Is GameStop Going the Way of the Dodo?

[Shawn Zipay]

According to Brent Fox, the art director at NinjaBee (A Kingdom for Keflings), brick and mortar retailers of videogames are a dying breed. He goes so far as to say that GameStop is "not going to be around shortly."

"I think GameStop is not going to be around shortly," said Fox during a presentation at the Game Developers Conference discussing NinjaBee's biggest lessons making downloadable games.

"I think the change [to digital] is happening rapidly, where I think GameStop is not going to be around shortly," he said. "I started talking about this six months ago. I was saying 'oh, five years.' ... I've revised my particular prediction to three years and I still think that's talking too long. My [business] partner's original prediction was a little over two years and I think he's going to win."

What's your personal take on the matter? Are retail outlets for games soon to go extinct or will they always be around?

[SvenskaGeoff]

Re: Is GameStop Going the Way of the Dodo?

That's a fair prediction, I can see it happening already. With some of the more recent titles of interest I have purchased through Steam. The only reason they would stay in business would be for really demanding console games that you would have to deliver via blu-ray disk or something. If NHL 10 were up for download there would probably have been no reason to visit Gamestop in the past year. There is one store in this area that is slowly killing Gamestop business because you can get a used console for 40-50$ cheaper than Gamestop.