I'm thinking of opening a small game store. Please talk me out of it

I'm thinking of opening a small game store. Please talk me out of it.

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Open up a large game store instead.

user knows what's up

do it faggot

Why would you assume there is any money in physical video game media these days?

Good luck you fucking idiot

just give me your credit card if you want to go bankrupt

>paying rent on real estate to sell something that can be ordered online or bought digitally , or at other stores

thank god im not as dumb as you

SUPER PRO ADVICE COMIN' AT CHU
Set up an area where bored kids who just bought their games can play it on a store console in the back, charge it on a per hour basis.
After taking the combined lunch moneys of all the kids in the area turn it into a gaming lounge thingy where nigs can chill and play vydja.

>digital media overtakes physical media
>I should open a physical media store!

t. retard

Brick and mortar stores are dying already.

Open an arcade instead.

Please I don't have anywhere to play anymore.

I thought I could make it an all purpose media store. You know, vinyl records, games, movies, yugioh tournaments on weekends, maybe a few arcade machines thrown in there. I know it's a dumb idea, but I'd like to make it work.

There's no fucking way to make money unless you stick to jewry like Gamestop.

Just stick to enjoying games in your free time and open a hipster organic coffee shop or some shit.

you'll have to close up and sleep on the streets paying back your serfdom tax in no time

He should rent out space for game related events.

It have to be a place where people actually want to go and meet up with people to play games.

Is there demand for a board game/DnD shop in your area? That might be the way to go, then sell some games on the side.

Your focus shouldn't be on games themselves but rather merchandise, figurines and shit.

>vinyl records
Do you want your store full of hipsters?

Your parents can't afford it.

Sales of physical copies of old games and systems are rising. "Fucking normies" don't care for all of the bullshit that modern consoles have in their bloated platforms, and would rather go looking for some classic Marios.

These. Get a few tables in there for card games and D&D. Organize some campaigns or tourneys or whatever with a small entry fee and there's a subscriber base.

>competing with Amazon

If you really hate money that much...

You and your store will end up like Blockbuster in 5 years time, if that.

>Feeling bad about ripping off hipsters

Why would this ever be an issue?

Start an arcade that also happens to sell used games

No, god no.

We had a guy around here in Tallahassee who had the idea to run a "pay to play" model for vidya. He ended up becoming a glorified babysitter; keeping an eye on parent's kids during the summer while they played Call of Duty and Minecraft.

Guy went out of business only a year in because nobody else would come in besides the kids.

If he got a lot of business, why did he fail?

So arcade first, game store second? Do people still like going to arcades when they can pull out a phone to play games?

There is no possible way to compete or make a living just selling games. Even if you deal in used games as well. Gamestop gets buy on subscriptions, gaming culture merchandise, and favorable lease's because almost all of their stores have been in place for 20+ years since Gamestop doesn't open stores, they buy existing ones like Funcoland.

Opening up a comic/card/game shop is bad business and something you can only really afford to do as a side hobby if you make bank at a real job.

Money is money if I could take advantage of a bunch of retards who want to pay a premium for an obsolete format I would.

Meant for

That doesn't surprise me.

some gaming stores already felt that way a little, from what I observed.

I live in Puerto Rico and there's a game store nearby that opened after Gamestop left the island. It has been successful as far as I can tell, and they have both retro and new games.
You can succeed, but it's risky. Amazon and Best Buy are offering discounts for preordering new games, you probably can't compete there. If you're selling retro, you have to compete with craigslist, ebay, etc prices. Good luck.
Personally, I wouldn't do it.

Amazon, Steam, Walmart, Gamestop, eBay, Craigslist, that hot milf's garage sale, etc.

>that hot milf's garage sale

Tell me more.

He charged less to attract parents to pay for his services rather than a conventional babysitter, and most of his money came in only in the Summer.

He still had to pay off the bank loans, rent, etc.

There is if you live in Japan.

