By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales Discussion - Why do most games have more longevity in sales (legs) in Europe than in the US?

The_Liquid_Laser said:
S.Peelman said:

Not one that operates throughout Europe as far as I’m aware. Gamestop itself also isn’t active in The Netherlands. We have our own gamestore chain, which does also sell used copies though.

(Answering both of you.)


I do wonder what the concentration of used game stores in Europe is, because where I am they are everywhere.  I like in a city with a greater metropolitan area of about 530k.  We have 7 Gamestops and a similar number of small businesses that sell used games.  That is about one used game store for every 38k people.  (I am excluding pawn shops and thrift stores which usually only have a handful of games each.)  This seems like a lot to me, but perhaps it is that way everywhere?

(We also used to have even more Gamestops than this but a couple of them closed down recently.)

Probably wayyy lower.

Obviously I can only speak for my immediate area; I myself live in The Netherlands in a city of about 650k, and there are just two stores in the entire city of the chain I mentioned earlier. Used to be three, but I guess one wasn’t having enough customers. Then, broadening the scope a bit, the immediate urban area of all adjacent towns has a population of over a million, 1.1m maybe 1.2m, but there’s still only two more stores. So I guess that’s one store for like 250-300k people. Toy stores sell games as well, and there are a lot of those, and so does Media Mart, a big electronics store, but they all only sell new.



Around the Network
carlove said:
As a cheap Dutch-guy I always buy my games either: day-one with a price-mistake ( The game originally 55 euro's sold between 0 and 30 euro. I've gotten games for free before, day one). Or I buy it when it's cheap, later on ( 0% to 30% of its original price ).

This is the opposite of me. I almost never buy used games, and I oftentimes buy games when they first come out. Mostly because of hype, as I get excited to play games long before they come out, so although some might say that waiting a couple months isn't a big deal, I've oftentimes already waited several months, or longer.

I own many games that I haven't actually played yet.

I haven't always been this way, but in recent years I've began getting disposable income and that has resulted in a dramatic increase in my spending habits



S.Peelman said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

(Answering both of you.)


I do wonder what the concentration of used game stores in Europe is, because where I am they are everywhere.  I like in a city with a greater metropolitan area of about 530k.  We have 7 Gamestops and a similar number of small businesses that sell used games.  That is about one used game store for every 38k people.  (I am excluding pawn shops and thrift stores which usually only have a handful of games each.)  This seems like a lot to me, but perhaps it is that way everywhere?

(We also used to have even more Gamestops than this but a couple of them closed down recently.)

Probably wayyy lower.

Obviously I can only speak for my immediate area; I myself live in The Netherlands in a city of about 650k, and there are just two stores in the entire city of the chain I mentioned earlier. Used to be three, but I guess one wasn’t having enough customers. Then, broadening the scope a bit, the immediate urban area of all adjacent towns has a population of over a million, 1.1m maybe 1.2m, but there’s still only two more stores. So I guess that’s one store for like 250-300k people. Toy stores sell games as well, and there are a lot of those, and so does Media Mart, a big electronics store, but they all only sell new.

Yeah, that sounds like a lot less.  (Again we are only comparing my city to yours, so this is just anecdotal at this point.)  I also was only counting used game stores.  Every Walmart, Target, and Best Buy also sell new games here.  Walmarts are all over the place.  Toys R Us used to sell new games also, but they just went out of business due to poor management.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 31 August 2018

keep in mind that plenty of europeans (myself included) do prefer to buy digital games on the US marketplace on conversion rate alone. 60$ does not equal 60€, so for me it was a no brainer to keep a US PSN account as my main



We americans get bored quicker.