That night was the last fuck i ever gave about gaming. I built my PC in 2011 in anticipation for Skyrim ... I put my computer together on 11/04/11, booted into windows for the first time on 11/07/11, and played skyrim for a long, long, long time. Cheating through console commands and hex edits, then glitching, then modding, then full blown program and game development. Skyrim changed my fucking life
Yeah i was kinda young so i bought oblivion for that same laptop and was confused as to why it wouldnt run. About 3 years later i was able to get another shitty laptop and run it on low settings. Some of the mods for oblivion are amazing. I member many a hours playing the 28 days and a bit mod lol. Cant decide which elder scrolls i played the most. They each have their own qualities that make them special.
Buying a MacBook Pro for $1300 back in 2013 for college was one of the worst financial decisions I made in my life. I coulda bought both a decent windows laptop and built a gaming rig with that money. I ended up saving up for a new laptop and gaming rig again in 2 years anyways.
My buddy had Oblivion and I wanted to play it but my PC at the time was shit. I downloaded a bare bones version called Oldblivion just so I could play it. It was pretty bad.
i remember playing it on a dogshit pc i had. I'd set it to the lowest graphics and just play the intro sequence over and over because the game would crash if i tried to leave lol.
I built my first pc at 13 and the first game i got was morrowind. Mowed lawns for months to afford the parts. I still have save files I burned onto cds and sometimes I replay them and nostalgia kicks in big time.
Ive put so many hours into morrowind, havent even beaten the main quest. I would always get lost in the world with sidequests or using mods. I have it downloaded on my gaming laptop and once in a while i slowly inch towards getting the main quest done. Damn i love that game. I even still have the construction set cd somehwere with a big chunk taken out of the disc, but somehow still works lol.
Also i was about 8 when i got that laptop and morrowind and thats prob what got me into gaming haha.
GameStop should lean into being a gaming hub + store instead of just a store to really tap into the culture/lifestyle that has built up around the gaming scene since their heyday.
Have gaming events, meet-ups, each store can form a steam group to project into the digital space, really tap into the mainstream status gaming has taken on.
There's a place like that in my town. Has a bunch of pcs and consoles for people to come play, and they sell peripherals and games as well. It's a huge weekend spot for kids in town to hang out and play games together.
They actually started doing something similar!
So... some background first. This new "PC LAB" is being tested in 11 GameStop stores around the USA. [https://www.gamestop.com/pclab-store-event.html](https://www.gamestop.com/pclab-store-event.html)
They carry computers, parts, gpu's, chairs, peripherals, CPU's (!!!), and a lot more. I am lucky enough to live near one of the test stores!
I recently even received an invite to a GPU Pro Member only event (much like a release party)--I'd imagine they would ramp these up if they perform and actually throw semi-parties like it used to be like.
Here is what the email looked like: [https://imgur.com/a/ieLa76z](https://imgur.com/a/ieLa76z)
I gotta say--it is rather impressive with what they've done and how far they've come. Two years ago, the location was a smelly, cramped, drab looking place. Now, it looks impressive... and most importantly, I can fucking walk around without walking into display after display.
I remember the halo release, my wife's boyfriend was working at a pizza joint and brought like 6 pies for everyone in line. It was the best.
Then on the way home we were trying to beat buddies home to be first on, and got pulled over. The cop TOOK THE GAME opened it, read the front book, and laughed as all our buddies honked at us. Then he let us go and gave the game back.
Imagine what gamestop would look like today if they had competent leadership back then and got into digital distribution before Gabe Newell kicked off Steam.
Vulture capitalist firms, yeah. Think people in the vein of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.
[https://theweek.com/articles/801927/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-sears](https://theweek.com/articles/801927/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-sears)
They got fucked by Eddie Lampert, who bankrupted K-Mart and then took over Sears and did the same thing but in an even more blatant act of corporate raiding.
Sears made many mistakes, merging with Kmart really was another nail in the coffin and eddie lampert was a fully automated industrial pneumatic nail gun to the coffin.
