Gamestop has always sucked at selling games, so I guess, in some strange way, it checks out.
Likewise, CEOs are irrelevant to game quality.
I would say detrimental to game quality.
Idk why everyone is making fun of this. Sony made it very clear that games are going all digital. Gamestop has to take it seriously and they have been pivoting to collectables for a while now, so they are clearly on top of this. Maybe the pivot works, maybe it doesn’t, but they aren’t just sticking their head in the sand and pretending everything is fine.
GameStop is currently making a serious effort to buy eBay, which would also give them TCGPlayer and station them as a pretty big fish in the collectible card gaming space.
It’s funny to me that the same crowd of people that rail against the continued fucking over of the public by manipulative corporations are the same people who fork over hundreds of dollars for the artificial scarcity and manufactured demmand of collectible cards.
Every time I think of getting into that hobby, I get the same feeling I get when I go to the casino… like I’m just a mark.
It’s such a controversial opinion, but outside of playable games etc… people are basically buying (with ‘collectibles’) the equivalent of bacon and eggs arranged in a happy face to make a kid giggle. What the fuck are people doing with their lives where they need to have a picture of some cartoon character or a bobblehead of it?
Oh, yeah. My playgroup all gave up on buying official products years ago for that reason. Now we just buy cardstock and toner.
How long do your homebrew cards last? It’s hard enough to make good cards at home that I think CardsAgainst Humanity has them publically available since it’s still cheaper for them to print than you would spend for a small batch.
And how do you keep your decks from being overpowered?
It’s tough to comment on how long they last, because it’s going to depend on how often you play. So I started proxying 4 years ago and haven’t had any problems yet, but I also sleeve them as though they were genuine, and only play maybe one game a week.
As for avoiding overpowered decks, I’ve been playing with the same group of guys for nearly 25 years. We’ve worked out where we like to be, and self-balance for fun. It helps that I’m a total Johnny, so I can whiff a game completely and still have fun as long as I “did the thing.”
If you’re just asking how to avoid overpowered decks just because of the ability to print proxies, people with big budgets (or a long history of playing) can get all those actual cards already and there’s banned and restricted lists for each format (and the formats themselves also help, as they limit which sets are legal, so standard doesn’t have to worry about interactions between new cards and every single card made in history).
And for more casual games (that ignore ban lists or allow custom cards), there’s the whole dynamic of “if I always play my deck that just stomps everyone by turn 2, eventually no one will want to play with me, other than to throw their overpowered decks at it, so I’ll save the extreme ones for special occasions”.
Dogs do the same! When big dogs play tug, there’s a certain percentages of times they have to lose if they want to keep playing, no matter how much bigger or stronger they are.
Listening to a lady named Freya India who is talking about this exact same kind of cognitive dissonance.
The left hammers the points of anti-capitalism but go into debt for regular Disney vacations or high end brands, Taylor Swift Tickets, and more.
I don’t know that name, certainly not their content, but this sure sounds like the perennial “avocado toast” non-argument to somehow associate young people being (predictably) broke and foolish with, ya know, caring equally for human beings and wanting our society to make that a primary goal.
It sounds like hateful trash, is what I mean. What “left” is this person describing, I wonder?
The interview was not a financial discussion and was not about the debt itself but lack self reflection that the things they like most contradict the values they grandstand. That they mouth one set of values but live out another set of values that are less likely the ones they will give up, push come to shove.
Ah okay. Sounds like an attack on liberals then, which I heartily support lol.
Oh yeah? Why is that?
I don’t think most people on “the left” are doing those things in the numbers you think they are.
Yeah that doesn’t sound like the left lmao. The American left, whom the whole news-enjoying slice of the population believes to be the left? But which other countries consider right-of-center? Yeah, must be that “left”.
Young people don’t watch the news anymore because they either don’t want to hear about politics or they don’t trust the news for politics. I don’t even know any old left wing people that watch the news anymore.
Yeah, my point is really that all those news media convince everyone that liberals and Democrats are left wing, but they are far from it. Hard to imagine why any actual politically left (I.e. not “American left”) person would watch that stuff, it’s all propaganda.
