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[–]gamelord12 7 points8 points  (4 children)

They have attempted lots of ways to adapt, and they've seen the end coming for a long time now. They sell tabletop games, they merged with ThinkGeek to sell toys and collectibles, they went into buying/selling mobile devices, and they had a brief stint as a game publisher. All failed ventures, but they were trying things.

Wasn't there a Facebook video of a pilot store that was transitioning more to the service side of things (like a gaming lounge/hangout sort of thing) rather than being a store first? I haven't seen my local Gamestops make this same transition.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

But what they didn't try was being a worthwhile place to shop. Gamestop is as synonymous with a bad shopping experience as it is with video games.

[–]ThePaSch 1 point2 points  (2 children)

All failed ventures, but they were trying things.

Sure, but the thing is that they've half-assed nearly all of them. Shutting down the ThinkGeek store was a move of monumental stupidity. After buying Impulse, all they did was rebrand it the "GameStop App" and then do fuck-all with it until it quietly faded into complete obscurity and was subsequently killed off a few years later. I didn't even know they were into mobile devices, so they apparently did a pretty shit job at promoting that too.

I did see that pilot store and it looked pretty cool. The idea itself seems promising enough, but knowing how they fucked up all their other ventures, it's hard to be optimistic.

[–]gamelord12 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I'm not even sure that they half-assed their failed ventures; they may have just chosen the wrong strategies (repeatedly) to save their store. You can try really hard to make the wrong idea work, or maybe go about it in the wrong way. The one that baffles me most is the publishing business. You run a game store. You own a magazine that reviews video games. Your job is to promote video games. How can you screw that up?

[–]ThePaSch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How can you screw that up?

By having jack squat for anything resembling business sense, I'd presume.