GameStop Lays Off 120

arstechnica.com

4 points·gk1··4 comments

I have a lot of fond memories of going to the local video game shop with my friends to look at boxes, or a mid-night opening to pick up Diablo 2 before a weekend-long LAN party. I miss the meaty manuals, that I still have for games like Baldurs Gate or X-com because they are just such awesome pieces of art and arguably part of the game story.

Things move forward of course, chains like GameStop killed that local video game shop I mentioned. I’m sure my children will have fond memories with digital downloads, after all it was the friends/LAN party that was the important part. So I’m probably just an old nostalgic git, but digital distribution will just never be my cup of tea.

I dislike digital distribution because it encourages rent-seeking behavior from software vendors.

> So I’m probably just an old nostalgic git, but digital distribution will just never be my cup of tea.

I like physical copies but IME this is becoming no longer viable. I went to pick up a game recently from a shop that used to have massive game sections and the only had maybe a dozen switch games, nearly all of which were the more child oriented ones. The playstation and xbox sections weren't faring much better and I couldn't find the PC section.

Throw in gaming-as-a-service models and indie developers with zero retail presence being the only (non-nintendo) developers making games I like and physical copies have become a thing of the past.

Even when you buy a physical copy it’s often just a steam activation code in an empty box.

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