So GameStop are closing a hundred and twenty stores in the US and beginning to focus its development in the adjacent sectors of mobiles and tablets.
I don't quite know why they're doing that and if you don't understand why I don't understand, I want you to go into any store in America and ask a Sales Assistant if they stock iPhones. But here's the catch, it can't be a store that would sell them.
It could be a bakery, a sex shop, McDonalds or a Restaurant.
Apart from looking at you as if you were mentally unsound, where would that person redirect you?
Well gee, I don't know, probably any store but GameStop.
GameStop are known for games, and the idea of the stores shutting down in order to go after a market that's already cannibalizing itself with streets littered with phone shops. (Guesswork here. British man typing.)
Without GameStop, most counties in America won't be able to purchase used games. They don't have a CEX like we have here in the UK. In fact, the sole places you'll be able to buy games will be Target, Wallmart and BestBuy. And I'm sure the staff know lots about videogames.
"A Link to the Past? Ethernet Cables are in Aisle 7, sir."
It's a shame to me, because the people who'll cry out "Just download them online, for crying out loud! This is 2014!" are almost certainly right. But I kinda don't want them to be.
Right now, I can download loads of titles onto my PS3. I picked up FF9 for a couple of quid from the PS store. I could get numerous PS1 and PS2 titles if I chose to.
But I'm not really owning anything, am I?
I'm owning a ghost, a spectre. Something I can't see and something I can't be 100% sure will always be there for me no matter what. If I have a disc and I have a console, I'm confident that I can pop it in and will always be reassured that I can play the game. With a digital download, I'm only gaining a right to play a game. I don't own jack.
It brings me back to E3 2013, where the Xbox One was announced without a disc-tray and would always be online.
I remember talking to a friend of mine and we both reached the same agreement. Sooner or later, there will no longer be discs. This is a future that will almost definitely happen. Microsoft ballsed up the entire presentation, but they hit upon a point. Sooner or later, most, if not all, of our game purchases will be digital downloads. They'll be switched out like CD's for iPods.
But see, I like my CD's. I like my video game cases. If I went to a video game store today, I could pick up N64 cartridges for next to nothing that would be old enough to drive cars. Sixteen years, that piece of plastic has been around.
It's part of history. It's physical. It's mine.
If all our purchases become digital downloads, I strongly feel that videogame history will be side-lined.
And I'm not sure I want that.
(As an end note, why are digital downloads the same price, and sometimes even more expensive, than retail units? What's up with that?)
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