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Businesses Entertainment Games

Death of the Indie Game Store 84

Posted by Zonk from the late,-lamented dept.
tjmcgee writes "Independent game stores are usually hard to find, and when you do they are generally overpriced. An article on the Next-Gen site explains why the independent game store is all but gone. The article is very funny but kinda sad." From the article: "There's a lot of competition out there. There's no getting around it. Everyone is selling games now. Chances are your grandmother is hocking copies of Vice City every Monday between Bingo and Salisbury Steak night at the Shady Tree rest home."
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Death of the Indie Game Store More

Death of the Indie Game Store

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  • Boo hoo. (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) *
    Give me a break.

    Is capitalism and the concept of bulk buying purchase power new to the author? Wall-mart, Home Base, Home Depot, Office Max, Office Depot, SEARS, Hollywood Video, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Costco and countless other major businesses have been succeeding for years based on being able to drive costs down through bulk purchases and sales. I don't see what the big deal is.

    Does the author somehow expect the videogame sales business to use fundamentals from a magical world from fantasy land wh
    • The author isn't only complaining about that.

      He doesn't want indie stores to go away because otherwise no one will sell old school games and non mainstream games like Katamari Damacy.

    • Re:Boo hoo. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mothlos ( 832302 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @09:56AM (#12880936)
      First, you forget marketing and branding, which are both things that independant game stores don't have the cash or the customer base to do very effectively.

      Second, you imply that these 'fundamentals' are inevitable. It is no surprise that large corporations can use their buying power to leverage prices and lower costs below that of independant sellers, but as stewards of our economic model is this what we really want? Do we want a handful of large retail stores with similar strategies to each other to be the gatekeepers of what stuff we see and what stuff we don't? Do we want retailers with huge purchasing power to force producers to adopt lowest cost production techniques? Or perhaps there are factors which are important to people that don't get expressed well in the marketplace. Perhaps different ways of conducting business need to be given advantages and disadvantages based on long term economic health and not just the aggregate narrow-focus decisions of many people.

      • Re:Boo hoo. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Seumas ( 6865 ) *
        I'm a steward of my bank account. A copy of WoW is no different from one retailer to another and I'll buy it where I can get it the cheapest and with the least hassle. If this means I order online from Amazon rather than travel halfway across town to stick some money in some over-grown kid's hand, that's fine with me.

        There simply isn't a need for smaller videogame retail stores, except for used or vintage items.

        Do you shop at the family-owned korean convenience store down the street for your groceries, ev
    • You, sir, are a smart man. Plus, these major corporations will eventually turn bad and will screw themselves up, allowing for new business to take over.

  • Time for change (see Netflix) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by philipx ( 521085 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @09:45AM (#12880823) Homepage
    Looks like it's a good opportunity for them to move all web. After all, it did work for Netflix - if somebody could come up with a similar system for games, we gamers/geeks are fairly notorious about going after new tech/stuff.

    It may not have the appeal of a brick and mortar store, but you can offer so much more.
  • All the independent software shops I've seen are quite marked up indeed, it isn't much of a loss, sad as it may be that Uncle Barney or whomever is out a wad.

    Things to think about for those geeks who dream of opening a comic book + gaming book + software store... leave the software out ;)

  • Re-worded (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 )
    Independent game stores are usually hard to find, and when you do they are generally overpriced.

    =

    WAL-MART SELLS FOR CHEAPER

    The days of mom and pop shops of almost any kind are gone. The Internet has killed profit margins. Forget service and anything else. The bottom line is who's got it the cheapest. Kind of sad, really.

    • Re:Re-worded (Score:4, Informative)

      by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @10:04AM (#12881004)
      "WAL-MART SELLS FOR CHEAPER"

      Don't be so sure. I'd check around first. Starting a few years before Wal-Mart started building the Super Centers, Wal-Mart started pricing primarily based on local competitors' pricing. Sometimes a local momnpop will fall under their radar so Wal-Mart won't bother to price it cheap enough since they don't realize there is competition.
      • I've been in a lot of towns and smaller citys, both before and after they get a Wal-Mart Superstore. The empty store fronts are painfully obvious after the W-M SS has been in town for about 2 years.
    • "WAL-MART SELLS FOR CHEAPER....Forget service and anything else..."