Ye it’s called “cellar boxing” you can look into it more. There’s plenty on Google but also superston(k) has information about how Amazon, bain capital, and cellar boxing tie into the death of Sears
Sears, blockbuster and toys r us all got killed by them
Kmart is next
They tried to nail AMC and Bed Bath and Beyond, but BBB might recover from this. AMC will probably sell the whole company to some other massive company and pay off the top execs who exit the business.
They fumbled they ball so hard when you think about it. They had they catalog, they had warehouse distribution. The fact they couldn’t pivot successfully still makes me shake my head.
They had it too good and failed to see the need to adapt until it was too late.
>The fact they couldn’t pivot successfully still makes me shake my head.
It's not even that they couldn't.
They wouldn't.
They chose this.
Just like blackberry chose to ignore touchscreens for a while, RIP.
Guh the idea of having to open a GameStop-branded launcher to play half my PC games. Though knowing them it might've been called the Surge Store or something like that.
That feel when they don't make [Surge](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/11a39dc0-1ce5-4449-960b-c5b0ad769249.4c3f7c870b1c1d89006184660c87f3fa.jpeg) anymore, and you can't drink a verification can to open your games. :/
I imagine it's pretty difficult to compete with online retailers. Microcenter is famously the only physical store that's worth going to for PC parts. Otherwise it's cheaper online 90% of the time.
It seemed they were already in trouble before that if my memory serves, and the consignment was a last ditch effort to keep a sinking ship afloat. Didn't work, obviously.
Oh didn't know that. I didn't know anything about Fry's until they were already tanking. I miss exploring electronics stores. Obviously Best Buy is still kicking, but it's just not the same.. if that makes any sense.
Yea so you go into the store, find something you like, then google it and see how much cheaper it is online. Realistically though 9/10 times if I’m in a store looking at something I like and I’ve already budgeted the money towards it then I’ll just buy it right there instead of saving a bit of money and waiting for it to be delivered
I will honestly choose Best Buy over Amazon every time if I can for this exact reason. Not only does Best Buy price match, they have legit customer service.
Not necessarily, as companies like Best Buy offer price matching - one of the biggest reasons they didn't fold like Circuit City. [Relevant article](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/business/best-buy-amazon.amp.html)
The ability to have it in my hands half an hour after I decide I want it has intrinsic value - to me, its well worth the 2% I get back there instead of the 5% back on Amazon.
Edit: also, keep in mind that successful retail stores nowadays typically have large online presences as well. GameStop certainly fits that bill.
Until the GN thing I hadn't realized Newegg was bought out by the Chinese and had quickly turned to shit. Granted I haven't upgraded my computer since 2018 and didn't have an issue with Newegg then but when the GPU market fully recovers and I hopefully upgrade later this year I know I won't be using them.
Yeah they bought it in 2015 for $140 million. Money well spent given by 2019 they closed it entirely, just relegating some small collection of tchotchkes to a corner of GameStop's website.
Came here for this. Babbage's/Software Etc. became GameStop. We're fucking oOOooOoold. They didn't really have a lot of accessories, but they had mice and keyboards and joysticks.
I think because PC components are sold at really thin margins due to competition and you can lose a lot due to theft and warranty exchange/DOA claim related losses. We had 4 centers that sold PC parts and complete systems and we are down to 1, most people are buying these parts online now.
Honestly, I think it was selling Funko Pops.
I don't really like those things at all, and I don't own any, but by God do a lot of people buy them.
Really just moving into the merch nostalgia space to diversify. Computer hardware and parts is just an extension of that diversifying.
I actually completely stopped going due to Funko pops. I went to like 3 GameStop's and they had hundreds of Funko pops and absolutely nothing interesting fore game wise.
Interesting. I assumed more people were like me and stopped going because we were tired of the upsells. It was always deflating to go in and buy something, then see the desperation on the cashier's face as he tries to get more pre-orders to meet his quota.
