Earlier this summer, GameStop acquired ThinkGeek in a $140 million transaction that observers thought might put great geeky collectibles inside GameStop stores. While the two companies have done that, there’s another phase to their plan: later this month, the first offline ThinkGeek store will open on September 25 at the Florida Mall in Orlando. [More]
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GameStop, Not Hot Topic, To Acquire ThinkGeek For $140 Million
By 6.2.15
Remember the long, long-ago of, er, just last week when we thought Hot Topic was planning to buy the parent company of online specialty retailer ThinkGeek? Well, now they’re not. A mysterious new suitor showed up just a few days later, and it appears they have the better bid. And so, Geeknet today announced that their brief fling with Hot Topic is over, and they will be joining up with GameStop instead. [More]
GameStop Wants You To Trade In All Those Dusty, “Retro” Consoles, Games & Accessories
By 4.15.15
Nostalgia is all well and good, but it won’t change that dust-coated Nintendo you’ve had sitting around into anything useful. GameStop, on the other hand, says it wants to do just that with the pilot of a new “retro” consoles, games and accessories trade-in program in two cities starting April 25. [More]
GameStop: Industry Needs Market For Used Downloads If It Wants To Keep Charging $60
By 1.8.15
While GameStop brazenly believes it can weather competition in the used game business from bigger retail competition like Walmart, the company faces a more deadly foe in a future marketplace where most games are downloaded. Currently, there are no industry-supported methods for reselling digital games, but GameStop says it will have to happen — not just for its bottom line, but so that game publishers can continue charging top dollar. [More]
GameStop CFO Says Company Will Weather Walmart, But Hints At Continued Store Closures
By 12.15.14
There are currently around 6,000 GameStop locations, meaning most people don’t have to drive very far to trade in a used game. But how will the company weather the two storm fronts of increased competition from major retailers and the shift toward digital downloads of games? [More]
GameStop Decides To Give Employees The Day Off For Thanksgiving
By 10.29.14
GameStop is well known for often getting the jump on new video game releases by opening stores at midnight, so you might expect that the chain would be throwing open its doors as early as possible on Thanksgiving to get out ahead of the Black Friday competition. But today, the retailer announced that its workers won’t be enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner in between dealing with customers. [More]
GameStop Gets Even Closer To AT&T, Offers Cricket Wireless Service In All Stores
By 9.8.14
Over the past year, GameStop has revamped itself to stay relevant: offering trade-ins for unwanted gift cards, uploading customers fingerprints to the national database and acting as a sort-of bank for some customers. Now, the retailer is further entering all facets of consumer life by selling Cricket Wireless prepaid services at all locations. [More]
GameStop Promises More Money For Trade-Ins… Just Not A Lot More
By 8.5.14
GameStop’s much-maligned trade-in program is leveling up. Their new plan doesn’t do anything about fingerprints or ID collection, because those are legal issues, but it does do one big thing shoppers always like: players who trade in games will now get more money for them. [More]
GameStop Bonus: Trade In Video Game, Get Your Fingerprints Uploaded To National Database For Free
By 8.1.14
Trading in an old video game isn’t that complicated. Once you finally figure out what you did with the box (it’s under the old coffee mug) and get the cat hair off the disc and put the two together, it’s just a matter of bringing it down to your local GameStop and getting your pennies back so you can buy another game. But in one city, GameStop now won’t just collect your old games — they collect your fingerprints along with them, too. [More]
Trade In Your Unwanted Gift Cards To GameStop For A – You Guessed Right – GameStop Gift Card
By 7.21.14
Apparently, there are no shortage of unique business ideas over at GameStop. Earlier this year we reported that the retailer was operating as a sort-of bank, and now customers can trade-in their unwanted gift cards for one they actually want – you know, one to GameStop. [More]
GameStop Customer Charged With Keying Employee’s Car
By 5.15.14
When we compiled our list of “9 Bad Consumers Who Make Things Worse For The Rest Of Us,” apparently there was one customer type we missed: “The Car-Keyer.” That’s what one woman in Nashville has been accused of doing to an employee, supposedly because she was jealous of items that other gamers received. [More]
GameStop Will Close Around 125 Stores, Open Up To 400. Wait, What?
By 4.29.14
You might associate GameStop with video game consoles and software for your computer, but the chain is looking ahead. They’re looking toward a future where everyone plays games on the mobile phones in their pockets…and, more importantly, needs somewhere to buy those phones. That means closing around 125 GameStop stores, and adding new shops in other brands that the company owns: Spring Mobile, Simply Mac, and authorized sellers of Cricket Wireless. [More]
Bank Of GameStop Is The Best Or Worst Idea Ever
By 3.20.14
When you need a place to stash your money that isn’t a shoebox under the bed, it can be hard to find a good option. Minimum balance requirements, fees for the privilege of having an account…it’s all very complicated, especially if you don’t have a lot of money to deposit. Simplify things by joining the First National Bank of GameStop. [More]
Walmart Wants To Be The GameStop Where You Trade In Games For Groceries
By 3.18.14
Starting next week, Walmart shoppers looking for something to do with those Batman: Arkham Origins discs they no longer play will have one more option for unloading their used video games, as the nation’s largest retailer aims to likely become the largest purchaser of customers’ old games. [More]
The Competition Is As Fake As The Blood: Why New Video Games Are Always The Same Price
By 3.15.14
Video games have gotten ridiculously predictable. Not in stories, writing, or mechanics (although sometimes those, too) but in release, pricing, and distribution. When it comes to the big-budget blockbuster console-ready games, by now pretty much every player can recite the pricing timetable by heart. [More]
Robber Calls Ahead So Gamestop Workers Can Set Aside The Xbox One He’d Like To Steal
By 1.22.14
Let’s get this straight: In no way is robbing a store ever something we would praise. But it does take a certain amount of chutzpah to actually call the location you’re intending to rob and ask employees to set aside the items you’d like to steal later. So in the box labeled “critical thinking skills,” one bad consumer in Nashville would at least get a check mark for thinking something like this might work. Because it did. [More]
Watch A GameStop Employee Go Apes&*t About Annoying Customers
By 12.5.13
The Internet has given new life to a nearly 4-year-old video of a GameStop employee’s screaming, box-tossing, not exactly ethnically sensitive rant, in which he loudly vents about those pesky customers that make his job such a pain in the rear-end. [More]
Customers Accuse GameStop Of Reprinting Wii Game, Flooding Used-Game Market
By 8.13.13 — Updated: 3.16.15
Back in 2012, Nintendo published a game called Xenoblade Chronicles. It was only sold at GameStop and directly from Nintendo, and they only published a limited number of copies. It was scarce and hard to get hold of until very recently. It was like someone found a hidden warehouse: every GameStop store in the country suddenly had bushels of copies to sell at $90 each. Where did these games come from? [More]