      Wal-Mart wins on service, too, at least in this important aspect: being willing to serve to the customer. Even the gamestop I am familiar with opens at 10:00 AM: 3 hours after the Wal-Mart opens. They close at 5:00 pm: hours before the Wal-Mart closes. The gamestop (and so many of the mon and pop stores) could not care a less about selling: you can bang on their closed doors for hours, or go to a store that actually wants to sell you somet

      • Wow, the complete opposite here. The last time I bought a game at Wal-Mart I had to wander the electronic section for a while before I even saw an employee that I could ask for help. ... Who then said that this wasn't their section and vanished with a promise to get someone to help me get a game. A few more minutes later a surly employee came out, unlocked the game case and sold me the thing with no more than a few grunts of communication. Nice.

        My local game stores (Game Crazy, Gamespot, EB) are all open p

      • Re:Re-worded (Score:2, Funny)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
        10-17? No wonder noone goes there. Only government agencies have even worse opening times.
  • Its a shame really. In my experiance the only place to get games that aren't mainstream, i.e. imports or lesser known systems, is through the indie stores. There isn't much money in these titles so gamestop and EB don't carry them.
    • Look on the bright side. There won't be any games that aren't mainstream in a few years anyways.
    • Heh, in my experience home electronics stores usually have the largest game section and the best prices, beating both convenience stores and "indy" stores. More obscure, old&budget, etc.
  • The only way that the current game retailing situation is sustainable is through collusion between the game distributors and the big retailers. One of two things is going to come out of this.

    Either game distributors are going to start realizing that the physical box and media for games are cheap and they're going to move to a magazine sales business model (Buy a bunch of copies... Send back just the disc for whatever doesn't sell and we'll refund most of your money... Probably all but the $2 or so the dist

  • Why run a game store? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Safety Cap ( 253500 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @09:49AM (#12880860) Homepage Journal
    Because of all the great stories [actsofgord.com] you get to tell people!!11
  • Chances are your grandmother is hocking copies of Vice City every Monday between Bingo and Salisbury Steak night at the Shady Tree rest home.

    You probably mean Shady Acres :-)

    • I've never seen someone actually correct another person on Golden Girls trivia. Most of us are too emeberassed to admit we would know that. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity.

      /knows the theme song and all the characters names, first and last

      //is a 22 year old heterosexual male

      ///scary

      hed.

  • really? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Akito ( 222802 )
    Indie games are alive and well on the macintosh, I doubt that I have any mainstream games on my computer.
    • As a new Mac user, I think calling them "indie games" does a disservice to real independant game makers. Except for about a half dozen games made by Blizzard and ported to the Mac, every other game looks like it was made by a retarded ten year old kid and has the "gameplay" to match.
    • They are alive and well on the PC, too. What's dying is the independent (i.e. not big chain) game store.
  • The thing about EB and Gamestop is that they mostly don't focus on PC games. At the gamestop here, they have a single shelf hidden in the back corner for non-console games. And as someone who doesn't have a console, that's a pain in the arse. I'm more likely to buy new games from BestBuy than one of those stores.

    What I'd really like to see is a PC gaming specialty store. Not just with new games, but with classic games, and with hardware upgrades for your computer - video cards, memory, processors, etc. I gr

    • Re:an idea for focus (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Once upon a time, those kinds of specialty stores existed. You'd go to a battery store, and thats what they did: sold batteries. Of all sizes and kinds. If it wasn't there, it didn't exist. Now, you go to Wal-Mart, and if your battery isn't there, it doesn't exist anymore. If Wal-Mart says it won't carry X, then X's maker usually goes out of business or makes whatever changes are necessary to keep Wal-Mart.

      Retailers hold a huge power over both ends of the market... consumers are slowly being forced in
      • Battery stores still exist. In fact Wall Mart does not carry the batter I need for my cordless phone handset. The battery store (Batteries Plus) does.
        This is why Wall Mart is useless as a place to shop for anything but the most common of household items.
    • The short reason for that, though, is that console games sell in much bigger numbers. EB and Gamestop put the PS2 stuff at the front because it shifts the biggest profit for them.

