time it released.
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They've done that with a few other games I believe but in GS's defense, without them, there would be no NA release of Xenoblade. I had to import mine because NOA for whatever reason, didn't want to release it here even though the game was well praised in Europe and the Wii's lineup was fairly barren so I figured it would never happen. I'm glad GS did publish the game here. Same with Pandora's Tower and Last Story (which weren't as good but still decent games) that Xseed picked up.

I used to shop at GS quote often up until 3-4 years ago but don't care for GS anymore since over the last 3-4 years, they've gone so far downhill. But them releasing Xenoblade in the US is one thing I gave them props for.

 
theeipi said:
2 years and 5 years are just arbitrary numbers though. its up over the past 15 years. heck, i still remember in Dec 2002 when it went from $10/share to $5 a share people screaming its the end. two months later it was down to $3.50 or so. 5 years later it was up to $60+ a share.

i watched them buy up a bunch of companies. i watched them go privately held. i watched them get bought up by Barnes and Nobles (remember using Barnes and Nobles X% off anything coupons to snatch up all the new games?), I watched them become publicly traded again. They aren't going anywhere for a long time. This isn't Blockbuster.
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There was always the fear of the big 3 going digital or stopping used games from working. Most of Gamestop's money comes from used game sales. It seems like the infrastructure is finally in place for the big 3 to push digital sales either this gen or the next. Certainly consumer preference is changing more to digital even if the big 3 don't force it that way. They are in a challenging time right now so I wouldn't be pushing the notion they'll be around a long time until we see what they will do. Their financials show a struggle. In 2016, they made $353 million. In 2017 they made $35 million. I don't see their 2018 annual report out there yet but based on their first 3 quarters of 2018 they will lose >$500 million. The threat was overstated before, but it doesn't really seem they developed a comprehensive plan over the last 15 years and now the threat is real. Things can change really quick on the business side of things.

 
after this thread i decided to "put my money where my mouth is."  I bought 1000 shares.

17 months later I can finally log back in and say I'm "back to even."

it was a crazy ride, i think i lost 60% of the value or more at one point!  But I still believe!

 
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