Apparently they are merging their online presence with Gamestop. Any rewards points are also going away on July 2, 2019.
Use code "MOVINGDAY" to get 50% off.
Apparently they are merging their online presence with Gamestop. Any rewards points are also going away on July 2, 2019.
Use code "MOVINGDAY" to get 50% off.
I feel like we're losing an important part of our culture with this closure. I don't know why.
OMG no!
Their website seems to have become less geeky over the years. They aren't selling things like clipboards made out of misprinted PCBs anymore. Now it's more like fandom merch.
Brett_Murphy said:Apparently they are merging their online presence with Gamestop.
That means that they'll likely be gone for good soon. Gamestop is circling the drain currently.
NickD said:Brett_Murphy said:Apparently they are merging their online presence with Gamestop.
That means that they'll likely be gone for good soon. Gamestop is circling the drain currently.
I used to love video game stores and midnight releases growing up. I'll miss Gamestop and others that have already gone to the wayside; but, manufacturers hit them with a deadly papercut by offering games almost exclusively through digital download and by making you download half the game even if you buy it on disc.
They've not been the same since GameStop bought them. They moved away from stuff for actual geeks (anoyotron and similar fun things) and just focused on "fandom" nonsense and Funko dolls.
Shutting down their website makes no sense and shows how incompetent GameStop's management team really are.
Some interesting discussion here:
Even more sad and frustrating is the shuttering of Make Magazine and Maker Faire:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_tech/comments/by6vpc/rip_maker_faire_and_make_magazine/
That concerns me as that truly is the core of "geekdom" IMO. People getting together and showing off the cool stuff they built, helping others learn how to do it, all of it outside the corporate mainstream.
Booo!I berkeley Gamestop. At least they're following in MediaPlays footsteps and are on their way out, but why did they have to take thinkgeek with them?
DirtyBird222 said:NickD said:Brett_Murphy said:Apparently they are merging their online presence with Gamestop.
That means that they'll likely be gone for good soon. Gamestop is circling the drain currently.
I used to love video game stores and midnight releases growing up. I'll miss Gamestop and others that have already gone to the wayside; but, manufacturers hit them with a deadly papercut by offering games almost exclusively through digital download and by making you download half the game even if you buy it on disc.
Too bad, because I hate digital download. And install sizes have gotten absurd. As I wrote in a blog "If you’d have told me back in my Xbox 360 days that its successor would have a 1 terabyte drive, I would have been skeptical. If you proceeded to tell me that it would be constantly at 90% memory usage, I would have called you an outright liar. Now every time I buy a new game, it turns into a juggling session of trying to figure out what games of the 12 installed I’m really going to play again in the near future."
In reply to DirtyBird222 :
Gamestop has turned themselves into little more than a glorified pawn shop. When you go into a Gamestop and ask for a game on the day of release they quiz you on if you preordered, and oh no we don't have any other than preorders, etc. Then you can waltz into a Target and see 100+ copies of it sitting on the shelves. Or a best buy, or Walmart, or Meijer, or ... Gamestop for more than a decade has subsisted on underpaying for tradeins and overcharging when reselling them.
Stefan said:Even more sad and frustrating is the shuttering of Make Magazine and Maker Faire:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_tech/comments/by6vpc/rip_maker_faire_and_make_magazine/
I didn't hear about that! That is terrible. I was a subscriber from day one, but my interests shifted. It's terrible to see Maker Faire shutting down. We only ever had mini maker faires here in town but they were fun to go to and I especially enjoyed the power tool drag races they held sometimes.
I stopped being interested when they cut all their "Office Warfare" from the website years ago.
Still wish I had bought the USB-powered rocket launcher with the built-in video camera when I had the chance.
In reply to NickD :
I've got 4tb of external storage hooked up to my OneX for a total of 5tb. I've never had more than 35% available free space. It is forcing me to actually finish games though, because now I want them finished to be off the system.
Which is the one thing I don't like about digital, I can't sell them when I'm done. Of course with Gamestop only offering $3.50 for used games the week they released, I don't feel like I'm losing that much just letting them live in the ether until my kid is old enough to play them.
"Geek" isn't the niche it used to be. These days if you don't know all the Marvel heroes, or play Pokemon, or carry a computer in your pocket, YOU'RE the weird one. Too bad GameStop and ThinkGeek weren't able to innovate and be flexible with the changing times, but the culture is still out there. Today you can buy a 3D printed Nerf pump action shotgun on Etsy that shoots every type of Nerf ammunition. Hard to compete with that when all you've got is Funko Pop and digital download games. You can buy Funko Pop's at Wal Mart but you can't buy toilet paper and laundry detergent on ThinkGeek.com.
Stefan said:Even more sad and frustrating is the shuttering of Make Magazine and Maker Faire:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_tech/comments/by6vpc/rip_maker_faire_and_make_magazine/
That concerns me as that truly is the core of "geekdom" IMO. People getting together and showing off the cool stuff they built, helping others learn how to do it, all of it outside the corporate mainstream.
That blows. I had read that they were putting the Make Faires on hold, but didn't realise they also pulled the plug on the magazine as well.
I'm glad for the attention to learning how things work and building stuff that the "maker" thing did, but Make always seemed to have suggestions of the most insanely high-end tools... I mean, I was sort of the target market as a software developer/tool fetishist, but even I thought it went a little far and maybe suggested a higher barrier to entry than was needed.
I'm suddenly having a melancholy moment over Radio Shack circa my youth.
Ransom said:I'm suddenly having a melancholy moment over Radio Shack circa my youth.
I knew Radio Shack was headed in the wrong direction when they made a commercial where they sent the '80s packing in a DeLorean instead of bringing them back in KITT. Maybe it was because I was a kid then, but Radio Shack seemed to have a much better idea of what they were doing in the '80s and had successfully filled a niche then, instead of being a glorified cell phone store.
Stefan said:They've not been the same since GameStop bought them. They moved away from stuff for actual geeks (anoyotron and similar fun things) and just focused on "fandom" nonsense and Funko dolls.
Shutting down their website makes no sense and shows how incompetent GameStop's management team really are.
Some interesting discussion here:
I also argue that Gamestop stores haven't been the same since they bought ThinkGeek! There are less actual games in their stores than trinkets, T-shirts, and other useless crap now. I used to like both of them, but it was a bad marriage. It's too bad they are burying ThinkGeek.
Gamestop itself has always been hit or miss, but long gone are the glory days of that store. It's basically become Radio Shack at it's worst, right down to them selling cell phones and accessories. I only go in there these days to kill time if the wife is shopping and I don't feel like burning my nostrils with 100 different soap/perfume scents at Bath & Body Works, which is seemingly ALWAYS next door to Gamestop for some reason.
I guess it's gotta be hard to avoid trying to get a slice of that stuff that everybody buys (cell phones and accessories, pop culture T-shirts), but that requires resources and dilutes the ability to do a good job of the niche thing. Maybe?
I never did games enough to have much familiarity with GameStop, but ThinkGeek was really fairly geeky once upon a time. I regret that I was broke back when I should've been stocking up on programming-language shirts... 
Put a fork in thinkgeek.... it's done. I saw this thread and hopped over there to try to use my remaining geek points. In the past there were many selections one could pick at various levels and the points I had accumulated would have been enough to get something. Now, there are only seven options, starting at about double the number of points I have. I'm out, won't be placing an order. I'm sorry to see them go since they were a fun website I usually ordered something from them at least every year around Christmas.
You'll need to log in to post.