  • It's not the price issue... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @10:07AM (#12881032)
    It's not the price issue that finished off independent games stores; it's the fact that the owners generally just didn't understand their role in the market.

    I used to know some pretty decent indie games shops here in the UK. All but one of them have now either closed, or have become so dire that in any just world they would be closed. Go back 4 years or so and maybe a third of my games purchases were from independent stores. I've only bought a single one in the last year (compared to about 20 purchases from major chains).

    So why? I don't think it's at all fair to blame the big chains or the games industry for this; by and large, they have a role and they do it well. If you want to buy a major title, or indeed any release from the last 12 months or so, you go to a big chain store. You'll get the same game here for less money, as they can take advantage of economies of scale.

    What indie stores used to do was offer a range of imported, obscure or simply older titles that wouldn't get shelf-space in the big chains. Sure, you'd pay a fair whack for picking up a US import, but it generally wasn't much more expensive than importing it yourself, plus you didn't have all the associated worries about imbecillic courier firms and zealous customs agents. Plus, it's just... nice... to be able to walk into a shop and buy what you want right there and then.

    This all changed, of course. Most of the indie games stores seemed to start worrying that they were so much more expensive than the big chains. They started to try competing directly with them, buying large quantities of the latest AAA franchise titles at the exclusion of the lesser known stuff and lowering their prices. This was always bound to fail; no matter how low they went, the big chains were always going to be able to go lower. Hence, most of them went bust.

    Capitalism is a great thing, contrary to what you often read on slashdot. However, it's also frequently misunderstood. To succeed in a modern capitalist economy, you do not always need to try to compete directly with the biggest fish around. You just have to be able to stake out a niche of your own and defend it. The major chains have never tried to offer the products that I used to be able to get in the indies. Hence, I can only conclude that most indie store owners either panicked unnecessarily or got too greedy.

    • Perhaps you need a lession in capitalism... Sure they used to supply those indie games, the problem is you were the only one buying them. Combine that with the hastels they went through to get them, and there was no money to be made there despite the higher prices.

  • "When a game sells for $49.99 at retail, expect to buy it anywhere from $41-43. Your cost will depend on the amount of units bought, and the frequency at which you buy them. "

    What the hell is he talking about? I've *never* seen a new release that retails for $49.99 any cheaper than that *anywhere*. And yes, that includes Wal-Mart. If anything, Wal-Mart's prices are always *more* expensive than the indie shops. The indie shops are being threatened by companies that deal exclusively in games, like EB Games/G
    • He means that the retailer will buy it for 41 to 43, not the consumer. The consumer will then buy it for the 49.99 retail price.
    • He's talking as if you are the indie shop owner, not the consumer.

      As a shop owner, you buy the games from the publisher for $41-43, then you sell them to your customers for $49.99. You get to pocket $6.99 on each sale (about the hourly wage of a Wal-Mart employee). Wal-Mart gets the same game for (just guessing here, somebody please correct me if you know the real number) $35. They can then sell the game for $49.97 and pocket $14.97 on each sale.

      The point is Wal-Mart can sell the same item you can for

    • The unique system for selling games? Used in many other stores for other products. It's called consignment.

      Just one more factoid for the mind.
  • GameStop buys and sells used games also. Most young men who shop there are looking to turn an old game into cash for a new game. I would think eBay would be more competition to GameStop rather than Walmart.

  • Hmm (Score:1)

    by Apreche ( 239272 )
    I know a lot of independent game stores. Usually they are the only places to get your hands on old stuff, like if you need an NES controller. But the internet kind of beats them at that game. Also, they are mostly really overpriced. You'd think that the indy store would be cheaper, but no. The only ones that are any good are the ones that can undercut the EB/Gamestop in the used game market. But very rarely will you find a store that has that rare game you are looking for.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:2)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      The indies beat the internet at the old stuff game.

      They have no shipping delay. Consider this: I ordered something Friday that I want, and today (5 days latter) it hasn't arrived yet! This is typical, they tell me not to worry about the order for more than 5 weeks yet! I want my order today.