If you're a Saudi oil prince or a kid who has a multi-million dollar trust fund, go for it. If you don't have absurd amount of excess wealth, don't. If Gamestop is losing hundreds of millions of dollars, why do you think you'd be able to stay afloat in an industry that's moving toward digital? I love the concept of being able to go to a local store and build my collection of older games and systems, but 99% of the time it's more expensive than just buying it on ebay.

and anywhere that isn't north america

You'd be better off just not having a store if you were wealthy anyways. You'd have to deal with retards constantly, and it's be easier to just do whatever you want.

Ok so what I'm hearing is there's no way to make money on video games ALONE. What else would a store that sells games need to do to work? Do you turn it into a general Pawn / resale Shop? Turn it into an arcade to get people in the door? Pinball museum?

Mandarake is cool as shit. I'd love to have something like that near me, but I'd be their only customer.

>Do people still like going to arcades when they can pull out a phone to play games?

Gotta go full barcade if you're going to do it. Most "regular" arcades I've seen in the last decade are just oversized mobile apps, but barcades tend to have the good games and get decent crowds most nights of the week.

Granted, it would be harder to sell physical vidya in that environment, but it could be pulled off.

Actually a lot of the smaller places are dying. The ones that are surviving sell statues and/or sell above internet prices. American journalist complain about how the great deals are all gone.

retronauts.com/?p=2704

Wargaming might sell, although I don't know what the marigins are after licensing.

Put a glory hole in the bathrooms.

> hard to make a profit anyway due to rent and local ordinances
> kids and trashy people will steal shit
> even though don't steal shit they usually will loiter with poor hygiene
> you would have to sell games at a higher price
> you have to interact with people, usually the people that do that the best are not the people who play video games

Don't do it

A gamer styled cafe would be more profitable.

All the ones in my area are making serious bank, but I live in a pretty big city full of hipsters that see "breath of fire" for $200 and think "omg I've heard of that before xd i'll buy it"

No box, no manual, just the cart. $200.

What magic city is this? Jewberg?

This, my town has a vintage nerd stuff store / arcade. The front is all figurines and other bullshit for the things that normie-nerds like (star wars, star trek, sailor moon, etc) plus they sell old video games. The back has a fully working arcade with cabinets mostly from the 80s/90s. The place entirely marketed to appeal to old people feeling nostalgia and spending money on shit that they don't need.
Yeah, it's a bad business idea and probably doomed to fail but what else are you gonna do with your money? Pay for kids college or some bullshit? They are just gonna squander that, user.

If you're OP then rent is going to be ridiculous unless there's strip malls everywhere where you can get a good deal.

Oh there are, dead strip malls everywhere, but rent is still ridiculous.

San Francisco?

Me and my cousin opened a barcade in NC. We have arcade machines and $10 an hour booths. We don't have the legal clearance to sell alcohol like a regular bar but we registered as a "club" like a moose lodge or something. So when a person comes in the first time they pay $5 and get a club id. Every other time it's free. The arcade games are all free to play and the money comes from drinks food and host parties at the booths. The FGC people started using us and it's been smooth sailing since then. Tekken 7 has got us so much traffic.

>San Fran
Nah, Canada, so close enough

Also that bar idea sounds fun / cool as shit!

I'm going to teach you how to go full jew. Pay close attention.

Your best bet is to buy shit off LukieGames, charge them for a 10% increase in price sans special editions and rare games (which you should bump up like 20% if you want to roll in the cash), and offer custom repros which are easy to make if you have the know-how.

Arcades and pinballs are money sinkholes, and you should only offer a single MAME cabinet if you want to siphon money off customers over the course of a few years.

Decorate your shop with neat shit on top of shelves and put "Not for Sale" signs on them. Some really interested people will bargin more than the usual asking price if it catches their eye. You'll "reluctantly" take their offer.

