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Oh, hi there. Didn’t see you enter. Anyways, welcome to my humble little blog. For those of you not familiar with who I am, the name’s Brian. I’m 24 years old and hail from Findlay, Ohio. I work at the local newspaper here as a copy editor, putting my four long years of college to actual use. Kind of. I think.

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GameStop being bought by private equity firm?

Brian Szabelski

7:17 PM on 03.17.2010

Joystiq's reporting, via The Street, about an interesting tidbit: A group of folks at a private equity firm may be considering an offer of $4.94 billion (a 33 percent raise over the current, rumor-inflated stock prices) to acquire GameStop. GameStop itself has said nothing, but that's usual corporate policy for most companies.

But what does it mean for all of us? Well, it's possible this purchase could lead to something that's been a long-time coming: consolidation. In many places, GameStop has two or three stores in the same area, and it's likely underperforming stores could have their operations merged with nearby stores. Now, remember, GameCrazy's undergone a huge shuttering of their stores and Blockbuster, the other big player in the games boutique market, is pretty much living on borrowed time before they're forced into Chapter 11, or worse, Chapter 7. A consolidation of GameStops, while perhaps likely, would also be another nudge toward digital distribution as the way we get games in the future, which of course, means the end of reselling games and all that jazz.

And perhaps that's part of the whole idea: GameStop has limited inroads on the digital distribution market. Perhaps the firm might be buying them for their "ground game," so to speak, but have plans to expand their digital game and make them one of the dominant players in both video game realms. They'd kind of turn into the FedEx Kinko's of the video game world: you could use their services at a number of in-store locations, or you could just go online and do it all from the comfort of your home.

What do you guys and gals think?

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Legacy Comments (will be imported soon)

Beezy603

there are 4 Gamestops within 5 miles of my house, and the closest one never has anything good. if they were to just merge all 4 into one Gamestop with a steady stock of modern console games I'd be happy.

Arttemis

It seems like there has been some consolidation in GS's stores. There used to be 5 in my town, and now I believe there are 2.

Still, potentially interesting news. I wonder how this'll turn out.

MrSadistic

Nuts to that, call me lazy, but the nearest GameStop is like 5-10 minutes away. I wouldn't mind another one that actually feels closer. I never had a problem with GameStop, but I guess they can't get any worse (compared to the stories I've heard about them).

Monodi

The nearest GameStop from me is miles and miles away. Fucking desolated areas.

CrocBox

I'm not really into digital distribution in general. I prefer to have something physical on a shelf that I can say "Look at this physical thing I obtained through the exchange of currency". Steam and D2D and what not are cool but I certainly wouldn't want ALL my games that way.

FatherChesz

I've got to drive 15 miles to get to the closest GameStop. I'm afraid if they're shuttered then they'll keep on the asshole employees who blatantly lie about 360 performance or who refuse to give a refund on a pre-order. We need a mom and pop store around these parts. :(

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