Gamestop Closing More Stores

Last week, Gamestop tried to take a stand by refusing to close their store during this virus pandemic. The retailer said they were essential. The retailer was eventually forced to temporarily close all its stores in the United States.

This week, Gamestop announced that it will be permanently closing about 300 of its stores.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Gamestop over the years as I’m sure many people have.

I’m from Pennsylvania and I can’t say I have the best experience with Gamestop stores there. Besides the prices, it was the employees that eventually made me stop going there. Now living in Texas, I have to say I’ve had some good experiences Gamestop stores.

My favorite video game store was Game Crazy. I loved going there. I was very sad when they closed. And then EB Games merged with Gamestop. I pretty much only frequented independently owned video games after the closure of Game Crazy.

Since I have moved to Texas, I go to Gamestop sometimes. Surprisingly, I ended up buying a few games from there since the prices were lower than elsewhere. I went to two different Gamestop stores last weekend looking for copies of Epic Mickey and Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two because they had the best prices.

Gamestop has had financial issues for a while. And they have been criticized for as long as I can remember for some of their policies, such as opening copies of brand-new games and storing the discs behind the counter.

And with their refusal to close during this pandemic….That didn’t seem to end well for them.

I have mixed feelings about their announcement of more stores closing. I don’t like how they operate or some of their policies. I’ve had plenty of problems with them in the past. And I also have some good memories.

As much as a pain in the ass Gamestop can be, I really don’t want them to close entirely. I do buy video games from eBay and Amazon since prices are often better. But there is nothing like going to look around in a video game store.

Just like going to Redbox or choosing a movie from a streaming service is not the same as going to a video store.

I miss video stores. Going with my mom on a Friday night to pick out some movies to watch and buying snacks. It was fun.

And it is sad to think that Gamestop will most likely end up going the way of video stores.

There are plenty of independent video game stores, but how long will they last once Gamestop finally goes under? How long before video game stores go the way of video stores? I don’t know. But for me, it will be an extremely day when that happens.