IkePoR said:
And since Gamestop is the product retail equivalent of Electronic Arts and Ubisoft combined, I smell a rat. Sure, Blockbuster was bleeding cash from the ears but Gamestop isn't exactly swimming in it either. They've been getting their teeth kicked in YOY by Amazon, Best Buy and even Walmart. This program will lose them money too, as it's a business model that's designed to be sold at a loss, in order to get people to come into the store more often. So they can pre-order beg and impulse you into whatever's in the glass case behind the counter, a model that does not work in the current decade. Especially because it's Gamestop, the only place "for" gamers, that gamers don't want to be. |
Compared to Blockbuster, yeah Gamestop is swimming in cash. When they filed for bankruptcy BB as an entire company was valued at about 1/3 of just the amount of profit Gamestop made last quarter. BB had a debt over a billion dollars. They're not really comparable at all.
I don't know enough about Gamestop's business model to say this will lose them money or not. It is retail, and the goal in retail is to get people in the door, which this will do. Obviously they're going to be hoping that when Joe John goes in to swap out one game for another he might snag a used copy of something else or buy some toy or something else, that's just smart business. How much the customers will do that remains to be seen. I agree hardcore gamers really don't care to use Gamestop any more, not when Best Buy has GCU, plus online retailers like Amazon exists. Last month I went into a GS and bought a used copy of Stick of Truth on 360 to play on my Xbox One and I also signed up for a year of their Elite Pro or whatever membership, because there seems to be a glitch or sale or extreme flip situation on CAG once a week involving Gamestop. But that was the first time in months and months I'd been in there. But hey, this is at least a start to change that. I'll gladly go in there multiple times a month to swap games out if there's no shitty fine print here. This is one of those times when it's a good thing for consumers that a company might need to change their ways to generate more revenue.
