well theres always those ma and pa video game shops (we have 2 here) after gamestop goes bust their business will thrive
Will they though?
New games wise.
I can't imagine new games make the most and the likes of Amazon and big box shops can drive down profits to almost nothing there.
Every big pub and their mother has grey label/classics/1 year later rerelease cheapo editions and goes after independent games that show even the vaguest amount of popularity and staying power.
Said online and big box shops have all the stock of new consoles and peripherals.
Second hand games. With the shift to online (never mind if someone does pull their finger out and do game streaming properly) and people having their own accounts on ebay/amazon/local tat merchant and I am not predicting any kind of lawmaker or consumer revolt will give us the option to trade online games any time soon (not that it would help them) then that is also a limited market. Crying shame really but it is what it is.
Retro and import might be a thing but it is a fickle market and also a fairly decent barrier to entry, one ebay and co will stomp all over -- how much would you bet on your local shop having something vs online where I don't even have to get out of the chair? This is also before the big crash when someone properly figures out repros.
Repair and minor league upgrades might be a thing but there is only so much you can do there (not like we have a fix for 360 RRoD or PS3 YLOD, laser assemblies for PS2 and back are rather hard to come by these days. Though maybe the same thing that will see the repro market blow up will also see a laser replacement or three made), and skills and tooling cost is not inconsiderable either (maybe they can also fix phones).
Nobody makes any real money being an arcade, hang out spot or competitions (assuming you are allowed in the same room as someone else any time soon).
That then leaves the gamestop model of getting what little you can from the markets above* and also selling old phones/tablets/laptops and whatever posters/cards/plastic junk sell to keep their coffers at least somewhat full, that and the high pressure sales tactics.
*and I am sure if gamestop, or whatever chain takes over from them, wanted they could do a search for all mid reviewed future hidden gems (
https://towardsdatascience.com/predicting-hit-video-games-with-ml-1341bd9b86b0 https://nycdatascience.com/blog/student-works/analysis-of-video-game-sales-from-1980-2016/ ), buy them up, warehouse them centrally somewhere and have them able to be ordered in for any shop overnight/two days far better than ma and pa doing the same thing.
Even if a ma and pa shop can make a go of it there is no reason another company without gamestop's baggage of debt, poor takeovers, failing locations, potentially customer dislike and whatever else, that can afford to do the business analysis, can have a massive inventory somewhere that can be distributed very quickly to have whatever you want.
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