…Is this because of the shift to streaming services and so on?
…Is this because of the shift to streaming services and so on?
No.
Short answer: digital sales are killing these shops, not streaming.
Streaming is what Sony, Microsoft and maybe eventually Nintendo would like all of us to switch to, because that grants them nearly total control over our library of games. It’s very easy to remove a game from someone’s “possession” because they don’t actually have “possession” of the game they are playing, because they are paying for a subscription to a service.
A lot of people stream games, yes… but a lot of people also understand that streaming is NOT the future for all games because of latency, and no amount of “negative latency” and predictive algorithms will replace a dedicated gaming system that delivers the signal straight from the box to your TV with no middle man.
Also, streaming is EXTREMELY cheap because instead of providing every living room with a super powerful machine, they can provide everyone with low powered devices, and do all of the upgrades from racks of computers far away. Need more compute power to play the latest game? No problem, just allocate more cores or something to it. That’s something a living room system just simply cannot do, at least not any time soon.
In order for Streaming to ever pose any real threat to regular gaming, is if we somehow invent faster than light internet, and the last I checked, the only way to accelerate light is by hyper cooling a gas filled tube or vacuum. So, until we make significant advances there, we’re stuck with regular gaming for a VERY long time, unless the powers that be decide to choke hold the market by releasing streaming only boxes in the future… in which case, PC gaming will reign supreme.
Digital game sales are killing these shops, because for the first time ever, over 50% of all game purchases are happening digitally. I.e. when you login to Playstation Store, or Xbox Store, or Steam, etc etc. most of those games are being purchased there, which means you are not able to resell them, which means a lot of these shops (like gamestop for instance) have to abandon their old profit model and switch to something new to remain relevant.
It seems likely that a lot of these shops just realize, they are part of a dying era, and it’s just more hassle for them to grow and adapt, so they’re just cashing out while they still have money in the bank.
Moving to Off-topic, since I don’t see the relevance to neither Blender nor CG.
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Game almost went bust back in 2011 (I think?) They were saved at the last minute, but apparently didn’t completely learn from their mistakes. Prices aren’t competitive. Cheaper to get the same products almost everywhere else. They’re struggle isn’t anything to do with streaming. Streaming isn’t new, it’s been attempted multiple times in the past 10-15 years, but it’s yet to catch on, and I don’t think it ever will (In the foreseeable future anyway…)
And now how about a joke:
- Me: I went to the video club yesterday…
- Audience: Ha ha ha ha…
- Me: What’s so funny?
The demise of game stores has been a thing in the US for some time now. The big video game store in this country (GameStop) is also having trouble.
That is the second wave though, the first wave was when GameStop laid waste to all of the small game retailers. Now Steam and the other storefronts are laying waste to them.
In a way it’s a bum deal if you want to game, but don’t want anything heavy stealing CPU cycles from your productivity software (because unless it’s from Itch.io, a browser game, or an Open Source project, a launcher is pretty much your only choice). The only way around that is to become a mobile or console gamer, but you don’t get all of the options from some of the in-depth genres.
The era where you can just pop in a CD to install and play (without the extra hoops such as making an account) is gone.
All forces seem to push into the direction of making retail stores “thrift stores”.
eh? which animator uses “productivity” software?? for what? …and those don’t require CPU cycles ANYWAY… like, please explain man. (are you in the accounting dept at a CGI co. or something!!! 
)
There’s a lot of Blender users who play games as well, it’s not an either/or thing.
When I talk about stealing CPU cycles, if you’re doing something heavy like a Cycles render, then you want your machine to devote as much of its power to that as possible. I keep my rendering at 15 threads to keep my PC usable, but it can’t do any other heavy thing without slowing down.
I miss the arcades of the 80s and 90s …
I’m sorry, but I don’t like video game stores, the streaming show, or digital sales.
And not for a matter of technological potential, but for the ability to form places of social gathering of people in the neighborhoods.
from a local social point of view, we regressed. 
I hear there are VR arcades popping up which are supposed to be fun. Never been to one, though.