GameStop selling comics...

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pacman000
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GameStop selling comics...

Postby pacman000 » July 16th, 2018, 5:38 pm

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/06/ ... ic-bo.aspx

Well, their main market's going away (like it or not) so they need to do something. Their collectible business is doing well, so comics seemed like a "natural" fit.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 16th, 2018, 11:06 pm

Not a big comics guy, but I like the idea of diversifying. I'm just wondering why they don't get in the business of buying and selling classic games. Seems like there's a lot of mark-up there.

Also, they might want to consider selling those Diamond statues. They look amazing and seem pretty popular with the comic book crowd.

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pacman000
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby pacman000 » July 17th, 2018, 9:28 am

GameStop did try to sell classic games. It think it might've been online only, requiring a special order. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/gamestop- ... tro-games/

Don't know if they still do: https://www.gamingconviction.com/former ... -disaster/

If that article's real, they didn't spend enough time training their employees to spot fakes, so they wound up with a ton of problems. :(

CharlieR
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby CharlieR » July 17th, 2018, 2:39 pm

They have a lot of comic book character memorabilia,, so selling comics makes sense.

They do sell retro games on their website, but you never know the condition of the product. I think some stores in bigger cities sell the retro games.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 17th, 2018, 10:04 pm

pacman000 wrote:If that article's real, they didn't spend enough time training their employees to spot fakes, so they wound up with a ton of problems. :(


I never considered this! But I guess it's a big issue now in this era of near-perfect reproductions. Heck now I'm wondering if any of the games I've bought off Ebay are fake. I guess I could crack them open to find out.

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Matchstick
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby Matchstick » July 18th, 2018, 3:58 am

CharlieR wrote:They do sell retro games on their website, but you never know the condition of the product.


Speaking from experience, I have bought dozens, if not hundreds of retro games and controllers from GameStop's website, and have had very few problems along the way. Most of the cartridges I've bought have been in excellent condition, at least an 8 or 9 out of 10. If I knew how to post pictures on this forum, I'd share a few examples of cartridges that I've bought. Most of them look better than standard eBay fare, have nice front and back labels, and come with their contacts cleaned, to boot!

The only issues I've had were one instance when I received a completely different game than what I ordered, and a general issue with their cleaning methods. I ordered OutRun for the Sega Genesis about a year ago, and when it came in the mail, they sent me OutRun 2019! Honest mistake, I'm sure, and returning the game was quick and easy.

The other issue comes with how they appear to clean old carts and controllers. It seems their preferred way to remove old stickers and gunk is to scrub it off with a Brillo pad. Thankfully, most of my orders haven't had this problem, but I did have a few carts and controllers that, while clean, had countless little scuffs up close. These weren't from general use - they were obviously scrub marks, very fine, but countless in number. It made a 6 button Genesis controller look matte and textured, but hey, it worked. A minor nitpick.

The best thing about ordering from GameStop online is that you can return items in store. As long as you have the receipt, you're golden, and in my experience they will take a return on retro items no questions asked.

On the other hand, I absolutely **DO NOT** recommend ordering any disc-based "retro" games from them! I have had many Dreamcast, Saturn, and Gamecube (which I feel weird calling "retro," but that's how they file it) discs arrived scratched to Hell and back, covered in a pasty resurfacing compound. Their disc buffers are too harsh on those older discs, especially Gamecube. I've also had discs from those three systems arrived obviously cracked and damaged around the center hub, and the chances of you getting one complete with its case and manual are slim to none.

Of all my cartridge-based orders, I'd say I was satisfied with 95% of them. Disc based games, probably only about 25%.

Again, returns were easy on those items, but sheesh, I can't believe they would try and sell something that was obviously so beat-up to begin with!

bluenote
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby bluenote » July 18th, 2018, 9:01 am

I don't understand why their game inventory is so small? I mean, the 3DS has hundreds of physical games available, yet I usually only see around 50 in any given store (I'm in Canada, so it's EB games here).

Same with Switch, maybe 15 or 20 are in any given store, yet there's easily more than 100 available. PS4 and xBox One has a lot more games, but again, they only sell a fraction of what they could.

What's the reason for this? If they focused just on games and had most available games for all current systems for sale, I think they would do much better.

This is why I usually end up buying from Amazon rather than going to a physical store.

