GameStop Planning to Live Up to Their Name. . . and Stop Selling Games?

Well, not anymore, apparently.

Today in WTF news, GameStop has announced that they will be closing 120 of their gaming stores, and replacing them with 200-300 new stores that focus entirely on mobile and tablet devices. Wait a minute, what!?

That’s right, for those of you who may live in a smaller town or rural area, chances are your local GameStop will soon be no more. In its place will be yet another store dedicated to everything “mobile.” Clearly, we don’t have enough of those just yet. Gamers who don’t have a local “ma and pa” store will likely no longer have the joy of being able to go to a place where they’re sure to be among others who actually understand and can talk about their favorite hobby. Sure, there are still the alternatives, but they’re severely lacking what GameStop has always offered – a place specifically for gamers.

Being from a fairly small town myself, it pisses me off to know that my local store will very likely be among these 120 to close. I’ll no longer have the option to just walk down the street and grab a cheap game, or hang out with others like me when there’s a midnight release. Granted, there’s a WalMart right next to it, but anybody who’s tried getting a game there knows that it’s a joke compared to the real thing. Fortunately, there is one family owned store still standing around here, it’s just not quite close enough to walk to on a whim.

What’s your input on this? Does it upset you and take away something important as well, or are you fortunate enough to have a better option or live somewhere that (probably) won’t be affected? Or perhaps you’re just glad to see them fall after getting shafted by their trade-in prices one too many times?

Jeremy Harrison has been into gaming and just about everything nerdy or out of the norm for as long as he can remember. He likes to keep an open mind about things, but also has a strangely high amount of fun getting into a rant or good debate. . . which is probably why he was recruited to this site in the first place. You can Email Jeremy or follow Jeremy on Twitter @NightmareAsylum or Facebook