These are slowly KILLING my Business…here’s why

New games are like rotisserie chickens at Costco. They may be a loss, but bring more sales on other items.

This is why GameStop pushes used games so hard. Because the profit margin on brand new games is slim. They might make $5 off a brand new game. But $25-30 off a used copy of that same game.

As another store owner. The only poistive is that you will get trade ins for new games. Then make your money on the resell of the trade ins.

I speak to a LOT of retro game store owners here in the UK. They said that new games are only worth owning because people trade retro to buy new games. That’s how the 💰 is made. It’s a shame, like you say, the prices drop considerably. I personally wouldn’t buy new games at launch. I’d wait a few months

At my local resale game store, when I preorder new stuff they always tell me that they cannot guarantee the game will be available on release day which I am fine with because I rather support them than the "big box" stores. If you continue selling new games just be clear and upfront to customers on that situation. Heck I heard even the bigger stores aren't even having the new games on release day sometimes.

Starfox in a sears display stand, I thought to myself "it will never get better than this" The intro BLEW me away!

I ran a chain of over a dozen game store across 5 states for well over 20 years. New games was just something we had to deal with. We were in major shopping centers next to Walmart and Target. We had midnight sales events. It's just what we did. The issue we eventually ran into was people stopped coming to midnight releases. Digital sales killed the need to have every new game in stock. But we kept making sure we had the latest titles available for trade. I left the business in early 2023 because we had downsized to our last 2 stores that got relocated to downtown locations. The remaining guys are trying to reopen a 3rd location in an old spot, but I don't know how well it all will work out since new and used games aren't selling for Xbox Series X or PS5 all that well. At E3 in 2019, after I walked out of meetings, I knew then that would be my last E3. I saw no point in returning. The industry was already upside down. The writing was on the wall then that all these companies wanted was a big hit that's an ongoing game like Fortnite. Digital is now king cause they make all the money, and the store fronts like myself were being phased out. Back during the PS2 days with new games, the margin was the same as they are now. But we had no digital store fronts, so each store we had was making well over $100,000 a month with ease. Times have changed, and I wouldn't want to open a gaming store again right now to save my life. I'm glad I finally wised up and left the business. Hopefully, you continue to see success. It's going to be a rough ride for gaming stores here on out.

Love that you have covered this. I own an LGS up in Northern Michigan that has been in operation for over 15 years. We deal with the exact problems consistently to the point I barely order new games these days, and when I do, I mostly only get Nintendo games because it's the only safe bet. I have a distributor that gets them to me overnight now with free shipping, and most of their Nintendo titles are significantly lower in pricing that I can make actual profit off of them. I can easily give you the information of the distributor if you would like. Otherwise, thanks again for bringing this topic up!

Super Mario World, Mario 64, Goldeneye, Pokemon Blue, Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun, Halo 2, Diablo 2, and World Of Warcraft

This channel is so much fun--I love all the behind the scenes stuff! I hope your new supplier gets you those games on time. Those margins are super slim, but I get it... it brings people into the store and hopefully they will buy other things too that you'll make more money off of. Also, those were some nice 3 pointers guys! I'm a big basketball fan (play and watch), and I think it would be fun to see some of you guys play some pickup ball with other YouTubers at a convention or something (I know some of Riff's squad plays, and Billy from the Game Chasers recently said Melvor used to be good at bball--maybe Caleb plays too?) Maybe put some old vidja games on the line for the winners? ^_^

Banjo Kazooie - August 10th 1998 was a great birthday gift that changed my life forever.

That break down of costs for modern games just blew my mind. I wasn't expecting you to get like £20 or USD equivilant profit per unit, but potentially LOSING money on every copy when you include shipping costs? That or settling for a few bucks profit just isn't enough to sustain a business. Btw your store looks AMAZING. I can only DREAM of having a place like that near me in the UK, seeing all those NES controllers and game guides just fills me with joy. I would likely drop my credit card on the desk and just hit my credit limit immediately lol.

Games that changed my life. Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 on dreamcast and Resident Evil 2 on ps1

Are midnight launches still a thing? I remember in the UK years ago people would go to Game (UKs version of GameStop) at midnight to get their pre orders. I know people can now just download but for people who love physical copies ‘a launch event’ might be an amazing thing to do to create a ‘destination’. You could have a lock in or open the doors a little early to allow for browsing/gaming. Book shops in the UK are struggling - in the era of books being downloaded more than ever, the book shops that aren’t closing are the ones that do ‘events’. 😊 I remember going to the cinema for a midnight launch once, the atmosphere was completely different to a normal showing! Xx

Friend of mine owns a retro gaming store & right off the bat he refused to stock brand new games, this store was pssed down as his parents owned it & they went near bankrupt because they insisted on stocking brand new games, but they were so expensive to buy even in bulk as it was a mom & pop operation, so they sold it to their son & are now retired. The store would have closed down if he hadn't gone 100% retro. Now business is thriving as he got rid of all the so called new games in sales & even gets recent games traded in & can sell them at a decent price to make some money back.

I think you should go the Double Jump Route for new games. They have pre-orders up, then only buy like 4 or so more then the pre-order. That way you have the New games, while also doing the preorders

Surprisingly... Donkey Kong Country Returns Tropical Freeze changed my life! It brought me back to modern gaming, after seeing the commercial for it, I went out and bought a Wii U (lol). I shortly after bought an Xbox One and it was all uphill from there. Before that I ONLY played retro

Vigilante 8 on the PS1 is what got me more in to gaming. I had always played games but was never a "gamer" until I got that one xmas. I was hooked from then on

For New Games I either want it day 1 or I’ll wait for a sale. So this puts you in a bind if you can’t get it day 1 then I’ll end up waiting for a good sale which would make you loose money.

I work at a locally owned video game store and we had a similar issue with new games. The distributor went bankrupt and we haven’t really made an effort to find another. As far as customer satisfaction we are right across the road from GameStop so we usually recommend them to go there for new games and they have been good and recommend customers to us for old games.