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Advice on Running a Successful Videogame Store?
xlilacx asks: "The video game industry is worth $25 billion, and predicted to rival the global music industry in the next 10 years. Even Grandma is joining in on the fun. My husband and I bought three video game retail stores two months ago, and so far sales are dismal (down 25% from last year's sales), which seems to be an industry trend. I've noticed a few things that are contibuting to our lack of profits: the people who weren't able to get an XBox 360 have decided they will wait to get one (which most likely will be after Christmas), and they will not buy any games for their old systems in the meantime; people are automatically conditioned to go to the EB-Games and GameStop stores at the malls, even if they give less in trade-ins and have horrible customer servicr; lastly, kids come in with piles of junk games (Madden 2001, etc..), and get enough store credit to buy the latest greatest game that we only mark up like 5%-10%. I'd like to ask Slashdot readers if these observations are a good reflection of the mentality of video-game buyers everywhere, and what suggestions they have for a small ma-and-pa video game store. With all the huge retailers in the video-game market and the EB/GameStop merger, is there a place left for the local game store?"
As a game store owner, my business faces ruin. Game sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many games as they did just a year ago. Revenue is down and costs are up. My store has survived for years, but I now face the prospect of bankruptcy. Every day I ask myself why this is happening.
I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique game stores that sell obscure, import releases that no-one plays, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in party games - stuff that the whole family could play. I don't sell sick stuff like GTA or Resident Evil, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive edutainment sections that I know of.
The business strategy worked. People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase games without profanity or violence. Over the years I expanded the business and took on more clean-cut and friendly employees. It took hard work and long hours but I had achieved my dream - owning a profitable business that I had built with my own hands, from the ground up. But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer games. Why is no one buying games? Are people not interested in playing? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - one in three games world wide is a pirate. On The Internet, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of games in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the game industry, from programmers, to softwarehouses, to stores like my own. Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike games, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this game on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the game industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
So that's my idea - a national blacklist of pirates. If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of society, then they should be excluded from society. If pirates want to steal from the game industry, then the game industry should exclude them. It's that simple. One strike, and you're out - no reputable record store will allow you to buy another game. If the pirates can't buy the games to begin with, then they won't be able to copy them over The Internet, will they? It's no different to doctors blacklisting drug dealers from buying prescription medicine.
I have just written a letter to the BSA outlining my proposal. Suing pirates one by one isn't going far enough. Not to mention pirates use the fact that they're being sued to unfairly portray themselves as victims. A national register of pirates would make the problem far easier to deal with. People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected pirates to a hotline, similar to TIPS. Once we know the size of the problem, the police and other law enforcement agencies will be forced to take piracy seriously. They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?
This evening, my daughters asked me. "Why d
Circumcision is child abuse.