Brick and mortar game stores are shells of their former glory

[gaijinkaiju]

Went into a physical game store (EB games, sepcifically. Owned by gamestop) and was massively disappointed by how few games there were. Relegated to a small corner of the store and one or two "discount" bins out front, and even then you've got a small selection of games. The rest of the store was just pop-culture crap. Funkos, shirts, marvel/dc merch. Browsing the games wasn't even worth the time because none of the second hand games are cheap, they're priced just below retail with maybe a few outliers. I was better off going two stores down and visiting a more general electronics store (JB hi-fi) instead.
Its such a shame, because I have many fond memories of just looking around in brick and mortar stores, and physically looking at games. Now you don't get that, its all got to be online.
Don't even get me started on trading in games to EB games, because the money you get back is just not worth it. Even the worst games I own are worth more to me, than the money i'd get from trading them in. For reference, in 2014 i traded in Assassins creed and got back a whopping $1.10nzd ($0.65usd).

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I loved going to brick-and-mortar stores too, browsing and finding hidden gems. Sadly, steamDRM killed that in 2005.

 

[Signa]

I was in a gamestop recently too. Much of the same story there as well. I'm OK with it though. Console games are mostly a rip-off compared to what I spend on Steam. Especially when your used prices are what you say they were for you.

 

[Gauche]

Gamestops are everywhere here in the states. They got bought out by ThinkGeek in 2015 and ever since had had entire walls dedicated to Funko Pops. Mall locations store merchandise in the bathrooms which grosses me out.

My local Pa & Sons game store here closed earlier in the year. Sad to see it gone but I'm not exactly mourning the loss, their prices were similar to ebay listings. To their credit, they did have aisles full of games.

 

[Arnox]

The major game retailers are now garbage and have been for a long time (which is partly not their fault given the current state of gaming). You need to go to the local gaming and electronic stores or pawn shops. And when you do, don't look for modern games. Look for older titles and consoles. Buying modern games physical these days is almost always a complete waste of money as a lot of them require a day 1 patch just to be playable.

Another thing is modded consoles. For better and for worse, they've cut into the used market a bit.

 

[Phiwise_Offline]

Gamestops are everywhere here in the states. They got bought out by ThinkGeek in 2015 and ever since had had entire walls dedicated to Funko Pops.

To be fair, I took a curious look inside a local independent comic book store recently, and they also had as much space dedicated to those frightening alien creatures and other merch as to actual comics. I guess if that's what today's visitors want, that's what you stock. Customer is always right, after all. (Although, this was also a shop in a mall, so maybe that's part of what's going on here. The self-selection of mallgoers who visit "geek and pop culture" category shops might be much more into vinyl representations of the world after Rossum's Universal Robots than the general population. I went to a different, standalone shop several years ago and didn't see much merch, thought this was a hybrid shop that also sold a lot of ttrpg stuff, so maybe that's where they make up that margin.)

And on the other hand, I am making fun of their purchasing decisions while lying next to a whole shelf of my bookshelf dedicated to displaying YuruCamp Nendoroids and Rainbow 6 Chibis, so who am I to judge? Not that that's going to stop me, of course. I mean, have you seen the things? Those empty eyes haunt my nightmares.

 

[Signa]

someone needs to be fired from a cannon for creating the art style that the Funkos use. There's so many charming characters I wouldn't mind having it my shelf, but they all look awful once they are produced in that design.

 

[Arnox]

someone needs to be fired from a cannon for creating the art style that the Funkos use. There's so many charming characters I wouldn't mind having it my shelf, but they all look awful once they are produced in that design.

Yeah, really don't like that design. They should have just stuck to standard figurines.

 

[Gauche]

Anime figurine collectors get a lot of shit but their stuff is unique

Funko collections are copy/paste cheap soulless constructs