Rudy’s new YouTube video revealed that gamestop is in talks with Wizards and possibly Pokemon company to host sanctioned events at select Gamestop locations. This poses so many scenarios for the current meta’s market. Will this just saturate the market more than it already is, or will this just replace Toy R US 's sales in terms of numbers. Will gamestop have glass cases with single cards displayed and marked at a fixed price, determined by corporate, like all their other products are? Gamestop recently started selling “retro” consoles and games; is it possible they might also buy and sell WOTC pokemon and even reserve list magic?
Curious as to e4’s thoughts. Rudy said the talks may not even progress into anything, but the possibility of going to FNM or Pokemon League at a gamestop, which many are known for piss-poor service and employees, may change things up quite a bit for all the TCG’s.
GameStop is literally throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks at this point, no exaggeration. I personally have no problem with this because of how hard it is to find a LGS within a reasonable distance. I’m sure there is plenty of TCG players and fans out there that are unable to play in tournaments due to LGS distance and this would change that. I have literally 5 GameStop locations within half an hour of me, 2 within 60 seconds of each other, no joke.
Forgot to add this to my previous post - I wonder if this is a possible reason for pre-release kits being sold in stores now? Instead of shipping kits to every single GS location why not sell them all around? Given how many GameStop stores there are in the United States this would make sense.
This video was actually Rudy sitting down talking straight into the camera. I like when he does these earnest videos.
Ultimately I think this is purely a numbers move for Pokemon and/or MTG. There are 7,276 Gamestop storefronts. I imagine this is a larger total than the amount of LGS stores nation wide. Even if it isn’t, being able to dictate the format, structure and product under one massive company is an incentive.
The silver lining, if there are more locations, it can bring more people into the hobby.
With the struggles of local game shops, I do think this is great for the players. And as much as I despise Gamestop, this would actually be really good for the hobby IMO
Yeah seriously, they just don’t have the room. Some Gamestops have to stock inventory in the bathroom. LOL
There are probably select few larger stores that can hold these types of events and that’s what it’s about. As far as singles go, they don’t lose their value quickly like video games. I’m not saying Gamestop offers fair money/trade, but it is what it is. You buy a game for $60 and 3 months later it’s $30 brand new everywhere, they’re not going to pay you top dollar for it.
I cannot speak to the logistics of how it will work. I also don’t deal with Pokémon distributors nor do I partake in prerelease events.
That said, I am confident this can draw people into the hobby. Maybe it would drawn in attendees from other LGSs, or maybe it would create a place where more casual people could gather and thus grow the hobby. Pure speculation.
Corporate may get some flack, but the local Gamestop stores in my area have always been delightful and helpful. I mean A++++ fantastic. A few of them have adequate room to host a tournament. I wouldn’t just act out of pity for LGSs however, because Gamestop also provides many people with jobs and they are just trying to innovate to make up for the rise of digital distribution.
I think something we forget at times is most-all of us started as kids buying an occasional pack in a store. When we were kids, we didn’t have psa 10 zards, 1st edition base sets, trophy cards, etc. Hell the grand total amount of base packs I opened as a kid was 3.
Companies are concerned with bringing the most people into the hobby. Sure, this might not always cater towards serious collectors, but that is not all bad. We all started as kids, or people who casually purchased packs. That is the target audience. Ultimately I think this move will help grow the hobby from that perspective.
Exactly!! Most kids won’t wander into a hobby store, but they’ll definitely go to gamestop/target/toys-r-us (rip) if they’re into videogames/toys and beg the hell out of their parents to buy a pack of pokemon cards (like I did). I think Pokemon noticed that Gamestop was a good retailer to sell pokemon products because I’ve noticed that GS went from not carrying the tcg products to carrying more and more products over the years.