      Indies have it now. Your NES controller doesn't work? You could order one from the net, but you won't be playing head to head contra with your roommate tonight if you do. Drive to the indie in town and you

  • Did you see the one where the Starbucks like company moved in to south park? Everyone got all up and arms to save their local store from the evil of the big company moving in right next door. But after they actually tasted the coffee, they found that Starbucks didn't taste like grabage like the independant stores. It seems this is the same to me. These stores offer a better price and more selection...so seriously, screw the independant store. The only thing he has a point about is still buying the old

  • Indie stores are much cheaper for some games (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nystul555 ( 579614 ) * on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @11:00AM (#12881526)
    I keep seeing everyone say they are overpriced. Maybe my area is different, but the indie stores around here aren't bad at all. They sell new games for the same as the major retailers, but they don't focus on that much at all. Several of the best don't even sell new games.

    Where indie stores really shine is in the used games. I've found them to be MUCH cheaper than Gamestop, EBGames, etc. For example I recently picked up a complete boxed copy of Final Fantasy 1 in decent condition for the same price Game Crazy wanted for just the cartridge. I also picked up Dragon Warrior 3 for half of what the bigger stores wanted. I could go on and on with examples, but I've found them to always be much cheaper on the classic games. Also, you can actually haggle with them and get a better price for a larger purchase or a purchase with trade-in. Good luck with that at a major game shop.

    The other place where they shine is the fact that they actually have knowledgable staff. I can go into one of those and find out the going rate for Waterworld for VirtualBoy and background on Neo Geo AES systems or anything else I ask about. The workers at the big stores don't have the faintest clue what I am talking about. I'm also lucky enough to have a major indie store that imports thousands of Japanese games, which I am a big fan of. Without them I would be stuck paying Lik-sangs massive markups.

    I'm not saying indie stores aren't going to go away some day, but they definately have a place and if you are interested in classic or foreign games you don't have much of an alternative. If the ones around here ever closed I guess I'd be stuck with Ebay and importers.
    • Exactly. I greatly miss my local indie shop (they closed last year after a building under construction next door had a large cement post fall over in high winds and crush half the store) because they did a wonderful job of selling used games, forgotten systems, and high quality used PC games. As far as new games went they were never really that great, but they had a huge lock on selling me an old copy of Solar Jetman or fixing my '89 vintage Gameboy on the cheap.

      If you're buying a game at a larger store th
  • You should watch the movie "You've Got Mail". Different product, but similar situation. Your best solution then would be to marry someone that owns one of the big electronic or game retail companies.

  • This is why gamers shouldn't own game stores (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @11:27AM (#12881753)
    Just a couple of nits. I don't mean to beat on the guy since I'm in the same boat. I've managed independent stores for about 5 years now, and 6 months ago bought my own.

    The key is that if you love games more than you love money, you should NOT be in this business. If your focus is on renting a 1400sqft strip mall gamer room where you can hold court and gab about games and do special orders, you have doomed yourself to failure. If you find your store slouching toward that ideal, turn that sucker around NOW.

    If you're an independent and don't rent out games, you're committing slow suicide. Not only is it a nice side income that you can count on every week, but it also means that you DON'T have to stock every single $50 game that comes out.

    "Hey, do you have that new Fleshreaper game?"

    "Sure. But have you played it yet? I've heard mixed reviews on it. It's just $7 for a week, and wouldn't you hate to blow $50 on a game you'll hate? Lemme sign you up."

    Bingo. Instead of having to spend $160 to get 4 copies to sit on your shelf and silently stare at you, while you pray for them to sell, you can spend $80 for two rental copies, maintain the appearance of a well stocked store and give the customer the impression that you care more about making him happy than making $50. If it's not Christmas, I only order new releases to get rentals and preorders. I do stock surefire stuff (GTA, Madden and other AAA titles), but everything else I do NOT stock deep.

    Systems: Why should I bother losing money on these when I can send people to the Walmart across the street? "And please check out the fine selection of used PS2 titles before you go!"

