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Forums - Gaming Discussion - As store closures mount up, is there hope left for physical games outlets?

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-12-03-the-year-games-retail-didnt-die

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GameStop is not having a happy time of it right now. The US firm has undergone multiple management changes (and the sad death of its CEO), and it is now up for sale. During October, it delivered strong sales but still reported a $488.6 million loss. This has been the result of a major charge of $557.3 million due to a sustained decline of its share price. But it has seen most of its sales come from lower-margin products, with high-margin goods like pre-owned showing signs of serious decline.

GameStop also warned that Christmas sales will be "below expectations" due to a drop in pre-owned, aggressive sales activity and the under-performance of specific titles.

That under-performance of specific titles is key. Out of the big games this Christmas a few have done well, namely Red Dead Redemption 2. But a number of typically big-selling physical games (Call of Duty, FIFA, Battlefield and Fallout) have all failed to drive the usual numbers.

Some of that is due to the transition towards digital. Although physical still takes the bulk of sales, EA, Ubisoft, Activision and Take-Two are all reporting a faster-than-expected move to downloading. Indeed, publishers are reporting that between 30% and 40% of game sales are now digital.

GAME is facing the same challenges as GameStop (specifically a switch to lower-margin goods), and it saw sales declines during its last financial year. However, the UK chain is in a slightly better position due to the investment from retail giant Sports Direct in its Belong in-store concepts - which are local esports style areas where consumers pay-to-play. The company also has very short leases on its stores, allowing it to reduce costs quickly if needed.

Belong is still not generating significant revenue for GAME, but the retailer believes it will and that it will define the future of the business. Likewise, GameStop has put a lot of its emphasis behind pop culture, comic books and merchandise - areas that continue to be popular.

Yet there's no disguising that sales are down. Profit is down. The transition to digital is marching on. The number of places selling physical video game goods are on the slide. Surely it's a case of when physical games retail falls, not if?

Well, the data doesn't especially back that up. The business model is undoubtedly challenged, and when you have shareholders demanding growth there are some serious issues for GAME and GameStop to work out.

Yet it's easy to forget what a remarkably physical business video games continues to be. Software is going increasingly digital, but it's still primarily physical - by the end of the year there will be three games to sell more than one million boxed copies each in the UK (FIFA 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4). Over 16.5 million brand new boxed games have been bought over the last 11 months - that's 8% down, but it's still a significant number.

Only three weeks ago, a special physical bundle of Fortnite was released - a free-to-play game - and it's already approaching 100,000 copies sold in the UK alone. There's a clear market for physical.

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Transitioning from a primarily software-based business to a hardware, merchandise and event-based business is going to take time and pain. Yet with the amount of money on the table, it's in the interest of the games business - particularly those at the top - to ensure these specialist stores have the room to make this transition.

Games retail had a horrible 2018 and 2019 may be harder still. But physical games retail is not dead. Not even nearly.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-12-03-the-year-games-retail-didnt-die

 

Even though we can say that physical games will not entirely die and game shops can sell other stuff (including hardware), I don't think the dev industry really care much about them and the situation will most likely not improve. How long until we see more game shops closing or how long until they transform themselves to a point where they finally settle down in a more sustainable yearly profits?

 



God bless You.

My Total Sales prediction for PS4 by the end of 2021: 110m+

When PS4 will hit 100m consoles sold: Before Christmas 2019

There were three ravens sat on a tree / They were as blacke as they might be / The one of them said to his mate, Where shall we our breakfast take?


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thats gonna be a no from me. people will either switch to digital, as i have already embraced, or start ordering from Amazon. the only exception will be local retailers that buy and sell used games. otherwise the retail video game store days are over



it will be a long time before physical games dissapear digital is still 10 euro in some cases even 20 to 30 euro more expensive. we dont have a gamestop here but from what a read on some forums it seems that gamestop is not only in trouble due to a rise of digital but also bad costumer service and trying to screw people over with trade ins and second hand games. so no i dont think physical games are in danger just a store that doesnt have good costumer service. for me personally i always buy physical i rather own my games than that i have a digital library that can be deleted at any time by a platform holder just look at the reports of origin accidentaly deleting a guys library and doing nothing about it. or ms having a policy that they can ban you or pull youre digital library if you do or say anything offensive and someone reports you



Well yeah its over, the number of outlets goes down => people need to drive longer to get to a store and will instead buy digital => more outlets close etc...