I watched some of her videos on Newpipe, where it seems like Freya India is an EXTREMELY popular men among older conservative men that want women to get married and start bearing children (preferably Christian children).
I appreciate that she sees the rot in modern culture, but I think she’s mistaken when she associates it with “the left” and her prescription of returning to the status quo ante of traditional gender roles isn’t going to fly with most people.
Time for my daily Britt Hartley mention. Remember that scene in Platoon when the new recruits pass the returning veterans on the runway? Well, Britt Hartley is the returning veteran to Freya India’s new recruit. Britt was raised very mormon and inculcated in traditional gender roles and struggled to escape.
Some of Brtitt’s videos that might be part of this conversation are the one about why women want to become tradwives. I hear Freya validate a lot of what Britt says for she mentions anxiety as a big motivation for her to return to traditional values. Britt’s whole thing is analyzing existential anxiety, and, yeah, the modern age is rife with it, and returning to traditional values is one antidote (though it comes at a cost, obviously).
But, again, I do appreciate anyone that might validate what I think the core truth of our age is: “Being well in a profoundly sick society is no sign of health.”
Feel free to link Freya’s video, the one you’re talking about, and ignore the downvotes. Thanks for sharing.
To address the posts about what “left” is being described - Freya India is specifically addressing young women who fall into a social progressive category that don’t yet understand the businesses they “like” are not on their side and are taking advantage of them. The types who may say they want “socialism” but as far as they know socialism means things like being against Trump or just nice social sentiments. Not understanding that they really like capitalism and the things it affords them. The kind who have no idea of policy but will watch 30 political tiktok videos and thing they know something now.
And Ebay has been going to absolute shit for a while now. FB marketplace and Amazon absolutely gutted two of their core profit centers.
Serious as viewed from GameStop’s perspective, and maybe even just one man at the top. eBay has already said their offer is not remotely attractive to them. I think their current CEO unfortunately thinks the only way to run a business is to create controversy. I hope they didn’t take the wrong lesson from the Gamestop stock rally, but it seems at least one person did.
I hope eBay doesn’t get enshitified more as it is. I’m still pissed off with Facebook marketplace replacing Craigslist for buying local second hand shit.
Their CEO is a clown, that’s a big reason why
To be fair, GameStop has essentially become an overpriced merch retailer.
I’m honestly surprised they haven’t merged with Hot Topic.
They did buy out ThinkGeek, so… very close.
😭 🥀 God I wish I had gotten more of those novelty homewares while I still could. I’m an adult, I accept I need a laundry basket… but nobody else would’ve sold me a collapsible radioactive waste barrel.
I enjoyed the ‘bloody handprint’ shower curtain, but by the time I had enough money to get such items as yhr matching bloody-footprint bathmat with intention, ThG was gone for good.
ThinkGeek used to be so awesome man. I really wish I had held onto more of that stuff.
I miss thinkgeek too! 😑
I still miss the ThinkGeek of old, back before they even had stores.
They have stores?
they did briefly in the late-2010’s. They only sold the most kitschy mass-produced items.
GameStop beat out Hot Topic in bidding for ThinkGreek, with a winning bid of $20/share compared to Hot Topic’s bid of $17.50
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So that’s where that went.
I never bought anything but it was fun seeing the items
a few weeks ago I went into a Gamestop just to see what’s new, I hadn’t been in one for a long time. Holy crap their stuff is way overpriced. I looked at the Gunpla kits and the prices even for old High Grades were insane. They had Master Grades for nearly $200. It’s cheaper to just import the stuff directly from Japan. And the games sections were slim to none. I was also the only one in there at the time. I honestly don’t know how this company is still going. who buys that crap?
Let me know where you find master grades shipped from Japan for less than $200 lol. Not defending GameStop but everything in this comment is a gross exaggeration. I was in a GameStop last week and half the store is games and peripherals just like it has been for years. Sure that means half the store is stuffed animals and trading cards, but “slim to none”? Why lie about this? It’s weird
yeah…hobby link japan. they’re less than $100: https://www.hlj.com/search/?Page=1&GenreCode2=Gundam&MacroType2=Master+Grade+Kits&MacroType2=Master-Grade+Kits
are you mental? why lie about gundam models being more than $200 buying online? why lie about this? it’s weird.
idiot.
