GameStop Wants to Be the 'Local Church' of Gaming

Video games are on the edge of a new paradigm shift, as game-streaming services prepare to launch, letting people play instantly—and potentially changing how many gamers get their new titles.

GameStop's EVP and Chief Customer Officer Frank Hamlin says: “Nobody knows how it’s going to end up, but we know that streaming services and subscription services are the future. The question is: How do you reconfigure and rethink the ecosystem to accommodate that in the best way for players? Our whole role is to be player focused.”

[strayanalog]

"If [E3] is the Vatican [of gaming], why aren’t we the local church?” - Because someone usually catches one of you guys taking coins off a dead man's eyelids in the shadow of the steeple.

[djl3485]

Ain't nothing wrong with that. The dead man doesn't need to coins anyways.

[mikeslemonade]

Time to buy some GameStop stock.

[Eonjay]

I shall allow this with the requirement that the Dorito pope is named the new leader.

[strayanalog]

He always pays his Dews, but I don't know.

https://i1.kym-cdn.com/phot...

[affrogamer]

LOL well...that might be a lil too late.

[TeamIcoFan]

Suuuuuuuuuuure, and you can have this guy as your Pope while you're at it. https://i.kym-cdn.com/photo...

[DillyDilly]

No

[CurbStompin]

THEY NEED ALL THE PRAYERS THEY CAN GET

MIRITE?!?!

[FullmetalRoyale]

Yeah, sure... See you at church..

[jznrpg]

I bought a hard to find game from Gamestop and they send me a generic case with it and the game was 60 dollars used . I was pissed , obviously I returned it . They show you a game with a real case they don’t say they are sending just the disc . What a crappy company .

[rainslacker]

I dont buy their used games online because they do state they may or may not come with a case or the original instructions or what nots.

I dont mind in store if they have the boxes and stuff...but they dont carry a lot of the retro stuff in store.

Gamestop wants to cater to the retro market, but they dont really seem to understand the wants and needs of the retro gamer or collectors. At least you can do returns with them easily though

[Tross]

Apparently Gold Edge cards can expire. Who knew? I guess I don't shop at EB Games (the Canadian subsidiary of Gamestop) enough anymore. All downgrading me to a Red Card did was encourage me to shop on Amazon more often.

If you want to go with a church analogy, in my experience churches are better when they're not big chains. I certainly don't regret switching from Catholic (the ultimate church chain) to a local Foursquare Church (which has an organization but every church is individually owned and operated by the head pastors).

Actually, now that I think about it, local gamestores are great and make for preferable shopping experiences if I wish to go to an actual store, so that analogy actually does work quite well. Good luck with the church thing Gamestop. You're clearly at the "Catholics Come Home" stage of desperation. For your sake I hope it works better for you than it did for the Catholic Church (seriously, I don't know anyone that initiative actually worked on).

[neomahi]

Not if physical media goes away. If streaming and subscriptions become the way, rhyme done. They only survived the PS4 because physical media was still a thing. They're not going to last long off of retro game sales, smaller mom and pop shops will put them out, they've nothing to offer then and people hate the corporate world, everyone knows when physical media dies, so too does GameStop. Sony and Microsoft only need their own storefront to sell their own games, GameStop can do nothing for marketing by then.

[generationjeu]

Churches are getting leveled left and right here so seems about right

[DafunkyRebel]

Mtn Dew/Doritos Pope disagrees

[cheetorb]

Hail Satan \m/