In interviews last week, Mr. DeMatteo and Bob McKenzie, GameStop’s senior vice president for merchandising, said they saw new customers as playing a more important role in their nearly 5,000 stores worldwide.
“There is a real breadth of properties now appealing to a much broader audience than we’ve seen before,” Mr. DeMatteo said.
“Honestly, we are having to retool the way we think of things in our stores in terms of merchandising, layout and also customer service because it is no longer only the hardcore gamer walking in who knows exactly what he wants.”
What, no more gum in the shabby carpet? No more fluorescent lighting? No more crappily-organised shelves, dust-covered promo boxes, crap third-party periphs piled up high?
Maybe no more sarcasm from me would be appropriate too. But it's about time coming, this stuff, I tell you what. Game shops, generally, are shocking. The only one that should be allowed to get away with it is CEX, and that's because it's geekcore.
CEX is pretty fucking horrible these days. No import titles, disinterested staff, deafening drum and bass. Just rubbish, really; "geekcore" isn't really an excuse any more, especially when Game Focus is just around the corner (although they've shrunk a tiny bit recently).
Posted by: Tom | September 14, 2007 at 08:24
Is it just me, or is it every one of these shops I enter, regardless of where it is, smells like a gym locker? My husband and I usually refer to it as the sweaty teenage boy smell. ;/
Posted by: That Geeky Chick | September 14, 2007 at 11:29
I've said it a 1000 times as have others but retail has been a huge barrier to the growth of games. I don't see this changing much.
Posted by: Ben Sawyer | September 14, 2007 at 17:13
I can't remember the last time I bought something in CEX. Their games always seem to be in God awful condition these days as well.
Posted by: Tom | September 14, 2007 at 21:48
Damion Schuber gave a talk in AGDC where he pointed out that designing games for hardcore players has been wrong all along. A good game can address all player segments and has a way casual players can interact with the "hardcore". Actually, he even went a bit further and claimed the definition of hardcore has kind of been wrong all along, too.
So yeah, creating a store that only sells to hardcore users is pretty dumb, too.
Posted by: Sulka | September 17, 2007 at 11:22