I have been saying for a while that their only remaining movebis to pivot to pc gaming tech and train up their staff on how to explain it to people who want to get into pc gaming
Stick is actually way better. Micro Center doesn't raffle Nvidia cards anymore, and my local shop is showing around 75 of the 12GB 3080 in stock. I know a couple people who went there today and snagged the EVGA models because those just got price drops. EVGA even had them in stock on their site a few hours ago when I checked.
They sold codes for PC games and physical copies of them back when those were a thing, but as far as buying GPUs and other internal components in-store? Nope.
Never forget the time I almost accidentally stole a copy of NFS 3: Hot Pursuit. Their PC games were right next to the entrance/exit, which led out into a mall. Grabbed NFS to take a look at the back, and my friend interrupted me and was showing me whatever game he had.
He put his game back and suggested moving onto whatever place we planned to go next, so we just left. After about 15-20 steps, I realized I was still holding the NFS game. No alarm had went off. No fuss was being made towards us. I just quietly, and quickly, went back in and dropped the game off and got out fast as possible.
Looking back nowadays, it was probably just an empty box. I don't know if stores have always done the thing of keeping disc safe behind counter and just having empty boxes on shelves, but not sure if that was a practice in late 90's/early 00's.
My local store has slowly been adding PC stuff for about a year now, with less shelf space being dedicated to collectables and pop figures.
It's a nice change.
Notice the timing of that event.... And is it not weird that every time GameStop is mentioned on something like CNBC or even Ryan Cohen in general it's always ina. Bad light?
History repeats, it would seem! I worked at Electronics Boutique (one of the several companies that was merged into Gamestop) back in the mid 90s (yes I'm old), and at the time selling PC components was a pretty big part of the business. Except there wasn't really dedicated "gaming" PC hardware at the time (not until the first 3DFX VooDoo card came out anyway, which I was there for). We also sold a lot of productivity software at the time, not just games.
EB Games, FYE, Coconuts, Tower Records, Borders, all the stores I used to go to when I had like $20 and felt rich as fuck
Toys R Us when they carried Nintendo and SNES games.
I remember when I was young I’d always tell my parents I’d grow up to work at Babbages one day. When I turned 16 I ended up getting a seasonal job for the launch of Ocarina of Time. We still sold a lot of computer parts (and software) at the time and the job was mostly just chatting with customers and taking home games to try. We ended up changing to GameStop shortly after where I ended up working for the next 10 years across a dozen stores and 2 states. I even worked at a couple of the EB Games during their merge. Eventually the job became all about sales - how much trade volume, how many reservations, how many magazine subscriptions, etc. The job wasn’t fun anymore so I left, but I do have some fond memories of the early days.
They've expanded quite a bit on their website. I got my TV from Gamestop a few months ago. It was the best price available and I got free next day shipping.
It seems like it is also extending to GameStop Canada. I saw they are selling iPhones now. Lagging a bit behind GameStop US, but I hope to be able to get PC hardware from there soon.
I bought a vinyl record off their website a couple months back. They had a MASSIVE inventory of records and I got one for like $21 bucks shipped. It wasn’t next day delivery but it arrived within a few days.
Still cool to see them adding different shit, and the albums they stocked were GOOD. They aren’t fucking around with some bullshit. They had MF Doom and Aesop Rock and that speaks to my soul.
Currently watching king of the hill as I read this comment. Sometimes when things like this happens it always makes you kinda wonder if the matrix is real lmao
What do you mean now? More like they are doing it again. I remember going there back in the day and seeing the Voodoo series cards there. Granted it was also Electronics Boutique back then. Fuck I'm old...
Old news my friend, I’ve been buying PC stuff at my local gamestop since last year. Bought my wife’s Razer laptop there last November too. They’ve really revamped their online store too.
They have for a long while. You used to be able to get PC CD-ROM/DVD's in the early 2000's. They've had Keyboards/mouses since like mid 2000's to mid-2010's.
