Credit: GameStop NFT Remember when NFTs like this were gonna reverse GameStop’s fortunes? Credit: GameStop NFT Remember when NFTs like this were gonna reverse GameStop’s fortunes?
Just as Tower Records couldn’t continue to exist in a world where almost all music was being downloaded or streamed, a chain devoted to selling games on physical discs can’t sustain itself in a world where the vast majority of game spending is now online.
Seeing the writing on the wall, GameStop has made a number of attempts to rebrand around something other than selling (or re-selling) physical video games. Anyone else remember the chain’s abortive attempt to restructure around “high margin immersive experiential gaming content” like esports? How about the rollout of “GameStop Retro” locations that sell games and hardware dating back to the last century? Or the much-hyped NFT marketplace that GameStop quietly wound down in 2023?
The latest attempt at a GameStop corporate pivot seems to be toward collectible trading cards, via in-store partnerships with card-grading agencies and a “Power Pack” program combining digital and physical card sales in some novel ways. But a world where GameStop is the place to trade in a $30,000 Pokémon card isn’t at all the same as the one where millions of people traded in Madden 09 discs for a couple of bucks of GameStop store credit.
So even though GameStop has lasted longer than I expected, I’m still relatively confident in predicting that the end is coming for the retailer sooner rather than later. Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be writing another article like this in 2033, marveling at how a once-lumbering giant in the world of video game sales is somehow continuing to limp along.