Offer a few CRTs with a "game of the day" hooked up, and offer a 15% discount on it. You'll lose 5% from the LukieGames asking price, but chances are they'll want to get more games with it. People love buying in bulk.

Cull sports games, gambling games, shovelware.

Charge double for repairs on parts and consoles.

Get repro cases in bulk for torn / worn out PS2, 360, and other cases. If you bought the particular case in bad condition, this lets you raise the price back up to "good".

Kick out fags who spout VGA nonsense.

Congrats, you're now running a successful shop.

we're literally less than 10 years away from digital only consoles

There was a store like this near me but they ended up focusing on MtG because nobody gives 2 shits about physical games outside of online stores, downloading digitally, and GameStop. Moral of the story, if you're going to open a store, offer a service you can't get easily elsewhere (online, major retailers). You could try to host tourneys, but then your success depends on the local gaming community.

Youd probably make more money as a street corner "cat exorcist" homeless man who just masturbated on passerbys.

where in NC user? Near Raleigh pls

>Your best bet is to buy shit off LukieGames,

A few quick price comparisons of sega genesis games on that site compared to eBay says that's a fucking horrible idea. Why lukieGames? They don't seem any cheaper than eBay.

Retail barely profits on a store by store basis.
I used to be a manager at a autoparts store and on average we would profit 15% per sale.
Now factor in costs of everything. Employees, Insurances, Building lease or maintenance costs, product costs, etc.
Retail is dying because people cant mark shit up anymore like they used to, with the availability of online purchasing at much lower cost retail stores are forced to lower prices and barely break even.
Now that being said corporations have tons of overhead thats unnecessary but they will get a billion times more sales per day than you will.

Open a flea market booth and sell bootleg shit from Aliexpress
it's what I plan to do
buy a ton of RPGs for five bucks each and make 300% to 500% profit while also undercutting every other store offering repro games in the area

not worth it unless...

you host card game tournaments (all of them)

you host console tournaments (all of them)

you host figure tournaments (all of them)

It is probably that fags liquidation sale after he tried to open a store like OP.

>inb4 lukiegames poster says he isnt from lukiegames

No collector in their right minds uses eBay.

Fayetteville. We got a location real cheap because someone didn't want to deal with cleaning up after hurricane matthew. The place looks like it hasn't been touched since the 80's with brown carpet, tan paint, and fake wood everywhere but it sort of fits. We just got the Simpsons and a pool table.

this user gets it
like I said above, you can't really do a store like this without it devolving into tourney autism

>devolving into tourney autism

Never been to one of these stores. Give me an example of tournament autism.

neck beards as far as the eye can see

Invest in real estate, there is a finite amount of land while an infinite of retards who think like you do.

Also, 75% of all small businesses fail within the first 5 years.

t. Scumbag Accountancy major and Marketing minor.

>CoD last year was the top grossing game and made literally 99% of it's money from 12 million physical console game sales
why do PCfats still think they matter? don't worry im sure they'll come out with steambox any day now and we'll all bow down to gaben

I mostly have experience with MtG, but tourneys often end up being a social setting, but the competitive aspect often attracts the worst kind of autist on both ends of the skill spectrum, ie tryhard spikes who take low stakes local tourneys way too seriously, and newfags and (often literal) retards who can't into strategy and get mad when they lose.

Why didn't he realize his market was flawed and try to attract a more stable/lucrative base, perhaps charging more than kids could afford (or even setting up rules hostile to parents wanting to drop their kids off like 'parental supervision required for children under 10, or for children playing games above their age')

Amazon, online shops, and rentals are putting brick and mortar businesses out to the curb like cellphones did to the pager.

So 1/4 of small stores succeed then? That's better than I thought.

taking returns from sassy black woman and mean Mexicans.

google "gamestop"

Here in Korea we have these things called 플스방 or 'PSroom' where you basically pay an hourly fee to play a PS4 on a huge TV. It's fairly popular with teens and college kids alike because they usually don't have a console at home and they can play with their friends.
I don't think this kid of business would work outside of Asia though since everyone has a huge living room abroad.