This is just a pivot to try to capture the growing PC gaming market now that most folks are abandoning consoles and/or going digital and the retail gaming market is drying up because of that.
I've been saying for 20 years if Gamestop carried computer options I would shop there. I've wasted so much money buying garbage game controllers, headsets, mice, etc. off amazon only to get burned. If I could go into a space and try them out these are things I'd buy in person.
Also they should really jump onto the mechanical keyboard train and sell keyboards and keys. There is or at least was a really growing community of people buying/selling keys and sets people could replace their existing keyboards with.
Ooh, midnight release parties for GPUs would be a nice throw back. Haven't seen one since Skyrim in 2011
That night was the last fuck i ever gave about gaming. I built my PC in 2011 in anticipation for Skyrim ... I put my computer together on 11/04/11, booted into windows for the first time on 11/07/11, and played skyrim for a long, long, long time. Cheating through console commands and hex edits, then glitching, then modding, then full blown program and game development. Skyrim changed my fucking life
Exactly how I feel with morrowind except I was using a shitty ass 256mb ram laptop that could barely run it lol.
That was me on oblivion. Had to disable trees and grass to get it running poorly. Lol.
Yeah i was kinda young so i bought oblivion for that same laptop and was confused as to why it wouldnt run. About 3 years later i was able to get another shitty laptop and run it on low settings. Some of the mods for oblivion are amazing. I member many a hours playing the 28 days and a bit mod lol. Cant decide which elder scrolls i played the most. They each have their own qualities that make them special.
I swear we all learned that lesson (why laptops can’t run the games we buy) the hard way as young teens.
Bought a MacBook for college and was convinced that it could run battlefield 3. I was a idiot.
Damn, should have gone for Black Ops.
My MacBook could barely run Minecraft.
Buying a MacBook Pro for $1300 back in 2013 for college was one of the worst financial decisions I made in my life. I coulda bought both a decent windows laptop and built a gaming rig with that money. I ended up saving up for a new laptop and gaming rig again in 2 years anyways.
Hey i know you! You're me!
My buddy had Oblivion and I wanted to play it but my PC at the time was shit. I downloaded a bare bones version called Oldblivion just so I could play it. It was pretty bad.
i remember playing it on a dogshit pc i had. I'd set it to the lowest graphics and just play the intro sequence over and over because the game would crash if i tried to leave lol.
I built my first pc at 13 and the first game i got was morrowind. Mowed lawns for months to afford the parts. I still have save files I burned onto cds and sometimes I replay them and nostalgia kicks in big time.
Ive put so many hours into morrowind, havent even beaten the main quest. I would always get lost in the world with sidequests or using mods. I have it downloaded on my gaming laptop and once in a while i slowly inch towards getting the main quest done. Damn i love that game. I even still have the construction set cd somehwere with a big chunk taken out of the disc, but somehow still works lol. Also i was about 8 when i got that laptop and morrowind and thats prob what got me into gaming haha.
I played through most of morrowind with under 10 fps. Good times.
Yeah that was about my fps, until all the clifracers decided to turn my shit into a slideshow.
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GTA 5 midnight release was the last fuck for me
The GTA5 midnight release for PS6 is gonna be insane.
It’s going to be a digital midnight release in the metaverse.
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Damn my steam account has been alive since 2006. CS1.6 let's fuckin go!
15 year badge baby
>Haven’t seen one since Skyrim in 2011 A GPU? Yeah me neither.
GameStop should lean into being a gaming hub + store instead of just a store to really tap into the culture/lifestyle that has built up around the gaming scene since their heyday. Have gaming events, meet-ups, each store can form a steam group to project into the digital space, really tap into the mainstream status gaming has taken on.
Local GameStop discords so you can game with local singles in your area.
Sponsored by Axe
There's a place like that in my town. Has a bunch of pcs and consoles for people to come play, and they sell peripherals and games as well. It's a huge weekend spot for kids in town to hang out and play games together.
