Hey there! By now, I hope you've seen my earlier article concerning an overview of Gamestop's experimental revitalization and rebranding project in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known there as "Gamestop 2.0". If not, this can be found here. I'd highly recommend you give it a look if you want an overview of what marvelous things await the gaming and game merchandise company, and through their unveiling, the consumers. Additionally, check out my latest article prior to this for detailed information about my trip to the larger Gamestop 2.0 store.
The "Co-op" couch of the second location. Source: Gamestop (photo credit: Josh Nelson)
On two occasions during my adventure to Tulsa, I visited a specific Gamestop 2.0 that wasn't on the itinerary. This second location was unique to the others in that it was mostly based in selling collectibles and prided itself, above other things, on Funko Pop! figurines. This article will give a look at this second location.
A panoramic shot of the back end of the second location. Source: Gamestop (photo credit: Josh Nelson)
This store has all of the typical Gamestop amenities like video games and helpful, knowledgable staff who can assist on any of the things you need to inquire about as a Gamestop customer, but as mentioned above, they are a Gamestop 2.0 store, and so they have a particular focus. In addition to the one Co-op Couch they have towards the front end of the store, this Gamestop 2.0 has:
A lot of Funko Pop! figurines
Collectibles that aren't necessarily Pop!-related
Trading cards
The store really mostly markets all of the above, just magnified beyond what a typical Gamestop already has. Zach Shor, Head of Innovation with Gamestop and one of the big-name team members on the Gamestop 2.0 project in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said that this store is the model that's likely to be reworked the most.
Now, you may be wondering what that little display doo-dad is doing there centrally in the panoramic shot above. This is another feature that Gamestop 2.0's all possess – it's basically their version of an online kiosk. Dubbed "The Endless Aisle", it is designed to help customers find what they need at a certain store. I tried it out at the Retro model, and I'll get more into my thoughts on it when I discuss that.
Here's the biggest problem with this location: Location itself is everything, and most malls have at least one-to-two of these three things:
Hot Topic
BoxLunch
ThinkGeek
This store in the Woodland Hills Mall is competing against allthree. And, when you factor exactly what kind of merchandise these stores sell, you're talking about Funko Pop!s, gaming apparel, and neat game-related merchandise besides. And that's true for all three of these locations. Being that this Gamestop 2.0 is the "Collectibles" store model, this doesn't bode very well, even considering how ThinkGeek is part of Gamestop now.
ThinkGeek's awning, also in the Woodland Hills Mall. Source: Gamestop (photo credit: Josh Nelson)
Ultimately, this store could be a thriving one, if it were located somewhere with less competition. I'd be inclined, if it were up to me, to switch the "Collectibles" store model with the "Retro" model that I keep talking about, but that's just my opinion.
At any rate, it was still a pretty cool location and was quite fun to marvel at. But what do you think of this store model? Is it a tough sell for you, or could you see yourself buying exclusive collectibles here? Let us know!
If you'd like to visit Gamestop 2.0 at the Woodland Hills Mall, the address is: 7021 S Memorial Dr, Tulsa, OK 74133
Gamestop has been a quintessential force in gaming retail. Famous for having a presence in almost every shopping mall and retail strip, and infamously joked about for providing heavily-diminished returns on trade-ins, people often say that Gamestop is on its last legs. However, despite anything that you may have heard, this could not be farther from the truth. This weekend, I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and in that very town, with facilitation from the company itself, I came across Gamestop's plans for "Gamestop 2.0", a complete revitalization of the retail chain.
Woodland Hills Mall's Gamestop store, just one of my stops this weekend. Source: Gamestop (photo credit: Josh Nelson)
The first store I went to, out of a total of four stores visited in Tulsa and the surrounding towns (which itself is out of thirteen stores as a grand total in the area), was their largest space in the highly-experimental rebranding test. Therein, I saw a massive space with a whopping 36 gaming monitors, "co-op" couches in front of massive television screens, and concessions in the back. They even had a community table where people were playing Dungeons & Dragons!
