GameStop, the 35-year-old gaming store, is damaged and searching for a health pack. The company is trying to avoid facing the same fate as Blockbuster – dying out from new, innovative ways to buy content.
As Blockbuster faced Netflix, GameStop faces digital downloads. GameStop sells indicate that gamers would much rather buy their games digitally. The next looming threat is video game streaming, which aims to be the next big advancement in games. Microsoft and Sony even teamed up to create a new cloud gaming service.
With help from R/GA, a marketing company, GameStop announced their goal on Monday to revamp stores in an attempt to stay relevant. GameStop plans to let customers try games before they buy them, host competitive homegrown e-leagues, and introduce locations solely for retro games.
It looks like GameStop wants to transition from a traditional retail store to a gamer’s hang out environment. They will pilot these new ideas but did not announce any type of timeline.
This is not GameStop’s first attempt to save the company. They sold their spent mobile business for $700 million back in 2018. They also tried adding more than just games to their supply. Customers started seeing shirts, toys and Funko Pops on sale at their local gaming store.
ThinkGeek, a geek culture store whose parent company is GameStop, saw its online presence shut down to help bring products into GameStop stores.
This was all in an attempt to save the store, which has seen better days. In January, the gaming store stopped efforts to find a buyer when its stock decreased 25 percent.
In the most recent financial report, GameStop lost a total of $673 million. The gaming retail store hopes these new attempts to revamp will put the store back on track.
