Is opening a local videogame/media store a sustainable way of living? Or have all the big brands like Walmart...

Is opening a local videogame/media store a sustainable way of living? Or have all the big brands like Walmart, Amazon and GameStop made this unsustainable?

Would you support a local videogame/media store if you had one close by?

Brick and mortar is pretty much dead in the age of Amazon and digital distribution
Bad idea unless you can offer something they cant

Realistically speaking, the prices would be too high compared to other chains, I would most likely not be a regular customer.

Don't do it. They all usually end up failing after a year or less, except for a lucky already established few. Don't let any retarded romantic notions make you think otherwise. There isn't an environment for them anymore, and no you won't be the one to change it. I've seen like 10 go in the last 6 years in my city.

If you're asking Sup Forums for business advice, you should take that as a bad sign.

I’m sure there have been endless anons that have come on here with similar ideas, but I’m a 21y/o neet whose yet to find a burning passion or confidence and I feel that this is a very plausible path that I could take. As cliche as it sounds, I’ve always felt that I’m meant to be my own boss. I’ve always grown up with local videogame shops, always prioritized going to them over places like GameStop.

I have no background in business but I’ve yet to go back to school anyway. If this idea can build enough confidence in my head, I really can see myself applying all my effort to make this happen. Always had trouble deciding what to go back to school for as I’ve never felt confident enough in my abilities to be brought under the wing of some successful company - so why not make my own?

I probably come off as some directionless, desperate loser but I’m serious as can be about this idea. I just want to know what people who play videogames think.

Son, don't let these autistic romantic notions fuck you. You will fail and you will pay for it severely. Mature and be normal.

Don't fucking do it, user. Small businesses fail all the time, and even Gamestop is struggling with games at the moment, see how they're turning their stores into geeky swag stores.

No, go all in. What's the worst that could possibly happen?

>I just want to know what people who play videogames think.
It's a bad idea. Keep that passion as a hobby and find an actual job to support yourself.

Lol. Debt and Depression?

Don't listen to him user. While a vidya store may be a bad business decision, being an entrepreneur is a very noble career path. If you really want to make the vidya store work, you have to realize that game stop is headed toward the path of going under. Most game stores these days have stopped selling vidya as have just been selling vidya related products, such as collectibles or other toys. Unless you have a wide selection, it will be difficult to attract foot traffic. Perhaps you could have more success by selling vidya products and also some Japanese products (like some anime stuff) that you can import on the cheap, and this may be a somewhat sustainable business. Furthermore, if you can keep it afloat for a few years, even if it goes under, you can still pivot towards joining a larger company and showing them that you have experience with doing business with Japan

i do, i only buy x360 games tho. Would be more relevant if i had older consoles. I only buy new shit on steam

To broaden the subject, is retail dying as a whole?

Whenever I go into locally owned shops the prices are inflated if only by a little, and I feel that people no longer have the spending money to support this practice to make a profit. People want the absolute cheapest price they can find for whatever it is they want, and that’s more often than not available online. Is there any way to stop this? I feel like it’s going to have some serious repercussions, yet we can’t do anything to stop it because we don’t have the money.

not in Trump's America, boy

Video games would just be the worst thing to do, since there's nothing you could possibly offer to make it worth buying from you specifically. You would want something where you actually provide a service that can set yourself apart. Like a restaurant, or PC build/repair. Just selling the exact same box people can get literally anywhere else is doomed to fail.

Retail is dead OP. I supported my local mom n pop game shop while they were still around, but it's been years since they closed. It's a real shame but I can find used games for older consoles on ebay for similar prices to what they had, and I don't play localized games that much anymore anyway since learning japanese.

>To broaden the subject, is retail dying as a whole?
Yes
>I feel like it’s going to have some serious repercussions
It won't though. It's more convenient to buy online. Think about it, instead of 100 people driving to a store in 100 cars, you have 1 person driving a truck and reliving goods to 100 people. The time saving is enormous!