If you only have to do better than gamestop the the bar is set pretty low.

There's no money in it and online prices will always be cheaper.

I'm glad you have a basic understanding of %'s.

Anyways, I'm interning at a Small Business Consulting Firm and we're fucking Gang Busters.

These shitty idea startups, complete lack of intelligent execution and talent trying to also be management has results in them going the way of the Do Do.

But when your business is already 3 feet in the grave what's some more money to pay a consult who could turn the business around and save you.

You have no idea the amount of money this 5 man firm makes from these business plebs; we milk them for every penny while we appear to be trying to save them.

It's a lot of fun.

So if everything's going under due to amazon, why don't I just cut out the middleman, make a resale store that buys from people, ship it to amazon for them to sell for me, & use the proceeds to fund the game store's tournaments & arcade machine maintenance? The store makes money, it's scale-able, & it still leaves a local store presence for the community to play arcade games & cards. If mitigating all the overhead through amazon STILL wouldn't keep a small game store in business then it really is hopeless.

You missed your chance, senpai.

Every asshole has found out about abracadabr by now so you're just another nobody trying to cut overhead in a business that earns very little, if any, profit.

I don't want to discourage you but do not go into your venture balls deep; start slow as fuck, sloth tier slow and see if it sustainable and worth your time.

He's mostly correct.

But there is an exception to every rule and that rule is his mother.

Her price gets lower and lower every week.

IDK. I have a local card shop that sells cards, board games, and some others stuff and they did well enough to open up another location. It's a small store too. Like, they don't hold much inventory. But there's enough demand around here for a place for people to go and play card games and such. And if you can get them into your store for that, you can also probably up-sell them on some cards and shit. The rent on the store can't possibly be that expensive either. So you have low inventory, low rent, and low upkeep. Those are pretty great marks for a successful business.

You'll go out of business and your only customers will be minorities looking to rob you and reseller retro faggots

Shit profits, shit working hours, you literally won't be able to compete with Amazon and will have to resort to sell retro games, which means you'll probably end up spending your weekends rummaging through free markets hoping to find good deals, competing with 100 other resellers that do the same every week.
It's literally shit.
Open a gas station or just use that money to sniff glue or something more productive.
Vidya stores are literally shit and will make you hate vidya.

>will make you hate vidya.

So what you're saying is I have nothing to lose.

The income I always hear from retro store owners do the best is repairs and customs.

Whatever you try to do you'll end up with wall to wall Pop Vinyls to make ends meet. I've seen it over and over.

How many were gamestops though?

>have a friend who is almost 40
>buys those things

my grandpa went around fucking hookers in his late 80s, my generation buys ugly vinyl figures of characters with all the character removed from them..

Enjoy your visit from Uncle Sam

other than poorfags buying bootleg pokemon titles, collectorfags hate repros with the exception of games that were not released outside moonland but have fanslations or romhacks.

>supporting counterfeiters

fuck off. they are the reason I never buy cartridges off ebay anymore.

Sell model kits and comics, too. You will not last selling sole games.

A few. There's also a local chain that has three stores that used to sell retro vidya and anime merch that's all Pop Vinyls now. That and a small local store a friend of a friend opened.

If you're trying to imply spending all your money on hookers is a good idea I don't know what to tell you.

WAIT THERE'S STILL A GAME STORE ON THIS FUCKING ISLAND
WHAT IS IT CALLED DAMN YOU

Can we get a list going?

Vidya
Arcade machines on the sides
comics
card game tournaments
fighting game tournaments
tabletop game tournaments
funkopops/ used toys

Anything I'm missing?

If you're still around, OP, my brother in law did and the wife helped out a bunch.

It's a nightmare staying competitive with GameStop/Amazon and worse by the day. Dont even begin if you're not excited to shake people down for trade ins and spend your time constantly worrying about advertising