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Comment by benatkin | Hacker News Reader

I have no love for GameStop, but I really liked Thinkgeek, which got bought by GameStop. GameStop already ruined it AFAICT so I don't mind if GameStop goes out of business...

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ThinkGeek will be the asset to emerge from the ashes of GameStop.

It was a smart acquisition by GS executives. Unfortunately, they weren't smart enough to manage the brand as well as they should have. The parent company should have inverted to become ThinkGeek immediately after the acquisition because it's pretty obvious to even layman that the retail market for video games is dead within a generation or so, while the market for pop-culture tchotchkes is evergreen.

Yup... they bought something they could've switched a ton of (far too close post-retail-apocolypse) stores over... and then all but shut it down.

What even remains of ThinkGeek, apart from name recognition? At least before the GameStop acquisition they sold some unique products. Now, as far as I can tell, they just sell the same fandom merch you can get anywhere.

Had GameStop management not neutered it, there would still be lots of unique things going on.

Turning an already online platform for truly cool items, into a side counter in only a few core stores, just goes to show how truly clueless GS management really is.

Yeah, I'm bitter. Wife and I gifted each other lots of TG stuff over the years.

Let’s band together and buy it in liquidation :)

I recently got my first real tech job, and had sizable disposable income for the first time, and the first thing I thought of was ThinkGeek. I used to eye the site all the time as a kid, but never had more than a hundred bucks to spend once or twice a year. My dad got me the neat limited edition ASHPD replica they had for Christmas. I reserved a stand but never got to claim it. I think my ex may have taken the ASHPD when we split, I really hope not. I may have to go look now. I was excited to get something else neat from ThinkGeek, and then I got redirected to gamestop.com and felt about ready to cry. Is it just my nostalgia, or did they have much cooler stuff in like, 2006 than they did in 2018?

I was so disappointed when Thinkgeek sold to GameStop. I really loved Thinkgeek and didn't think there was any way GameStop wouldn't ruin it.

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