Yeah, the main issue would definitely be the selection. GameStop and places like Walmart have a direct advantage by having multiple locations and multiple warehouses. If the store you’re at doesn’t have what you’re looking for, the store in the next town over probably does. This would be my biggest issue, although I would probably bring in other mediums of entertainment like manga and comics and DVDs. Basically a well-rounded inbetween of Blockbuster and GameStop. Maybe bring renting back into the spotlight? Nobody likes paying $60 for games

BUT MUH JERBS

Lol. Stupid fucking neckbeards living in a fantasy. Go on then. Best of luck to you all hahahaha

The profit margin on new games is extremely low so unless you're planning on selling second-hand games you shouldn't even bother. Also keep in mind that games drop in prices and you don't want to end up with an oversupply so especially when starting out you need to keep in mind you're probably not gonna run a net profit for the first year or so until you learn your learn your own supply and demand.

this

Unless there are a lot of collectors in your area, it's going to fail.

Ignore these plebs, user. You can sell anything if you're smart about it. Nordstrom sells rock paperweights to rich people for $100, there's nothing you can't sell. To me, it seems your best bet is to appeal to nostalgia. The age 20-40 market grew up with classic games, arcades, all that shit. There are a few arcade/bar places in my city that seem to be doing well, it's a combination that works because people can grab a beer and play a game or two. If you set up a plain old video game store it won't work, but add something new and appealing to that 'millennial' age bracket, soak it in 80's/90's aesthetic and have weekly events and shit, etc. then you could probably do alright. The most important part of any project is research though, don't rush into it. That's my 2 cents.

>Lol. Stupid fucking neckbeards living in a fantasy. Go on then. Best of luck to you all hahahaha
I'm not necessarily saying he should open the store. I'm just trying to establish the viability of the store that this user is interested in opening, and to best pivot it towards success. And by the way, go fuck yourself. I'm guessing you're European, since you started to sperg out at the thought of entrepreneurship. And people wonder why the EU is collapsing

I get paid 12/hr at my shop
It’s decent and full of oddities.

I believe the key to having a good retro game hobby shop is to try to keep Unique and clean

Unless you sell brand new $60 games for $30 and all your prices are lower than anything on walmart/amazon/ebay nobody is going to bother shopping there.

>cwc walks into your hobby shop

wat do

First of all: Don't take business advice from Sup Forums.
Do the calculations yourself. It's literally not rocket science.

I'd say the biggest problem is that fucking no one buys games offline anymore.
I mean, even if you bought them offline, you generally need an Internet connection to play. At least in case of PC games.
Gamestop and the likes are probably only sticking around due to casuals and merchandise.

that looks pretty cool. any more pics?

i think that game shop is very viable.
because there's more people that play and buy games more than you expected.
But it's how you're gonna stand out among the competitors.
Here's what i think is important.
>Price
Must be cheaper / at least same price as others' lowest price.
>popularity
People around me needs to know your shop. Or the very least, i need to be able to google your shop
>online informations
You needed to have a site that can show me your products availability and prices.
Delivery options is always a plus
>Won't asks me "How may i help you?" When i'm browsing the store
It only chases customers away.

Anybody wanna add on anything?

A lot of these things wont work unless youre in a highly leftist city

And highly left cities have womp womp absurd amounts of rent, taxes, upkeep

This plus if you rely on trade ins 95% of you inventory will be DVDs meth heads steal from walmart and people who have watched too many episodes of storage wars trying to grief you into not paying them a small fortune for mario/duckhunt

>European
Guess again buckaroo

Don't do it op.

Every gaming store at a mall is a terribly overpriced price-gouging piece of shit that closed down within 3 months because people go in and walk right out and buy the same thing online for much cheaper.

>It only chases customers away.
Agreed. Why do those fuckers do it then?
And when you have a question for once, they are nowhere to be found.
And when you find one anyway, they either don't know or give a bullshit answer you'd get on random web boards.

Fuck brick and mortar.

Be very careful of the people you hire.
My shop has a history of awful people
>stealing money
>stealing games
>having sex in the back room or asking customers to trade with sex

It’s best to hire married people or in a long relationship to avoid this.

I support a local game and manga store, but they also have an online shop and go to cons to sell their shit, so there's that.
They also rent movies and games, which might be worth looking at.

damn nigga, what kind of place you live in?

Not unless you want to spend every waking moment of your life hosting some event catering to tabletop, card, or fighting game players making your meager existence off of tournament and hosting fees.

All of the startups I've seen either have the owners operating on poverty wages or do enough stuff not video-games related to make up the cost.

