Game Over for Gamer's Paradise

[paradox42]

I was just in the Woodfield Mall location this weekend. I asked if the store was closing and one of the workers told me that the manager of that store was trying to purchase the remaining three locations. Hopefully he'll be able to do so and turn things around.

I hope he can make it happen! I was sad to lose the one in Fox Valley Mall last year, and thought for a while that the Yorktown one had also gone until I went wandering one day and discovered they'd merely moved to the other side of the mall (and upstairs to boot). I will say that of the three (and I have visited all of them at one time or another), the Woodfield location always seemed to be the best-stocked and most heavily trafficked. So maybe that location can survive even if the other two don't.

And Games Plus is the best games store in Chicagoland, if not the world, but I live in Aurora. Driving to Mount Prospect is a rather large investment of time and gas, and it's a lot less worth it to me now than it used to be before gas prices were this high (and when I lived in Elmhurst or Lisle, years ago). Seriously, it takes close to an hour to get there even if traffic cooperates on 88/355.

 

[Mark]

Problem is, Games Plus is really only a short ride away from that Woodfield store. Maybe it speaks to how much gaming happens so closely in the area but it seems strange that if there would be only a couple sizeable gamestores in the Chicagoland area they'd be less than fifteen minutes from one another.

 

[frankthedm]

It seems the manager of the woodfield mall Gamer's Paradise has opened his own store in the woodfield mall using overstock of the old gamer's paradise..

I'm not attributing malice here, just making sure the situation is clear.

IMHO a 10% sales tax is malignant.

 

[Festivus]

We are facing that same 10% sales tax here in Los Angeles, California. Actually I think it's going to be 10.5%.

 

[Mark]

It seems the manager of the woodfield mall Gamer's Paradise has opened his own store in the woodfield mall using overstock of the old gamer's paradise...

From what I saw at all three of the stores that reminded open to the bitter end (Woodfield, Yorktown and Water Tower), most of what little was left was sold off during the final week at 90% off. What reminded was hardly worth using core stock for a new store, and mostly non-gaming, novelty goods. I'm guessing this is new stock mostly, more up to date and more focused. I'll have to check it out now that I know he is open.

 

[Sir Brennen]

The space Gamer's Paradise occupied at Yorktown is now occupied by another game store (don't recall the name). A lot of stock, my guess is that it's some of the GP stuff. Though the GP stores were mostly empty by the end, might they have had a warehouse somewhere? Definitely a game store as opposed to a toy store, just like GP, though they don't carry any RPG product now.

 

[dalamar666]

Driving to Mount Prospect is a rather large investment of time and gas, and it's a lot less worth it to me now than it used to be before gas prices were this high (and when I lived in Elmhurst or Lisle, years ago). Seriously, it takes close to an hour to get there even if traffic cooperates on 88/355.

No kidding I live right around the corner from Fox Valley Mall but my gaming group is out of North Shore Comics in Northbrook When Gas whas High I maybe gamed Once a month. Now that Gas is down maybe I'll get up there More.

I have fond memories of Games days at the Deerbrook Mall and Arlignton Heights locatations. Ahh good times

 

[AllisterH]

Check out other industries like video rental. Blockbuster, for instance, is trying to diversify into new markets and is slowly closing or downsizing branches all over the place. Starbucks just closed 61 stores in Australia.

RPG's are only one area that are affected by the changes.

I don't think Starbucks is affected by changing technology though but I see your point...

Another example, in one time in Canada, there was a chain of stores called "SAM the RECORD MAN". It used to be the biggest record/tape retailer in Canada and the rise of the internet killed it off.

Really, it's a changing world...

 

[dnddays]

GW and its Warhammer stuff is ridiculously expensive and virtually every shop in Louisiana that has invested in those products has gone under. Maybe it's the area I live in, maybe it's a string of doofuses with bad business sense, maybe it's a Warhammer curse, maybe it's because every Warhammer player I know is a complete asshat and drives customers away, maybe all of the above, but whatever the case it doesn't surprise me when a shop that sells GW's boutique-priced merchandise goes under. I hate Warhammer and its spin-offs with a passion.

 

[Darrin Drader]

It seems the manager of the woodfield mall Gamer's Paradise has opened his own store in the woodfield mall using overstock of the old gamer's paradise.

So nature abhors a vacuum. Personally, I suspect that game stores will always be there. In the middle of this massive recession, there's a new one opening up in Couer d'Alene, ID, and apparently it's doing quite well.