How long until game stores are gone?

[Baron Opal]

As it becomes easier and easier to deliver high-quality digital content over the Internet, it will become harder and harder to make a living providing old-fashioned dead-tree content.

You can see it already with the DDI... And then I thought, "But why would I do that when I have a DDI subscription and the character builder? Heck, I could probably skip buying the MM2 as well, if it weren't for sometimes needing to whip up an encounter on the fly."

And yet, I find it much easier to carry the Eberron Player's guide to work to read on my lunch hour than my laptop. And if someone walks past my desk and steals my EPG when I'm in the restroom I'll be a lot less mad than if my laptop gets lifted. A big issue that need to be taken account of is personal portability. Paper products are more portable than electronic data because all I need to access the data is light rather than some sophisticated electronics. Also, I often spend time relaxing in places other than the room in my house that has my computer.

Internet retailers can provide access to data for low transportation costs. But you also need an inexpensive means of access and local transport of that data.

The Kindle DX, and similar technologies, I am watching with interest. Once those get to around $200 in color then you can carry a library around with you. You still have the multiplicative aspects of paper that the Kindle and others can't do but it takes care of the portability.

 

[darjr]

I agree. Sort of. In 12 years there will be no game stores, at least none like there are now.

I'm not so sure though. I'm actually rather surprised that there are any around now. I mean look at the big discounts you get online. Still, I have six viable, at least on the surface, game stores around. All of them within 15 minutes of each other.

There is even a bit of pressure to open a new one in a growing area of town where there isn't one. I think they are all waiting for the right time but hoping to beat the others to the punch.

One of my favorites is even expanding, in THIS economy. And no, he has no comics. Games, board games, miniature games, card games, and role playing games is it. Nothing used, unless you count the opened boxes in the game room for demos and casual play, none for sale.

As long as there are people that want to run a game store or some thing similar, if there is a way to do it, somebody will try to figure something out.

I just wish I knew what that something was.

 

[Treebore]

Excuse me, but you are begging the question.

How can a business sell product to maintain a profit? By providing services that costumers value, like gaming space. If you can't provide those values, customers won't buy. If you can't sell product, you can't provide those values. It is a circular argument with no provided means towards an actual conclusion.

To achieve a mature exchange of ideas in this thread, we have to move beyond these type of tar-pit rhetorical devices.

Dude, I ran a business for 8 years, very, very successfully. I know what customers are like, on the whole.