Also the fornite move will hurt a lot of children, I just expect a lot of parents buying the fortnite game 'because hey kids love that game' and then they open it and find out it is just a download code.






I think so-called brick and mortar stores will start dying while stores like Amazon will still prosper. I just don't see physical dying anytime soon. And i hope not because i have no interest in paying premium-price for a digital file i have no control over.

Last edited by melbye - on 04 December 2018

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Not sure how quickly game shops will disappear, if ever. All I know is that if they do, then it is basically the end of the game industry. Expect another crash like the one in '83 if they manage to eliminate the physical shops. The current model very much relies on having enough physical media so that shops will sell hardware too.



You reap what you sow. Gamestop insisted on price gouging customers for used games and being generally predatory with no effort put forth to convince customers that Gamestop is the place to buy. So now that their primary source of income is dwindling, they will have to find a new way to appeal to customers.



The only way retail stores survive is if they switch their main revenue streams from physical products to something more experience based.

E-sports, competitions, retro events, dev talks/signings, lock-ins etc. All with snacks and drinks. They might still sell physical games and merchandise, but the only way they stay afloat and possibly thrive is if they find other ways to bring in money and customers.

Going for experience as opposed to purely product based is pretty much the only way anything on the High Streets is going to survive.



The_Liquid_Laser said:
Not sure how quickly game shops will disappear, if ever. All I know is that if they do, then it is basically the end of the game industry. Expect another crash like the one in '83 if they manage to eliminate the physical shops. The current model very much relies on having enough physical media so that shops will sell hardware too.

What kind of I'll informed statement is this?!? How does the brick and mortar bring any value to the game industry if any thing it make the cost of game higher and cut in developers profit. If these store shut down there are plenty of avenues to sell the hardware, groceries outlet, Big retailers (Costco,Walmart,Target), pharmacies & this little known online retailer called Amazon.

Just look at today announcement from Epic games, This will increase the revenues for developers and lower the amount of games that must be sold in order to turn a profit. This should increase the amount of developers that can make a niche game for smaller audiences and without having to worry if the game will make or break them.

Last edited by yvanjean - on 04 December 2018

The_Liquid_Laser said:
Not sure how quickly game shops will disappear, if ever. All I know is that if they do, then it is basically the end of the game industry. Expect another crash like the one in '83 if they manage to eliminate the physical shops. The current model very much relies on having enough physical media so that shops will sell hardware too.

The crash of 83 was largely brought about by the overabundance of low quality games and hardware rapidly eroding consumer confidence.   If the consumer increasingly chooses digital over physical, then you won't see the critical reason for the failure 35 years ago.   In fact, the industry today seems almost immune to the primary causes of the 1983 crash since storefronts - especially Steam, but also the consoles - are littered with low quality crap.  The gold can still shine through, however.  Though, perhaps you could consider the Fallout 76 disaster to be a rough equivalent to the Atari 2600 Pac Man port fiasco.  The consumer loses confidence when even trusted and popular names release horribly awful products.  

And, much as I despise it, an all-digital era is coming.  PC gaming is practically all digital already, and with Microsoft about to offer a disc-less option, I think there is a real chance they choose to go all digital for the XBox gen 4.  It'll be only a matter of time until Sony (PS6?) and Nintendo (Switch successor) follow.  The latter two perhaps only staying physical longer because of their strong positions in Japan. 

There's just too much pure profit for the devs and the console makers in the digital landscape for them not to be pushing hard for it.  Especially since first sale doctrine goes out the window.