If you think that’s cheap you should check the prices at GameStop. Just found one for $25 lol. I want to smoke what you’re smoking. Don’t be so mad. It’s just Gundam models
When were they not?
“Software, it mattered in the past. Software today makes up less than 12% of the business, and collectables makes up over half the business. So, it’s totally, totally irrelevant.”
12% of your business is no way anywhere near “irrelevant.”
The 12% is the reason people come and buy the other 88%
Nintendo sells more in merch than in software, they should stop too
It depends on what that 12% is.
Is it revenue, or is it profit? And does that Include both new and used games?
New games have a very small profit margin compared to used games and merch.
Fair but it seems like if you’re trying to minimize the importance of something you would choose the metric that shows how minimally important it is.
If it’s 12% of revenue but 1% of profit wouldn’t you say it’s “1%” instead of “12%”?
Might even mean 12% of business transactions/goods sold. The profit margins, customer retention, market stability, minimal losses etc might be in other goods favour.
Given how many codes/games/etc a store might order that do not sell (losses to account for), games are much less ‘shelf stable’ compared to a plushie of a pokemon first shown on TV 25 years ago. Digital codes and registering also make any return/exchange obligations a bigger loss.
I think there’s several reasons a company might see games as a high-risk good when compared to collectibles.
I just wish they hadn’t destroyed ThinkGeek…
It depends on the growth, it it’s 12 and falling it’s irrelevant.
They’re not going to stop selling games, it’s just gonna be code cards now. They’ll still work out deals with the publishers for exclusive sales, and of course they’re still going to be selling consoles and handhelds.
It’s going to be irrelevant, why bothering going in a physical store and get bombarded with upsells to get a GS+ subscription for getting just a download code that can be downloaded from your couch?
Download codes are the reason the PC section in all game stores is missing or extremely tiny
Because not everyone has or wants credit cards. Children can’t get credit cards. Code cards are also useful for gifts.
I think you are right that even less people will buy them than physical games, but I don’t think they will be irrelevant.
I guess they’re just “Stop” then.
Game means more then video games… Table top, board games, card games… Literally they are making bank off card games right now. They are still if not more so right now game stop then ever before.
They do all game shit now instead of just one category.
They are still cunts for doing card grading tho stupid ass shit that is
I’m just happy they are still around either way. Considering how expensive video gaming is getting…I don’t blame anyone from pivoting from it and playing other types of games.
I guess the bottom fell out of the Funko Pop market then?
Which is why I’ve been going all in on Funko Pops. Buy when it’s down!
It’s called GameStop, not GameStart.
Coincidentally, GameStop is also irrelevant to Games.
Coincidentally, GameStop is also irrelevant
to Games
What the hell even is our economy anymore?
Memes, mostly. Lots of memes.
Edit: just noticed the weird box. I’m too lazy to redo it.
Use this space to imagine I posted the fixed meme
Somehow the weird box adds a certain…something to the meme.
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I mean, I don’t know that he’s wrong. It’s just weird to hear someone say it.
AI speculation.
The CEO said that? How insightful! That borders on genius! Give that CEO another grotesquely huge bonus! /s
The CEO of GameStop does not get paid, they have no salary or bonuses
yeah but i receive no money from the company i work for free with my own money
What happened with them being a meme stock?
They leveraged the market cap to stay in business and become a generic gaming related things retail/scalper hybrid.
Soooo mini figs?
yup, all sortz of plastic crack basically. low cost/high margin product
Kids gambling!
They already were that…
Ceo (who the cult worships) did like 4 huge stock offerings and diluted the float around 300%. Any moass short play is dead but a lot of them are sunk cost fallacy trapped.
The stock is still undervalued, that’s all that matters.
Moass or not, people are investing in Cohen, and the man is a genius. He’s taking GameStop from strength to strength.
You can argue with all the data supporting the moass thesis, but you cannot argue with the excellent fundamentals. Especially in this economy.
Imo, it’s free money regardless.
Edit: to add aswell, the fact they’re gearing up to acquisition eBay is a huge deal.
