UPDATED-Gamestop re-entering vintage game market says CEO

[wildbil52]

Who knows if it will actually happen, but apparently Gamestop sees value in the vintage game market again...

http://www.joystiq.com/20...o-vintage-games-business/

UPDATE
Gamestop provides more details on their plan.  Anyone hate the idea any less?  More?

http://www.joystiq.com/20...age-game-sale-initiative/

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Coming from the company that decided old stock was better to destroy than store?

[wildbil52]

Coming from the company that decided old stock was better to destroy than store?

I have my doubts...

[slackur]

Coming from the company that decided old stock was better to destroy than store?

I have my doubts...

*sigh* I remember watching many a great game snap into pieces under the booted heal or even hammer of a Gamestop Manager during periodic 'field destroys'.  Still have to see it on occasion.  Each time, I feel a great disturbance in my heart, as if millions of voices from video-gameless children in hospitals and poor households cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.

Stupid, so stupid.  If it didn't mean my job, I'd have rescued every one of them.  Lots of kids could've benefited from those.  Such a waste.

[Necrosaro]

Gamestop probably looked at places like Games Plus and all the other Mom-and-Pop retro gaming stores around and thought, 'Oh s**t we need to make more monies.'

Since the one thing I like about Gamestop is that they support the second-hand used game market, I'm cool with it so long so long as the prices are reasonable. If I can find some decent Sega Genesis/CD/Saturn/Dreamcast stuff CIB at a decent price, I'll look into them.

But that being said, if they start charging $20-$30 for cheap common NES cart-only games, I'll likely laugh and walk out of the store while checking online prices and going back to my second-hand retro stores.

[Duke.Togo]

Gamestop, oh how much do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Coming from the company that decided old stock was better to destroy than store?

I have my doubts...

*sigh* I remember watching many a great game snap into pieces under the booted heal or even hammer of a Gamestop Manager during periodic 'field destroys'.  Still have to see it on occasion.  Each time, I feel a great disturbance in my heart, as if millions of voices from video-gameless children in hospitals and poor households cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.

Stupid, so stupid.  If it didn't mean my job, I'd have rescued every one of them.  Lots of kids could've benefited from those.  Such a waste.

I once saw 600 PS2 games in boxes marked destroy, because they didn't sell and they didn't have the cases for them. I asked the manager about it, and they said they couldn't donate them because it would be considered theft. They would've been more than happy to donate them to the Children's Hospitals here in town.

Also, I sincerely doubt that GameStop will sell them for anything near competitive prices. It just makes no sense for them to ship out a $1 game when it costs them $3 to ship it. Likely, most games will be a baseline price of $5 or $10, with the more popular games ranging towards $20 or $30 like SMB3. People are willing to pay those stupid prices at the flea market, so I see no reason why GameStop wouldn't do it. How will it hurt them? They're already sitting in the warehouses for 10+ years.

[Razor Knuckles]

It wont work. It's too late for GameStop to recover from their own stupidity. I belive around 7 years from now GameStop will be a thing of the past and I will wish them good riddance.

The reasoning for me saying this is GameStop is late to the game of retro games. I see it like this.

In my area there is only one independent game store that sells new and retro games and consoles. I live in a city of about five million people. There are about 25 GameStops in my vicinity. They have diluted their own market so much that even with retro games they wont get a decent selection per store.

If this was to start today I wouldn't expect to walk into a GameStop a year from now and see more than a hundred retro games per store in their inventory.  It wont catch on well, the retro game market is a niche and not big enough to turn profit for their company.

Everything will head towards digital downloads and GameStop will be screwed. Thank god I hate that place. Call me an asshole but I hope they go out of business.

[DaveMMR]

When my local Gamestops (yes plural - there are a bunch of 'em) were still selling PS2 and Gamecube games, it was worth it to pop in and load up on some old newer classics. Particularly since they always had a "buy two get one" deal. They've since been sticking mainly with the current gen and while I am still a customer of those titles (used), I definitely don't spend as much money on them as I do the retro games. So if they can display a decent selection of old titles at decent prices, I may be inclined to check it out.

That being said, I'm also not a fan of the store. I go there when I have to but I hate having to explain why I don't want to pre-order some game I have zero interest in. I'd rather patronize the mom-and-pop game store - if only there were some around me.

[Quackula]

This is apparently going to just be online only, though I wouldn't be surprised if they started stocking games in their physical stores again down the road.

I doubt I'd buy from them either way. There's so many other options out there.

[blcklblskt]

I don't think that carrying older games would make any sense for GameStop.  How many games from 10+ years ago are worth more than $1-3?  There is absolutely no margin on those kinds of games.  I could see them selling popular titles such as Super Mario Bros 3 and Sonic the Hedgehog, but where are they going to build up an inventory of these games?  They've already cleared out their inventory of "classic" games, and I don't think this effort is going to be worthwhile for them.  Most people who shop online will know of eBay, and will likely resort to eBay or Amazon to buy older games instead of GameStop.

Unless GameStop somehow finds a whole warehouse full of Silent Service (they are worth ~$75, right?) I think that they're better off keeping shelf space (and inventory space) stocked with current generation games.

[Addicted]

Gamestop, oh how much do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

As much as I dislike their policies I would still buy a copy of Combat for the 2600 from them just to see what the clerk would try and ask me to preorder.

[Duke.Togo]

Gamestop, oh how much do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

As much as I dislike their policies I would still buy a copy of Combat for the 2600 from them just to see what the clerk would try and ask me to preorder.

LOL. Would you like to put down $5 for a copy of Video Olympics?

[SirPsycho]

I wish I collected back when we got our first Gamestop back in my hometown. Back then I was blissfully unaware of their practices and seeing those now much hated stickers still on some NES, SNES, Genesis, and 64 games from time to time at like $.69 just sounds tempting to load up on commons.

[Izret101]

Gamestop can eat a dick.