>having sex in the back room

I understand the rest, but what's the problem with that?
If it's consensual, legal, isn't apparent to customers and other staff, who the fuck cares?

I take back everything. I'm starting my own now too.

No, either I pirate or I buy from Steam or GOG. There is no reason to buy physical media anymore.

>If it's consensual, legal, isn't apparent to customers and other staff, who the fuck cares?

It always boils down to two things with this shit. They're either turbo jealous that someone else is able to have sex at all let alone at work and the other is "m-muh sanitary issues!" Who fucking cares? God damn. They're the type of faggot that reports the students in uni libraries for getting it on.

I buy physical so I can trade it in later

>tfw there's a store that sells modern to retro games and a bunch of vidya/anime figurines

I'm like 99% sure the owner is doing some tax evasion or money laundering shit.

I would love to open an arcade bar. Thing is that the rent would be so high that would be inpossible to break even.

>Pay someone to work
>they have sex instead
>not a problem
If they went to the backroom to fucking jerk off or pick their nose it'd be the same thing, they're spending significant time doing something you aren't paying them to do. Not to mention any assortment of public indecency or exposure laws. And trading sex for goods is still classified as prostitution in plenty of areas so have fun potentially getting in legal trouble cause 'they're your employees and you own the store so its your fault'.

Nobody gives a fuck about "supporting the local business"
they just want to play their fucking games for as cheap as possible and sell them when they're done.

Good fucking luck when everything can be shipped directly to your house.
I recommend Glyde, they ship new and used games directly between customers with low hassle & quality packaging.

>Go on 15 min break required by law
>have sex
>Get bitched at by boss
>Doesn't matter because it was on my required 15 min break

Yeah nah suck my fat nut you jealous faggot.

>Sup Forums says opening a local video game store is a horrible idea
All the proof I need to know that it'll be a genius investment. My grandmother has the means to start a business and she's talked to me about opening a vidya-related place and helping her run it because there's a niche to fill in this city and we have a few stand-out ideas that could make it successful. Wish me luck bros

The only shop around me that survived is because of magic the gathering tournaments. That's it but it's still a pretty cool place, new games, over priced retro, tons of comics and graphic novels, 100's of board games, toys etc but it's still only there because of magic. It even expanded 3 times in the same spot and they just opened another store about 15 miles away so they are doing really good. They have a lot of employee theft, I've been burned a few times when the game I asked for that they had displayed in an empty box weren't able to be located in the inventory.

videogame shop? no

videogames plus funko, monopoly, cluedo and related stuff. yes.

You don't call anybone, obviously.

That starts to sound like one of those shops people from the Middle East run.

>changing the scenario
No fuck you, and what kind of argument is that? Are you that delusional that you think people taking issue with something is because they just hate other people having fun and go through life being a real-world Grinch? There's a fucking dozen understandable if not reasonable reasons for managers not wanting employees to have sex in their building besides "manager just be jealous of my mad pussy-pulling skills yo".

He's just projecting asshurt, probably got caught doing that exact thing on the job

Good god the jealousy is just dripping from every word.

It's the same deal as owning a mom & pops shop that primarily sells records and music cd's for new, used, and trading. It would be profitable if it was in a moderately good location but prices of rent and such would also be higher. Ultimately, as you said, Amazon, Ebay, and digital trading capabilities dissolved a lot of these brick and mortar stores.

You need a real catch. Something that draws people into the store instead of it just being a interest you pass by while you do whatever it is you need to do during your day. Instead of a straight videogame shop, would you consider an arcade? A real good arcade, targeted toward gamers and adults, is very limited in the U.S. and typically just include barcades and are really just bars with old arcade systems of Galga and Donkey Kong. Of course, even doing this depending on the state can cause legal issues with the possibility of gambling based on who it could target.

Either way, a straight up game store with no real catch to draw people will just make your store an interest in a strip mall and not a real destination.

Not exactly arcade, but there's a bar in my area that has a bunch of consoles and PCs. It's mainly fightans and they host some tournaments every once in a while.
They have two floors so I assume rent is pretty high, but it's usually full or almost full. There's a group hogging a PS4 with Tekken literally every day for some reason.

All of this is irrelevant because no bank would ever give you a large enough loan for you to start on this. At best you'd have to save for years and then blow your life savings on a huge risk that will probably end with you losing all of your money.