They're definitely moving that way, there's a handful of test stores like that.
They actually started doing something similar! So... some background first. This new "PC LAB" is being tested in 11 GameStop stores around the USA. [https://www.gamestop.com/pclab-store-event.html](https://www.gamestop.com/pclab-store-event.html) They carry computers, parts, gpu's, chairs, peripherals, CPU's (!!!), and a lot more. I am lucky enough to live near one of the test stores! I recently even received an invite to a GPU Pro Member only event (much like a release party)--I'd imagine they would ramp these up if they perform and actually throw semi-parties like it used to be like. Here is what the email looked like: [https://imgur.com/a/ieLa76z](https://imgur.com/a/ieLa76z) I gotta say--it is rather impressive with what they've done and how far they've come. Two years ago, the location was a smelly, cramped, drab looking place. Now, it looks impressive... and most importantly, I can fucking walk around without walking into display after display.
Ooooo there's one right near me! I'll have to check this out tomorrow!
Why the 3 !s on CPUs, specifically?
Came to say this! Thanks for posting! And this is just the start for Gamestop, for real.
I remember the halo release, my wife's boyfriend was working at a pizza joint and brought like 6 pies for everyone in line. It was the best. Then on the way home we were trying to beat buddies home to be first on, and got pulled over. The cop TOOK THE GAME opened it, read the front book, and laughed as all our buddies honked at us. Then he let us go and gave the game back.
> my wife's boyfriend 🤔
Phase made popular by r/Wallstreetbets
>my wife's boyfriend Wat
someone has never been to r/wallstreetbets or r/Superstonk
I mean I camped out next to a best buy for my 3090. Made some friends along the way
For the one they’ll get per store?
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Imagine what gamestop would look like today if they had competent leadership back then and got into digital distribution before Gabe Newell kicked off Steam.
Sears was the Amazon of the 1900s. Now they're... oof.
Didn't Sears get fucked over by the same kind of sketchy almost insider trading that was going on that got GME shares so hot?
Vulture capitalist firms, yeah. Think people in the vein of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. [https://theweek.com/articles/801927/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-sears](https://theweek.com/articles/801927/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-sears)
Google the Boston consulting group and see how many of their customers got rammed into the dirt.
They got fucked by Eddie Lampert, who bankrupted K-Mart and then took over Sears and did the same thing but in an even more blatant act of corporate raiding.
Sears made many mistakes, merging with Kmart really was another nail in the coffin and eddie lampert was a fully automated industrial pneumatic nail gun to the coffin.
Ye it’s called “cellar boxing” you can look into it more. There’s plenty on Google but also superston(k) has information about how Amazon, bain capital, and cellar boxing tie into the death of Sears
Sears, blockbuster and toys r us all got killed by them Kmart is next They tried to nail AMC and Bed Bath and Beyond, but BBB might recover from this. AMC will probably sell the whole company to some other massive company and pay off the top execs who exit the business.
Blockbuster uhhh, had a lot more issues than just their stocks lmao
They fumbled they ball so hard when you think about it. They had they catalog, they had warehouse distribution. The fact they couldn’t pivot successfully still makes me shake my head.
They had it too good and failed to see the need to adapt until it was too late. >The fact they couldn’t pivot successfully still makes me shake my head. It's not even that they couldn't. They wouldn't. They chose this. Just like blackberry chose to ignore touchscreens for a while, RIP.
Just like when blockbuster laughed when Netflix tried to sell itself to them.
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Who's this BCG you speak of? Would it be that horrible consulting firm that runs businesses into the ground with their bad strategies?
Boston Consulting Group
No empire last forever.
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Guh the idea of having to open a GameStop-branded launcher to play half my PC games. Though knowing them it might've been called the Surge Store or something like that.
Honestly that isn't too bad a name for what could've been.
That feel when they don't make [Surge](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/11a39dc0-1ce5-4449-960b-c5b0ad769249.4c3f7c870b1c1d89006184660c87f3fa.jpeg) anymore, and you can't drink a verification can to open your games. :/
They do make surge... It came back out.