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Rev
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby Rev » July 18th, 2018, 9:06 am

I could be wrong but I'm thinking this might be the first main generation where you have exclusives for each console (especially the NS and PS4) that are only available through online ordering... For example, Amazon has a selection of games that can only be bought there, play-asia has their own, limited run games has their own, and a lot more sites... I'm wondering how many big releases have actually been released for the Switch at this point... I have always thought the inventory at Gamestop was reflective of these commercial released games... Same with PS4... although their library is much bigger.

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Retro STrife
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby Retro STrife » July 18th, 2018, 9:21 am

This is probably smart. Even if video games are more mainstream and popular, I often notice that mom & pop stores for comic books, cards, and collectibles (without video games) seem to survive longer than similar stores that just focus on video games. So there's probably something to that, and GameStop recognizes it. In fact, I once went to a small solo-owned store that had an awesome selection of retro games at great prices, and the owner told me that the games barely paid the rent, and it was his sales of Magic the Gathering packs that actually made the store profitable and kept him in business.

Matchstick wrote:Speaking from experience, I have bought dozens, if not hundreds of retro games and controllers from GameStop's website, and have had very few problems along the way.


I bought several Sega Saturn games on there too, because they were pretty reasonably priced. I may have had an issue or two, but overall I was pleased with the experience. But, in typical GameSpot fashion, they toss out all of the extra packaging to save space and shipping costs, so everything is disc-only. It makes me want to slap someone just thinking that Sega Saturn cases and manuals are being just tossed in the trash because of GameSpot's idiocy.

bluenote wrote:I don't understand why their game inventory is so small? I mean, the 3DS has hundreds of physical games available, yet I usually only see around 50 in any given store (I'm in Canada, so it's EB games here).


Well, for starters, most smart gamers don't do business with GameStop. To me, you either have to be foolish or lazy to trade-in games to them, since they offer peanuts for them...you're better off selling on Amazon or ebay, or just keeping the games. Same with buying--it's usually much cheaper on Amazon or ebay. The end result is that they have less games to sell and less people to buy them. Sort of like what happened to Toys R Us. In the past 10 years, I've probably bought less than 10 games there, and mostly because they were very cheap common games (like under $10) that weren't worth buying online due to shipping costs.

bluenote
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Re: GameStop selling comics...

Postby bluenote » July 18th, 2018, 10:53 am

Retro STrife wrote:This is probably smart. Even if video games are more mainstream and popular, I often notice that mom & pop stores for comic books, cards, and collectibles (without video games) seem to survive longer than similar stores that just focus on video games. So there's probably something to that, and GameStop recognizes it. In fact, I once went to a small solo-owned store that had an awesome selection of retro games at great prices, and the owner told me that the games barely paid the rent, and it was his sales of Magic the Gathering packs that actually made the store profitable and kept him in business.

Matchstick wrote:Speaking from experience, I have bought dozens, if not hundreds of retro games and controllers from GameStop's website, and have had very few problems along the way.


I bought several Sega Saturn games on there too, because they were pretty reasonably priced. I may have had an issue or two, but overall I was pleased with the experience. But, in typical GameSpot fashion, they toss out all of the extra packaging to save space and shipping costs, so everything is disc-only. It makes me want to slap someone just thinking that Sega Saturn cases and manuals are being just tossed in the trash because of GameSpot's idiocy.

bluenote wrote:I don't understand why their game inventory is so small? I mean, the 3DS has hundreds of physical games available, yet I usually only see around 50 in any given store (I'm in Canada, so it's EB games here).


Well, for starters, most smart gamers don't do business with GameStop. To me, you either have to be foolish or lazy to trade-in games to them, since they offer peanuts for them...you're better off selling on Amazon or ebay, or just keeping the games. Same with buying--it's usually much cheaper on Amazon or ebay. The end result is that they have less games to sell and less people to buy them. Sort of like what happened to Toys R Us. In the past 10 years, I've probably bought less than 10 games there, and mostly because they were very cheap common games (like under $10) that weren't worth buying online due to shipping costs.


Trading in is completely different and I definately agree with you.

But I think they could bring in a lot of hardcore gamers if they had the stock. If they carried 300-400 3DS games instead of the usual 50, I would definately go to my local store rather than Amazon.

I know it's a bit different, but I used to shop at HMV for years. All they sold for years was CDs (or tapes and records back in the day). As soon as half their store was funko pops, collectibles, etc than I stopped going because their cd collection was just regulated to best sellers and recent releases. Nothing else. I may as well shop on Amazon for the deeper catalogue. And, HMV went out of business.

I get that the cd/music business is different from video games, but it seems that Gamestop is going down a similar road.


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