    Giving store credit for used stuff: This is where we see, again, that gamers shouldn't own game stores. If you don't have your banter down, you're in the wrong line of work. "Sure you paid $50 for that when it came out. But it sells new for $20 now. I can give you $8 for it, and that's about $5 more than what EB will give you for it!"

    Anyway, while I don't think my business model will last forever, I also don't think properly run independent stores are going to burst into flames. I will continue to exploit the holes that EB, Best Buy and Blockbuster leave gaping open.

    I bought my store 6 months ago from a guy who was augering it in because he wasn't willing to spend the time and money to turn it around. Income is up 20% this month from this time last year. So far, so good.

    http://pdb.blog-city.com/ [blog-city.com]

  • What does an indie do for the customer? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BlightThePower ( 663950 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @11:50AM (#12882006)
    In general I get this "death of the small retailer" thing, its an argument thats been around across all retailing as long as I can remember. Probably before I was born given the long standing existence of super markets.

    But for video games, I don't see what an independent retailer offers. Its different for say, butchers vs. supermarket slop (its about sourcing) or bookshops and recordshops (indie retailers buy from indie niche publishers). But for video games, the indie studios hardly exist any more much less indie game publishers. Its not even like a hardware store/butcher/fish munger etc. where the product is generic but one is happy to pay a modest premium for expertise and advice of the owner. In the early days (early to mid 1980s) this was probably the case with computer software but not anymore.

    Video games are the same wherever you get them and the inventory just isn't that diverse and the bigger names probably stock more because they can afford the shelf space. Its sad for people directly involved but as a consumer it leaves me a little cold to be honest.
    • Back in the day, I used to buy all my games for my Amiga 500 from an indie game store.

      More precisely, a local man used to run his mail-order business out of his front room in my town, and he was the *only* person in town who sold Amiga software. All the stores (ok, the two stores) that carried Amiga titles were 15 miles away in the nearest city. But that's not the point :)

      The article mentions that games sold by distributors go for $41, which is then resold by retail from $50 up. This sucks, and is not how
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I was looking into opening an indie game store last summer, found a great location (in a mall!!), had funding, everything... Then I went looking for distributors.

    I had about $20k to spend on new titles. The cheapest I could find was 52.00 each (including shipping), for games I had to sell for 49.99! Yes, thats right... I'd lose 2.01 on each sale. Not exactly a profitable venture.

    Even a $20k purchase didnt entitle you to a bulk discount. That just shows you what it costs to get into this retail market as

  • nice article, as I was reading it I was thinking of the indie game store I frequent in Red Bank, NJ

    then I noticed it was written by the owner!

    Excellent shop; when there's a game I know I want to buy on release day, I go out of my way (there are 5 gamestop affiliates and a target that are closer) to go to red devil to buy them.

    Why?

    Because I like the atmosphere, the sincerity, the well-informed staff, and most of all I like being treated like an individual customer and appreciate it when my tastes are tak
  • The article does a good job explaining the situation, though the author's writing style is abysmal. I can't stand these video game sites that throw in racy humor and four-letter words in an attempt to promote some hip, edgy brand of video game nerddom.

    "...you might as well straddle the son of a bitch like a nuclear warhead, smile, and watch the whole shitbox get blown sky high."

    Pathetic. To think this all probably started with that Seanbaby idiot.

    Anyhow, to get to the meat of the matter, I for one c

  • I think it's the lack of distributors that the independent game stores either have or are able to get. There was a Microplay in my hometown (It's Canadian I think but this mom and pop bought a franchise and had it in Texas). I remember ordering Seaman for the Dreamcast. They could never get it in so you know what they did? Freaking bought it from Best Buy and then charged me their price for it (even though it was cheaper to get at Best Buy). Even worse, the Pokemon games...they would buy out the local
  • Ah, the sadness of the american model ...

    Here in my underdevelopped european city [paris.fr], right down my door i've got thee oldskool game shop with a SEGA neon ... I can rent all the games i want (including dreamcast), buy them and trade them back for other ones, test them inside the shop, which is family owned and includes a LAN room for the youngsters to play ...

    It also sells manga videos ( great deals on VHS nown a chance to see all these bad mangas you never got to buy and that are waaay too expensive in DV

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