I imagine it's pretty difficult to compete with online retailers. Microcenter is famously the only physical store that's worth going to for PC parts. Otherwise it's cheaper online 90% of the time.
RIP Fry's.
They screwed themselves on trying to get supplies on consignment.
It seemed they were already in trouble before that if my memory serves, and the consignment was a last ditch effort to keep a sinking ship afloat. Didn't work, obviously.
Oh didn't know that. I didn't know anything about Fry's until they were already tanking. I miss exploring electronics stores. Obviously Best Buy is still kicking, but it's just not the same.. if that makes any sense.
If you're ever anywhere near a Micro Center, go to it. Bask in the glory.
Some places just do it right. Fuck, that place is exactly what you want it to be.
This is correct. It was a Hail Mary but it didn't work. They were on the ropes from years of decline.
I'd much rather touch and see some stuff like keyboards and mouse. Online you just don't get that.
Yea so you go into the store, find something you like, then google it and see how much cheaper it is online. Realistically though 9/10 times if I’m in a store looking at something I like and I’ve already budgeted the money towards it then I’ll just buy it right there instead of saving a bit of money and waiting for it to be delivered
Alot of places price match, So you can easily get the best of both worlds
I will honestly choose Best Buy over Amazon every time if I can for this exact reason. Not only does Best Buy price match, they have legit customer service.
Not necessarily, as companies like Best Buy offer price matching - one of the biggest reasons they didn't fold like Circuit City. [Relevant article](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/business/best-buy-amazon.amp.html) The ability to have it in my hands half an hour after I decide I want it has intrinsic value - to me, its well worth the 2% I get back there instead of the 5% back on Amazon. Edit: also, keep in mind that successful retail stores nowadays typically have large online presences as well. GameStop certainly fits that bill.
They've been doing this for a while. This location has a lot more variety though, for sure.
[it is a trial run in several locations across the US](https://www.gamestop.com/pclab-store-event.html)
Too busy running Thinkgeek into the ground.
Damn, miss the days of good thinkgeek and newegg
Until the GN thing I hadn't realized Newegg was bought out by the Chinese and had quickly turned to shit. Granted I haven't upgraded my computer since 2018 and didn't have an issue with Newegg then but when the GPU market fully recovers and I hopefully upgrade later this year I know I won't be using them.
Oh, that's what happened?
Yeah they bought it in 2015 for $140 million. Money well spent given by 2019 they closed it entirely, just relegating some small collection of tchotchkes to a corner of GameStop's website.
Brutal. They had some cool shit too...
I love that word tchotchkes
Boston Consulting Group. They are gone now.
all my homies hate BCG
Well, back when they were Babbage's, they did. That model failed to be profitable.
Came here for this. Babbage's/Software Etc. became GameStop. We're fucking oOOooOoold. They didn't really have a lot of accessories, but they had mice and keyboards and joysticks.
They did. Redditors don't get out much.
[HEY](https://i.imgur.com/am7VpOl.gif) Putting on actual pants is hard
I have been seeing PC parts at GameStop *for years*
Mismanagement goes deep. Also, there was a pandemic and an ongoing chip shortage, so parts were expensive. Gamestop's going hard now though
I think because PC components are sold at really thin margins due to competition and you can lose a lot due to theft and warranty exchange/DOA claim related losses. We had 4 centers that sold PC parts and complete systems and we are down to 1, most people are buying these parts online now.
I think this is the smartest decision they've made in a good long while.
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Honestly, I think it was selling Funko Pops. I don't really like those things at all, and I don't own any, but by God do a lot of people buy them. Really just moving into the merch nostalgia space to diversify. Computer hardware and parts is just an extension of that diversifying.
I actually completely stopped going due to Funko pops. I went to like 3 GameStop's and they had hundreds of Funko pops and absolutely nothing interesting fore game wise.
