this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
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They honestly could just become a merch store and only carry plushies, shirts, other nick-nacks and hardware. The one nearest me is already pretty much just an authorized dealer of FuncoPop garbage as is. I'd be more inclined to visit if they carried other general video game related stuff so I wouldn't have to wait for shipping.
That's basically Hot Topic, Box Lunch and a bunch of other similar stores that sell nothing but licensed merch. Only instead of Harry Potter, Disney, and a handful of popular shows it's video game properties.
That was basically the case for most GameStops in Germany before they closed down for good nationally a couple years ago. You still had your games, of course, but like 80% of the customers we had came for merch. Funkos, shirts, other memorabilia.
Do people go to gamestop specifically to buy merch, though? I always thought that that was intended like candy in the check-out aisle: you grab it because it catches your eye on the way out, after you've already collected whatever you actually came in for.
Might as well go all in on this. Merch and toy stores are popular for kids so i don't see why they won't do this. I don't know why Western companies are so afraid to branch out from their "core competencies" and fighting tooth and nail to keep the rotting corpse of their previous business models. Japanese companies have been branching out from their initial business models since forever. Nintendo used make card games but is now a videogame behemoth. Fujifilm went from photography to biotech. Sony recently eked out into finance. This branching out is why Japan has some of the oldest companies in the world because they value long term survival. GameStop could do the same by giving up on their old business model and embrace selling merch and toys instead.
Do they have the same private equity system that we do in the States?
I feel like it's been years, but wasn't GameStop sort of a victim that somehow survived? I may have that all wrong.
I think they would if they had more than the cheap eye-candy stuff they generally have and was the greater focus of the business. They could be the Hot Topic of gaming shit.