Its funny how they always say shit like I’m smooth brain, I just buy. And yeah, they continuously buy GME at set intervals, which… is what normal investors do (sans diversify). Full circle
They honestly could just become a merch store and only carry plushies, shirts, other nick-nacks and hardware. The one nearest me is already pretty much just an authorized dealer of FuncoPop garbage as is. I’d be more inclined to visit if they carried other general video game related stuff so I wouldn’t have to wait for shipping.
Do people go to gamestop specifically to buy merch, though? I always thought that that was intended like candy in the check-out aisle: you grab it because it catches your eye on the way out, after you’ve already collected whatever you actually came in for.
I think they would if they had more than the cheap eye-candy stuff they generally have and was the greater focus of the business. They could be the Hot Topic of gaming shit.
Might as well go all in on this. Merch and toy stores are popular for kids so i don’t see why they won’t do this. I don’t know why Western companies are so afraid to branch out from their “core competencies” and fighting tooth and nail to keep the rotting corpse of their previous business models. Japanese companies have been branching out from their initial business models since forever. Nintendo used make card games but is now a videogame behemoth. Fujifilm went from photography to biotech. Sony recently eked out into finance. This branching out is why Japan has some of the oldest companies in the world because they value long term survival. GameStop could do the same by giving up on their old business model and embrace selling merch and toys instead.
Do they have the same private equity system that we do in the States?
I feel like it’s been years, but wasn’t GameStop sort of a victim that somehow survived? I may have that all wrong.
Japan definitely has a different system but I’m not sure what the specifics are. But i can tell that Japanese companies have different philosophy than most companies across the world. They are not nearly as greedy as most companies and the fact that they are willing to pivot to a different field than they started with shows they are willing to spend the upfront hefty cost of switching to a new field, even if it cost profits in the next quarter; if this leads to survival in the next couple of years. I kinda like that because I loathe the short term-ism of most companies, especially Western ones.
GameStop had been bought to keep it afloat. I think it was going to be sold for bankruptcy to make the new owners rich but i think Redditors coordinated to buy shares or something so that it won’t go to bankruptcy or something like that. I could be wrong though.
i think Redditors coordinated to buy shares or something so that it won’t go to bankruptcy or something like that. I could be wrong though.
Close enough. DeepFuckingValue was either the one that caught on to or was the public face of a concern that noticed that GME was extremely short sold which roughly means that they sold shares they didn’t own with the notion that the share price would drop. Then they could buy the shares needed to cover the ones they shorted and make money. Selling short can have theoretically infinite losses, btw. The internet noticed…
So people flooded in and bought shares, call options, whatever, with the thought that the stock price would go up because the short sellers likely took out loans to cover shorting the shares, and the people that loaned them money don’t find cases of infinite losses/risk nearly as funny as the old wallstreetbets.
Some brokerages halted buying GME, and DeepFuckingValue got to testify in front of congress.
That’s basically Hot Topic, Box Lunch and a bunch of other similar stores that sell nothing but licensed merch. Only instead of Harry Potter, Disney, and a handful of popular shows it’s video game properties.
That was basically the case for most GameStops in Germany before they closed down for good nationally a couple years ago. You still had your games, of course, but like 80% of the customers we had came for merch. Funkos, shirts, other memorabilia.
ThinkGeek?
Well, GameStop does have experience running ThinkGeek into the ground.
The amount of negativity here is very positive. Somebody somewhere has an agenda to think they’re doing badly as a business 😜
Game? Stop!
No, money down!
Where’s that from again? Somehow I hear Will Arnett saying that.
I remember seeing it from Lionel hutz in the Simpsons voiced by Phil Hartman RIP
That quote is from the Simpsons, though Will Arnett’s character had nothing to do with that episode
30 Rock had a similar bit. And again, Will Arnett guest starred in that show, but not in that episode at all.
DOTCOM: Hey, Tray! We just picked up your birthday party invitations from the printer!
TRACY: Wait! What is this? “Give to charity, please, no presents”?
DOTCOM: Yeah, that’s what you told me to put on the card.
TRACY: No, Dot Com! I said, “Give to charity? Please, no. Presents!”
It’s hard not to think of this when you read that.
https://thehustle.co/gerald-ratners-billion-dollar-speech
Video here - https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=pW4j_enqQgc