>Would you support a local videogame/media store if you had one close by?
If you had the cheapest available price, then I'd support your business. If someone else is cheaper, then I'll support that business.
Have fun competing with key resellers and corporations that don't depend on a single market to stay alive.

Bars exactly like that are popular all over Ohio right now.

>the only thing that matters if it's the cheapest, if I can get it cheaper somewhere else, then I'm going there.

God you Americans have no sense of loyalty, do you? Owner needs to make money too, you know?

>I recommend Glyde, they ship new and used games directly between customers with low hassle & quality packaging.
Seems like a ripoff, they're selling demon's souls for $30 but you get $3 at best if you sell it to them

All Vidya stores in the UK have had to go the way of electronic pawn shops and make most of their money selling 2nd hand phones and tablets, then the 2nd largest chunk of profits come from trade-ins. Then a small chunk of people like parents who are unaware that Amazon or Supermarkets sell games on launch day for much cheaper.

Big companies can afford to lower their price on commodity goods or have more promotional discounts due to their volume A small store can't do that to the same scale. Which means higher price, less deals, and less customers.

Well it's a bit more complicated than that but that's st least the gist of it.

I have seen several of these "lol so quirky xD" game stores open up shop and they don't last.

You give a shit about some random person you don't even know making money? Fuck that. No one cares about your money and no one but me and my family cares about mine.

Just study some medium difficulty degree and get an office job Sup Forums
Work 8 to 15 and then go home and forget about everything. Is not that difficult, also, if you are an autist/anti social people wont bother you if you do a good job.

Don't waste your savings in stupid business

If I have to pay a couple more bucks to support a family and sending his kids to school, then sure.

Better than going to some billionaire CEO drug money for coke

If you sell a wide variety of games/games-related merch from across several generations then perhaps it could work. As it stands now most brick and mortar game shops specializing in games are gone, or going under. GameStop is in a precarious position because while used hardware is still a solid seller their used game sales have been decreasing the past few years. As a result they've pivoted into "geek apparel", video game merch, and are reportedly eyeing branching into board games. Their biggest problem remains in that in-store traffic is just down. The majority of customers are usually there to buy a hot new game, but when you charge full-price there's zero reason to go to Gamestop over Best Buy or Amazon that offer 20% off. It doesn't help that Sony and Microsoft are now serious about digital distribution

Hobby stores are not sustainable. There's always somebody on /tg/ asking about opening a board game business and the consensus is always that it's a bad idea. You'll always be running at a loss and will be competing with Amazon, digital storefronts, and rival retailers who have better prices, stock, and an established customer base. The only game stores that last more than a year are either flukes that appeal to a specific niche that exists in the area or are ran by people who have another source of income and can sustain such an expensive "hobby"

Running a business is a really cool project, but don't go in head first. Go to college, get experience, and then do something smart.

There are some close by, but they put up the price of their old games/hardware so much it's not worth it
Instead open a dispensary/vape shop and have a classic video game section on the side
You'll get the profits from the main business to support the side video game business

>go to college
>then do something smart
>then
sounds accurate

Weed money is no joke, my dad went from losing everything in the 2008 recession to making at least 6 figures from growing licensed medical MJ. If OP can handle being around stoners and lives in a legal state it could be an option.
That bubble's eventually going to burst though, once it gets legalized federally and big business can get involved idependent stores and providers will have to compete with the convenience of being able to get cannabis from 7/11.

Yeah but a single normal city probably can't sustain more than one specialty/ novelty shop of that kind.

its not profitable and no i wouldn't support one
Just because you like games doesn't mean running a game store would be fun.
If you want to open a store look into fast food

Retro games are in decline. And forget about selling current gen stuff; you'll never compete with retailers.

Retail is going for more of automated type of process with self checkout and with Amazon, trying to remove employees all together to make getting products as quick as possible for a customer. Big chains will stick around because people want the basic stuff now

fix your posters faggot

also stock more gamecube shit. I'd kill for a physical copy of Ikaruga.

Depends. Are you going to have retro N64/Game boy games at a reasonable price, or are you going to be the other 99% of asshole "le geeky XD" price gouging piece of shit that tries to sell Pokemon red/blue/yellow for $80