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

You will always be able to buy physical, just not at dedicated stores anymore in the near future. Price wise that works out better for us because major outlets dont rely on software sales for growth. Its there as an incentive to walk into there supermarket/shop to buy other things that profit margins are much higher.



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Cerebralbore101 said:
OP what country do you live in? I don't know about that other chain, but here in the U.S. Gamestop is the worst place to buy games. I think we're not witnessing the failure of physical games markets, but the failure of poorly run, chain stores, that offer up insulting amounts of trade-in credit for games.

Canada and here we've got EB Games, my experience with them is good, I've never had a problem, but I admit that I'm like at least 50% digital buyer now



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?


Sixteenvolt420 said:
I honestly can't tell you the last time that i bought a game in-store. It's definitely been at least 3 or 4 years, though. Amazon gets most of my gaming business. Most of the other stores, i only buy from on Black Friday or if they have a good sale price on a game that i'm after. I always buy my physical games online, though.

Just asking, why do you prefer Amazon? because other game stores also sell online.



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?


I like both digital and physical, but I'm not a collector, so if the price and convenience is better on digital, I go for it. On the other hand, I feel a bit sad to see those stores go, I'd like them to turn into those comics/cards/geek stores that we still have out there.



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?


It's only a matter of time before being a store specializing in just physical video game sales will not be a sustainable model at all. Certainly not one that allows you to operate as a big corporation. Companies like Gamestop will either have to expand their offerings beyond video games, and thus become something else, or just sell your assets off and close shop. They tried to break into digital sales when they bought Impulse to compete with Steam but from what I've seen it didn't work out at all.



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VAMatt said:
GameStop and other retailers can survive, but they're going to have to significantly decrease their footprint. I don't know what's GameStop's debt load will allow them to do that. But, if they can right-size, they'll be fine. Physical game sales are not going away anytime soon, especially when you consider the 40 years of gaming that has already taken place and is almost all physical. There will be a market for those games forever.

Well it goes fast,  10 years ago TR anniversary was the first retail game that you could download and the response from the cummunity was luke warm. 
Now we have so many people who only buy digital.  The next ten years will be interesting =).






0D0 said:
Sixteenvolt420 said:
I honestly can't tell you the last time that i bought a game in-store. It's definitely been at least 3 or 4 years, though. Amazon gets most of my gaming business. Most of the other stores, i only buy from on Black Friday or if they have a good sale price on a game that i'm after. I always buy my physical games online, though.

Just asking, why do you prefer Amazon? because other game stores also sell online.

Because i have Prime, and also a Prime Rewards credit card, where i earn 5% cash back in the form of Amazon credit. I end up with $30-$40 of free stuff from Amazon, every month.



It's clear that physical sales are on the decline and will not be a thing anymore after some point. I think they will still be here next gen, but the gen after that? Maybe? At some point I would imagine the consoles to not even have a physical option.



Sixteenvolt420 said:
0D0 said:

Just asking, why do you prefer Amazon? because other game stores also sell online.

Because i have Prime, and also a Prime Rewards credit card, where i earn 5% cash back in the form of Amazon credit. I end up with $30-$40 of free stuff from Amazon, every month.

Holy crap is that 5% cash back on all purchases? I am in the market for getting a new credit card and that sounds amazing.



The_Liquid_Laser said:
DreadPirateRoberts said:

Brick and mortar stores will make a profit on both hardware and games.  Gamestop and Best Buy don't subsidize the cost of consoles to sell them - Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft do.  Though, obviously, they will make more on software both because the margins are larger and because of much larger overall unit sales.  

Everything you claim brick and mortar does is actually what the console makers do.  Sony and Microsoft especially have traditionally subsidized early console sales because they want their systems in the hands of as many customers as possible.  And that is because software drives their own revenues.  So no, the loss of brick and mortar games stores will not force console prices to rise at all.

As far as your "other reasons can cause a crash like 83" comment goes, that's basically meaningless argumentation.  You tried to tie the disappearance of physical storefronts directly to what happened in 1983.  There's no indication that is likely.  In fact, there is no indication that any crash is likely given the gaming industry continues to grow even as companies like Gamestop drown in red ink. 

It is true that the console makers subsidize the cost of consoles.  However, the stores don't make a profit on them either.  The margins are slim to none.  Selling hardware is not profitable enough for retailers by itself.  They sell the hardware though, because they can make decent margins on the software.  Take away the software and all of the sudden brick and mortar stores will stop selling hardware.  Then console makers are in deep trouble.  Not even Amazon would sell hardware without the software to go with it.

And of course there is a huge marketing advantage going through a brick and mortar store, especially a specialty store like Gamestop.  Take all of these advantages away and...crash.

You clearly haven't made your homework, first of all they do make a profit on selling hardware it's Sony and Microsoft that taking the lose. Secondly the biggest money maker around video games is actually accessories. Walmart, Amazon and other big retailers have already monetized the move to digital by selling gift card. 

https://www.amazon.com/best-sellers-video-games/zgbs/videogames/ref=zg_bs_nav_0

Just look at the amazon video games top sellers... Gift cards & Accessories make up 22 of the 50 top selling video games items. 

Video games are getting more and more popular and demand is rising. There aren't any sign indicating a potential crash. We're at the dawn of next gen of consoles.   



Brick and motar is the biggest cost to the price of video games. The sooner they die out the better for over all cost of selling video games. Take a look at the PC Market were physical media has died out. More then 50% of the market is digital only. Every indie games don't have a physical release.  

A good portion of the games revenues is coming from DLC and contents bought after the initial purchase, get out of here with the stupid talk about a crash due to the death of brick and mortar.