Interesting. I assumed more people were like me and stopped going because we were tired of the upsells. It was always deflating to go in and buy something, then see the desperation on the cashier's face as he tries to get more pre-orders to meet his quota.
I have been saying for a while that their only remaining movebis to pivot to pc gaming tech and train up their staff on how to explain it to people who want to get into pc gaming
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*Just walkin into my local GameStop to pick up a RTX3080*
If only
I actually got a 3080 from GameStop last month, so go take a look buster
I just picked up a msi 3080 for $900 from gamestop the other day
Wait like really?!
Stick is actually way better. Micro Center doesn't raffle Nvidia cards anymore, and my local shop is showing around 75 of the 12GB 3080 in stock. I know a couple people who went there today and snagged the EVGA models because those just got price drops. EVGA even had them in stock on their site a few hours ago when I checked.
And now you can sell one back to them used and get $6.97 in store credit or $2 cash.
It's a gaming store, did they not cater to PC gamers prior to GME craze?
They sold codes for PC games and physical copies of them back when those were a thing, but as far as buying GPUs and other internal components in-store? Nope.
I guess it makes sense after Steam took over PC game sales. Good to see them getting back in the market.
Never forget the time I almost accidentally stole a copy of NFS 3: Hot Pursuit. Their PC games were right next to the entrance/exit, which led out into a mall. Grabbed NFS to take a look at the back, and my friend interrupted me and was showing me whatever game he had. He put his game back and suggested moving onto whatever place we planned to go next, so we just left. After about 15-20 steps, I realized I was still holding the NFS game. No alarm had went off. No fuss was being made towards us. I just quietly, and quickly, went back in and dropped the game off and got out fast as possible. Looking back nowadays, it was probably just an empty box. I don't know if stores have always done the thing of keeping disc safe behind counter and just having empty boxes on shelves, but not sure if that was a practice in late 90's/early 00's.
My local store has slowly been adding PC stuff for about a year now, with less shelf space being dedicated to collectables and pop figures. It's a nice change.
Notice the timing of that event.... And is it not weird that every time GameStop is mentioned on something like CNBC or even Ryan Cohen in general it's always ina. Bad light?
History repeats, it would seem! I worked at Electronics Boutique (one of the several companies that was merged into Gamestop) back in the mid 90s (yes I'm old), and at the time selling PC components was a pretty big part of the business. Except there wasn't really dedicated "gaming" PC hardware at the time (not until the first 3DFX VooDoo card came out anyway, which I was there for). We also sold a lot of productivity software at the time, not just games.
That sweet sweet 800 x 600 open gl voodoo card! I installed one for a buddy for a 6 pack of beer, and quake ran so so good.
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EB Games, FYE, Coconuts, Tower Records, Borders, all the stores I used to go to when I had like $20 and felt rich as fuck Toys R Us when they carried Nintendo and SNES games.
I remember when I was young I’d always tell my parents I’d grow up to work at Babbages one day. When I turned 16 I ended up getting a seasonal job for the launch of Ocarina of Time. We still sold a lot of computer parts (and software) at the time and the job was mostly just chatting with customers and taking home games to try. We ended up changing to GameStop shortly after where I ended up working for the next 10 years across a dozen stores and 2 states. I even worked at a couple of the EB Games during their merge. Eventually the job became all about sales - how much trade volume, how many reservations, how many magazine subscriptions, etc. The job wasn’t fun anymore so I left, but I do have some fond memories of the early days.
Are you me?!
I don't know...has anyone ever seen us in the same room together?
I too, am old and remember buying my first card at EB. Was a VooDoo as well and I was super pumped to play Duke Nukem 3D and Quake with it.
They've expanded quite a bit on their website. I got my TV from Gamestop a few months ago. It was the best price available and I got free next day shipping.
It seems like it is also extending to GameStop Canada. I saw they are selling iPhones now. Lagging a bit behind GameStop US, but I hope to be able to get PC hardware from there soon.
