Gamestop Cuts Hundreds of Jobs

1up.com is reporting that in the wake of the Gamestop/EB Games merger, hundreds of employees are getting the boot. From the article: "In addition, GameStop will also be shutting down the EB Games corporate headquarters in West Chester and distribution site in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Layoffs aren't immediate, however, and will be staggered throughout early next year and into the summer, with some employees having the option of relocating to Dallas, Texas."

Wow...

[SteevR]

...so besides Walmart, Best Buy, and Comp USA, there is now only one other chain to buy a new game in my locality (Wichita, KS, 400,000 lost souls). Now many places in the US now have one choice of specialty digital gaming shop.

I'm sure that this will do simply wonderful things to competition... and I'm sure that the bustling market in used titles will begin to slow down as the prices rise, and the sellback payouts drop.

Although on the console side, if I was interested in more than 10 console games across all three of this generation's consoles, I would just start up a Gamefly account.

Its getting harder and harder to buy a PC game these days.

So, slashdotters, what other specialty shop chains are around these days to pick up the slack and restore sanity to the retail PC market?

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, slashdotters, what other specialty shop chains are around these days to pick up the slack and restore sanity to the retail PC market?

The Internet. B&M for easily shipped commodity products is for suckers.

Re:This merger is a BAD thing, folks.

[macrom]

If you know the history for Gamestop (Babbage's Etc. in a previous life), then you'll retract your statement that closing down stores is a bad thing. When Babbage's and Software Etc. merged back in 1990-something, they left open competing stores in malls, leading to internal competition. This was a huge contributing factor to the Neostar Retail Group filing for bankruptcy and emerging as Babbage's Etc. with massive funding from Len Riggio, then CEO of Barnes & Noble. The current Gamestop leadership (which I think is relatively the same) is going to learn from their past mistakes, and closing stores is a part of that. I have met and spent time with the C-level of Gamestop and they are all sharp business people who know this industry inside and out. They want to see things succeed as much as you and I. Personally, I would rather see Gamestop stay intact and thriving than crumbling to bits due to bad management. I think the shareholders would agree!