It wasn't even that long ago. I bought tons of discrete parts from RadioShack like, even up to 8 or 9 years ago. They had these drawers full of things, pots, LEDs, ICs, sensors, motors, dials.
Some of the stores became Micromania-Zing (owned by gamestop) which amazingly enough still exists.
Yeah, those have been primarily funko pop stores for years too. Their new games are like 20% more expensive than everyone else, and their second hand games priced like everyone else's new.
The FunkoPop Store EB Games here in Canada were re-labeled to GameStop recently. They're still in every Mall in the land from what I've seen. Though they are doing better. Game selection isn't what it use to be, but the variety is growing now. I was surprised when I found Manga in our local GameStop.
Not exactly my cup of tea, but catering to "Nerd" culture, and going beyond "Merch" is something I can get behind, since it's rare to see another store not selling the same old drivel as everyone else.
Mike Ashley didn't actually want a game shop, he wanted people spending £70 on each football/COD release, then buying that season's team strip on the way out of the shop.
Ashley wants two main things out of his purchases, the brand name to slap on a web store with any head start it can give into running a business in that sector, and the retail space. Any decent retail space he wants to flip into residential property while stripping any fixtures and fittings of any value, anything else will be gone or rebooted into the lowest common denominator for that area.
Pretty sure he pays cash or close to it rather than a traditional leveraged buy out. He normally only buys struggling or collapsed brands he can get cheap like Wiggle.
Yeah. Games are all digital downloads these days. And consoles and accessories are cheaper and easier to get online. There's no point in physical video game stores any more.
Personally, I just want Radio Shack back, and not just the cell phone and crappy toy store.
I still buy physical whenever I can. I'd hate to have my entire collection beholden to one account, although I know people do that with the PS Store, or Game Pass, or Steam. I don't trust corporations, I guess. I really hope they don't make disc-less consoles the standard.
I used to think the same way, but one day MS was having server issues on their end, and my XOne refused to play my rightfully owned game despite the disc being in the console. I was also unable to log into my account, which made me unable to save my progress, which made playing the game (if it suddenly decided to work) impossible.
Consoles were great until the X360/PS3 era. I could buy a disc, insert the disc into the console, and start playing, and the game would probably work fine without much hassle. I played my X360 offline for years and it worked just fine. Nowadays I go to the store, buy the disc, go back home, insert the disc, wait for it to install, and then I discover that the game was not optimized for my console of choice and it runs awfully to the point of unplayability. And if I have no internet connection, tough luck, my console turns into an expensive brick.
I now just buy on GoG. Much easier that way. Console exclusives are ported to PC anyway, so you're not missing anything. You also get nice perks like playing online for free if you're into multiplayer games, or playing older games on emulators (and current ones, because fuck Nintendo).
Same. I forgot to mention that I like to buy cheaper games through second hand rather than paying full price on electronic stores. Often even their big sales aren't as cheap as secondhand.
They were good before (and please correct me if I've got this wrong) EB bought them and did a "reverse takeover".
Since that point they've been going downhill.
Game doesn't exist anymore where I live, but the last thing I bought from a similar store (down to overpriced games and being mostly about merch) was a 8bitdo controller several years ago. I was there, price was not excessive, and it was slightly more convenient than having one delivered.
Beyond that... I went a couple times just to pick up a free event pokémon on 3DS, and nothing else, and I think the last actual game I got from them must have been Order of Ecclesia on the DS.