How long until game stores are gone?

[Treebore]

I for one have no doubt game stores are going away.

Its not that I want them too, I just think its all part of how our world, at least in the US, is changing.

I don't know how much any of you have noticed, but music stores have pretty much disappeared. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are disappearing. Bookstores are disappearing.

I think this is a trend that is only still starting. I think over the next 10 to 20 years we are going to see many more store fronts disappearing. Some slowly, some rapidly.

I think this has to do with many factors, but the biggest is simply the internet. It is getting easier and easier to access. It is getting easier and easier to navigate. Probably most importantly it gives us the power to find things we want for as cheap a price as possible AND have it shipped to our door in a reasonable amount of time.

This will become even more critical when the US economy "rebounds" and gas approaches $5 a gallon again. When that happens people will continue to feel the need to buy as cheaply as possible in order to make ends meet. Plus it will probably become cheaper to have things shipped rather than drive 10 to 15 minutes, one way, to get it.

So to sum up, I see LGS' going away simply because they are becoming an out moded way to buy gaming materials due to changes in our economy and the internet. Along with many other store fronts.

So assuming you can agree with my "theory", how long do you think it will take for the last LGS to disappear?

I'll guess 12 years.

 

[AllisterH]

It really depends on how much income they derive from services that can be done over the net....

If your LGS is like many which also serve as comic book stores, it will disappear once people have switched over primarily to reading comics on the net.

If your LGS is primarily a hub for M:TG and other CCGs, then it might last longer as many of those places also serve as staging grounds for competitive play and many a LGS can and do live off of PTQs, FNM and Premieres.

If your LGS is known primarily as a RPG bookstore, well, it pretty much is in deep trouble and should already be out of business. Technically, though, it isn't the internet that has killed the local bookstore but the big box bookstores where you can drink a coffee and then sitdown comfortable and peruse a few books. Sleepless in Seattle was no fiction

 

[Rechan]

It really depends on how much income they derive from services that can be done over the net....

To add to the list:

If your LGS serves as a place to play LAN based video games, it will disappear once Xbox/et al has perfected their online multi-player gaming, and lowered the cost of said gaming so that it's a no brainer for video game users to play.

To explain what I mean, my LGS's primary source of revenue is having multiple computers et al wired together, so that customers can come in with their friends and play games with multiplayer (like Left 4 Dead, etc).

 

[Bumbles]

So assuming you can agree with my "theory", how long do you think it will take for the last LGS to disappear?

Depends. Are we counting of its own, or would being closed due to the end of humanity?

Cuz the last seems a bit unfair.

But otherwise, oh, 500 years. I'll let you know if I'm wrong in 2509. +/- 3%

 

[Umbran]

It really depends on how much income they derive from services that can be done over the net....

Which is why it is likely that they'll never go away entirely. There will be locations that have enterprising owners who will offer sale of gaming materials plus other services, the combination of which may be synergistically viable.

Technically, though, it isn't the internet that has killed the local bookstore but the big box bookstores where you can drink a coffee and then sitdown comfortable and peruse a few books.

I don't think this is the case, at least not anymore, as even the big bookstores are in trouble. Borders is feeling hefty competition, not just from Amazon, but from the likes of Costco, Target and Walmart as well. Barnes & Noble has fared better, as they've been in the online sales market for longer than Borders.

Add to this the fact that book sales in general are down.

 

[ggroy]

Most of the local FLGS and ones in nearby towns don't rely solely on rpgs as their main source of revenue. Most typically had something else like comic books, manga, and other various toys as their main business. RPGs were typically several shelves or an aisle in the store.

Though if sales of their other line of products are going downhill simultaneously with rpg sales, then FLGS may possibly end up with the same fate as music stores.

 

[AllisterH]

To add to the list:

If your LGS serves as a place to play LAN based video games, it will disappear once Xbox/et al has perfected their online multi-player gaming, and lowered the cost of said gaming so that it's a no brainer for video game users to play.

To explain what I mean, my LGS's primary source of revenue is having multiple computers et al wired together, so that customers can come in with their friends and play games with multiplayer (like Left 4 Dead, etc).

EDIT: Only 56% of X-box 360 owners have the gold membership. That's a lot of people who a LAN-space store can target if X-box models holds true
Yeah, this looks like a death sentence...although it depends on what the accepted model for online play becomes if you think about it.

If Xbox live becomes the default version for both Sony and Nintendo, I can easily see the above gamestore surviving since there are many a xbox customer that doesn't have gold membership.

Contrast this with the PSnetwork which is free and thus if that becomes the default, you can kiss LAN parties good bye

 

[Mistwell]

I definitely do not think game stores will ever be gone. They will shrink, like all things in a bad economy shrink. And when the economy rebounds, they will rebound again.

Some of this is because game stores are often linked to comic book stores. And comic book stores are not shrinking. Indeed, the comic book industry is actually doing really well, and their retailer support is growing and maturing over the years. As long as there are comic book stores, there will be game stores as well, because the game store and the comic store are often the same store these days.

And nothing online can really defeat the comic book retail store. Comics have managed to link themselves to collector-concepts while simultaneously being very visually marketed. Most customers of comic books want to see the cover of the book, and buy it directly, and check it's condition when they buy it, and maybe get a bag and board with it. Too many titles are new but related to other titles people might want - thus making the comic book display critical to sales. Online sales just don't do those things very well. Sure, online sales van take some sales away from retail stores, as can graphic novels, but overall they just cannot ever match the retailer for marketing and sales.

 

[HinterWelt]

My contention would be that they will not close so much as evolve. They will not be the FLGS you remember but instead a cross between used console games, used books or used something and games will also be there. At least the successful ones will do this. There will be a few in high profile markets that might hang on as dedicated game stores or might morph more into general hobby stores (I doubt this but it could happen).

Now, remember,t here was a time when you bought books from hobby stores next to train sets and in book stores next to instructions for go. This is not a surprising thing.

As to how long, heck, I was doing it in one of my stores in the 90s. I carried anime and airbrush supplies, lots of airbrush supplies. RPGs were my bread and butter but the other categories we coming up. So, when is it going to happen? It is happening already. Some owners stick to their guns because they want to run a "game store" but that ideology grows thin when the money begins to fail. So, I don't know that we will even notice when the last fllgs closes as I doubt it will be a momentous thing so much as a transition.

 

[Barcode]

I actually think $20/gallon gas will bring us a restoration of the town center, as a distribution model becomes more transportation-efficient than a "ship everything anywhere" model. At least for items that cannot be produced locally or sent digitally. A properly configured FLGS would thrive under such a model, as a centrally accessible meeting place for nerdkind, close to the town center, and accessible via mass transit.

Now books, being a digitally convertible media, will probably only last as long as it takes to come up with an aesthetically acceptable digital replacement, which has heretofore escaped us. But it is an area of technology under active development, with quite a few converts already.

A generation or two down the way, GM-configurable MMORPG's combined with VR sensory apparati will eventually come to an acceptable level of sophistication. But this equipment will be expensive to start with. Who better to supply it than your FLGS? How else will boy-geeks meet girl-geeks to hook up and make baby-geeks?

But then as Rechan points out, it will get inexpensive enough that the FLGS will be in trouble again.

However, by then the SARS monkeys will be picking the fleas out of our nuclear-irradiated eye sockets while the remaining 14 billion people live off choice slices of our Bugle-flavored nerd-fat.