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I absolutely hate that term. Stores aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and nor should they. It's foolhardy to fully embrace the perils of modern technology and shun tried tested and true methods of retail shopping. This is why the world is so messed up these days - people willing to embrace too much of the future by discarding the past and present.

I buy the odd thing off Amazon once in a while (small things I don't need to inspect beforehand), and I like the fact that it arrives right to my apartment building (sometimes to my door). That being said, nothing can really take the place of going to my favourite stores when I need something, walk in, look at what I'm going to buy before I purchase it and make a decision on it right then and there.

Online retail might be a helpful tool, but it's not the be all and end all. Not by a long shot.

-J.

   

Gaming has been ruled by online only companies for a couple decades. Steam was my first digital dealer, and "The Orange Box" was the free Meth. Many have followed, like Playstation and XBox, where games are delivered digitally more than physically, by a large order of magnitude. The newest Microsoft Flight sim takes 9 DVDs, and you still need an online connection to use the detailed landscapes.

I used to have a computer store, and I know the margins on hardware and software are minimal. If you have to try to maintain a physical retail presence, you are already disadvantaged. Netflix never did retail, and yet they are one of the fastest growing companies of the last decade.

Retail will always be around for some things, but many others can be virtual.

   

Agreed. Especially when it comes to games. Why should i go to a store to buy a game when I can download it overnight at home? And digitally, I don’t have to pay sales tax. At a store I do, making a game that’s listed at $79.99 a game that costs $90 after taxes.

   

And why go to a store to buy a physical copy, when you will have to download an update of virtually the same size when you get home, and every month afterwards?

   

   

And when did the short happen?

   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze

Wiki on timeline says Jan 12. However, gamestop stock historically was on the downturn for quite some time. Before the pandemic it was already on a downward trend. That was a conflux of several issues not the least of which was the management at the time. The main threat was bigger fish in the market that were directly cutting into the business model of gamestop such as Amazon, Wal-Mart and online stores like Steam/GoG/Epic/microsoft/Sony/Origin to name a few.

   

And what about after the pandemic started? It started climbing in September. By the time the short happened, it had risen almost 500% from pre-pandemic. Is that a company on the way out? Doesn't seem like it to me. Seems like a prime opportunity to short and kill actually.

And if you read my previous post, you'd see that I pointed out management had changed. New board members and a new CEO that had announced significant changes to operations.

Why are we pretending this was anything but a coordinated hit job on a company for the sole purpose of making a profit?

   

New management was responsible for vulture capitalism that encouraged stores to stay open during a pandemic. And now that was called out. They had a history of putting profit before people, their staff and their customers were seen as not their problem and it bit them in the ass.

Fair amount of irony here in that the very callousness they are inciting is the thing that came back to kill them. It wasn't 'new management' that gave them the shot in the arm to get back on their feet it was a pandemic that was forcing everyone indoors and craving distractions. They tried to exploit that at the expense of the rest of us and now we have even more infected. Well, a pox on all our houses is the result.

   

What are you talking about? Their shareholder value increase was because of significant online sales. It increased something like 300%. In fact some investors in June of last year said the gamestop stock was likely very undervalued, because of late cycle PS5 and Xbox released, and the fact that they had more cash on hand than debt.

As for them trying to force them to stay open, that was ridiculous. It also only lasted about 3 days before they reversed the decision. It also has basically nothing to do with the increase in their value 6 months later.

The company wasn't dying. It was hurting, but it was showing signs of recovery. Shorting their stock was an attempt at killing it, full stop. Attempting to claim anything else is doing nothing but defending wall street.

   

Next.... Silver.

   

   

Twas a great trajectory however, they are still the biggest player for used and rental games. You can't deny that cds,dvds and cartridges are being swapping between grubby kids being handled by minimum wage staff that have less hygiene training then ushers at the movie theater. Sure their online was taking off but that was because of the pandemic lifting all boats like a tide not because of some magic spell of new management.

   

   

How is being the biggest (and really I'd argue only) player in used games a negative?

   

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