GameStop blows its last life

Kids are apparently too woke to buy Funko Pops and Mario keychains.

I know this happened last week, but I can’t stop thinking about how GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen glibly pointed to “high taxes, liberalism, socialism, progressivism, wokeness, and DEI” for the decision to sell its stores in Canada and France.

Even with the most generous attempt at connecting the dots, I can’t find the logic as to how wokeness would make people buy less video games. But it is also a ridiculously defensive excuse for how badly GameStop responded as a business to a really interesting shift in its sector — answering the rise of PC gaming by selling merch.

PC gaming has been growing faster than console gaming for several years. What used to be the realm of die-hards has become much more accessible thanks to a wealth of online guides and video tutorials, which means it is easier for people to learn how to build a gaming PC powerful enough to run top-of-the-line games.

Then you have game publisher Valve, which also runs Steam, a digital storefront that has become the way PC gamers buy and review software. Those two factors combined mean there’s a whole swath of ideal GameStop customers who are no longer buying physical media.

That group has also gotten bigger because of Steam Deck, Valve’s attempt at cramming the power of a gaming PC into a handheld device. Though the Steam Deck will cost someone about the same as a home console, it is significantly cheaper than a high-end PC, and without the trouble of assembling all of the different components. Laptop makers like Asus and Lenovo have released their own attempts to reach what is evidently a boom market.

There are still plenty of people buying the home console games that line GameStop’s shelves. Nintendo’s roster of first-party games (Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, etc.) are still a big reason why the Switch was able to have an eight-year lifecycle. But the few exclusive franchises Sony and Microsoft still have are not enough to resist the allure of a PC’s versatility, which offers access to nearly all of the buzziest games in a given year. Developers also release their games in early access on PC to give customers an early look and get some real-world play testing, and the more technically-minded out there have built super dedicated communities that modify and tweak PC games to add their own twists and features to games.

Independent developers — which rarely deal with the overhead of putting out too many physical copies of their games in the first place — are also more able than ever before to find audiences for games that lack the high-end polish of ones from big studios, but can be more creative, interesting, and innovative. That’s helped by reviews on Steam, word-of-mouth recommendations online, or the growing number of video game websites and podcasts.

So with indie games from Balatro to Hades creating just as much buzz as their big-budget counterparts and free-to-play games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Overwatch commanding huge audiences decades after they are first released, there’s a lot of gamers that exclusively play titles they couldn’t find in a GameStop if they wanted to.

So what was GameStop’s bold plan to meet this change in their industry? Based on what’s on display in their stores, it was to sell merch, t-shirts, and various other knick-knacks related to someone’s favourite gaming IP.

Regardless of how people get their games, they are always going to need hardware to run them, and this is really where GameStop has really fumbled. In its online store, there is only a very limited selection of keyboards, mouses, and headphones. There are no components or hardware to speak of, which is especially baffling because unlike consoles — which are a one-and-done purchase — PC owners are constantly replacing and upgrading various chips and fans and other parts in their machines. Valve is the only entity selling Steam Decks, but there’s nothing stopping them from stocking Asus’ ROG Ally and letting people try out how it feels in their hands.

And there is so much other stuff someone would rather get a look at in person before buying. Wouldn’t they want to see how good the picture is on a monitor? Wouldn’t they want to sit in a gaming chair? Hell, maybe they’d even go to an in-store workshop on how to build a computer or mod a game.

It’s wild to imagine GameStop’s execs sitting in boardroom, looking at graphs outlining all of these market shifts, only for the smartest guy in the room to stand up and say “we should sell more Funko Pops.” Yes, gamers can be fiercely loyal to their most beloved franchises, but merch like that is typically more of an impulse buy, and those only happen if you’ve given someone another reason to make the trek into your store.