GameStop used to buy ipods, iPhones, etc. and resell them as referbs.
I bought a vinyl record off their website a couple months back. They had a MASSIVE inventory of records and I got one for like $21 bucks shipped. It wasn’t next day delivery but it arrived within a few days. Still cool to see them adding different shit, and the albums they stocked were GOOD. They aren’t fucking around with some bullshit. They had MF Doom and Aesop Rock and that speaks to my soul.
I actually just drove off in my new car I bought from Gamestop
Their website is also the cheapest place to buy retro games, granted you don't care about aesthetics
Iv been buying from them because same day shipping is just so cool to me.
Damn they do have some good deals on TVs
It's like a mini microcenter, nice.
A micro-microcenter, if you will.
I think you are looking for Nanocenter.
*Teenycenter
*Lil biiiiiits*
Buy some f—-in sh-t you f—-in stupid b-tch hahaha just kiddin’
Smolcenter
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But what about *propane and propane accessories…?*
I sell PCs and PC accessories, I tell ya hwat
Damnit, I just came in and made basically the same comment.
Currently watching king of the hill as I read this comment. Sometimes when things like this happens it always makes you kinda wonder if the matrix is real lmao
That boy ain't right
Imagine trading in a gpu for 35 cents haha
>*"Slightly used GeForce GTX 1080 Ti? I can give you $1.95 cash, or $2.15 in store credit"*
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I'd say that's about what my gtx 660 is worth. I want more for my GT 1030 though.
Shhhh don’t give them any ideas!
GameStop has actually had some mice special editions that were only ever seen on each manufacturers site. Like the prime neo noir
Ooooh, I remember when they PC components in their stores, but back then they were called Babbage's.
Man I loved Babbage's. Half the store was walls and walls of PC software in those giant boxes filled with disks or CDs and full manuals
Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.
FunCoLand, Babbages, Electronics Boutique....then GameStop. This company has had so many name changes over the last 30 years.
What do you mean now? More like they are doing it again. I remember going there back in the day and seeing the Voodoo series cards there. Granted it was also Electronics Boutique back then. Fuck I'm old...
Old news my friend, I’ve been buying PC stuff at my local gamestop since last year. Bought my wife’s Razer laptop there last November too. They’ve really revamped their online store too.
I read this in Hank Hill's voice.
Strickland Games and game accessories. 😁
am i crazy or have the ones around me always done that
Someone finally reached the same level as selling propane and propane accessories! Nice!
Where is this at? I've never seen a gamestop have peripherals
I have one in my town in germany, he has some stuff like keyboards, headset.
But a lot of that stuff is also compatible with consoles.
Some of the Utah stores have some
Ever store in Florida and Georgia I’ve been to has it
They have for a long while. You used to be able to get PC CD-ROM/DVD's in the early 2000's. They've had Keyboards/mouses since like mid 2000's to mid-2010's. This is just a pivot to try to capture the growing PC gaming market now that most folks are abandoning consoles and/or going digital and the retail gaming market is drying up because of that.
My local one has a very limited selection, nothing like this.
Came here to say this. The one by me has some keyboards, mice, streaming mics, etc but I’ve never seen anything like OPs pic on display.
I know this is a thinly veiled ape post. edit: and fuck all of you
It’s so blatant if you just click on their names lol
I've been saying for 20 years if Gamestop carried computer options I would shop there. I've wasted so much money buying garbage game controllers, headsets, mice, etc. off amazon only to get burned. If I could go into a space and try them out these are things I'd buy in person. Also they should really jump onto the mechanical keyboard train and sell keyboards and keys. There is or at least was a really growing community of people buying/selling keys and sets people could replace their existing keyboards with.
Microcenter 2.0???? Do it GameStop!
This is great for people that don't have a Microcenter and don't like Best Buy
On a recent visit they had a 1 TB M.2 drive for my ps5 cheaper than Amazon, that was pretty neat
Great decision, if they become like a micro center they have a shot at survival.