The first location – larger Social model! Source: Gamestop (photo credit: Josh Nelson)
But what's more, I saw people of various ages playing together. This to me was never something I would ever have considered for the Gamestop brand, and it's wonderful to see. And what made this even cooler was that this was only the beginning.
At the second location, which was nestled in the Woodland Hills shopping mall conveniently nearby my hotel, the Gamestop there, also part of the experiment, had and sold video games like the first and also had a co-op couch and screen, but they also had a major focus: Funko Pop! figurines and other collectibles.
The second location – Collectibles model! Source: Gamestop (photo credit: Josh Nelson)
This was neat to me because despite its immediate proximity to places like ThinkGeek, Hot Topic, and BoxLunch, I could imagine anyone looking for non-exclusive (or – let's face it – exclusives in equal measure) Pop! figures going there first above any of the aforementioned stores. This upheaval in strategy is novel of Gamestop, and I'm here for it!
That was all of Friday's fun. How grand! I could not wait to see what more lay in store for me as well as the other people invited to experience this amazing experiment firsthand.
On Saturday, I visited a smaller model store with similar specs to the first store visited. This store was equipped with twelve monitors, as opposed to 36, but virtually every other Gamestop 2.0 amenity was there. To top that off, space equaled what one might see of a typical Gamestop store as it stands now. That means there's more than just mere hope for this experiment to expand!
The third location – smaller Social model! Source: Gamestop (photo credit: Josh Nelson)
Finally, I visited a "retro" location, which was roughly an hour outside of Tulsa. This store boasts games from every generation of console from the original Nintendo Entertainment System onwards and has four CRT-televisions to play any number of these games on, in addition to the standard amenities that Gamestop 2.0 seems to offer (including the co-op couches and collectibles).
This entire experiment has untold potential behind it, and I'm more than eager to see what becomes of this project. In the coming parts of this massive feature, I'll be going over all the wonders of what I saw across each day this past weekend, and also detailing the hurdles that Gamestop faces at each store (and how they propose to face said hurdles).
But what do you think of the new store model types that Gamestop is testing out in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Do any of these particular models appeal to you as a consumer? Let us know!
Hey there Funko POP! fans, get ready – there’s a new game series coming out for your entertainment!
Source: Funko
The Funkoverse Strategy Board Game is designed for two-to-four players, at ages ten and up. The core box, which prominently features four POP!-ified character pieces from DC Comics’s Batman, also has two basic characters (not shown), two maps (“Gotham City Streets” and “The Joker’s Carnival Chaos”), bases for the characters to stay put on, and a whole slew of accessories for use in this light strategy game.
Source: Funko
An interesting factor in this release is that this core game can be played as a standalone board game, or alternatively, can be combined with other Funkoverse board games and expansions for maximum fun. For example, the expansion pack for the DC Comics Batman game features two new POP! characters – Catwoman and Robin – and can be added to the core game for even more variance in characters, or…
Wait, what?! Source: Funko
… You could add Blanche or Dorothy (or any Golden Girl) to the game, and fight crime in that way. Yes, that is what I said.
Anyway, a fair few of these expansions are already out alongside the core game, and many more are projected to be on track to release on March 1st of this year. If you’re as crazy about Funko POP!s as I know a lot of you likely are, you should get your hands on these games as soon as you can, because I predict that they won’t stay on shelves for very long.
Coming March 1st, 2020. Source: Funko
What do you think about this phenomenal collaboration of brands? Do you collect Funko POP! figures? Are you planning on buying the game or any of its many expansions? Let us know your thoughts!
“M-Morty – I think we’re in a Fun*uuurp*ko POP!s Board Game, Morty!” Source: Funko
Yesterday, an article was posted on Bleeding Cool‘s “Comics” hub about how Magic: The Gathering is becoming an institution that isn’t supporting its player base. In this article, I intend to rebuke this as well as I can, because I feel strongly that Wizards of the Coast is doing their sincere best in accommodating their players.
Source: Wizards of the Coast
On Magic‘s R&D
So, the first thing that Ken Stewart, who is affiliated with Rodman’s Comics through Gamers’ Palace Comics and Games, notes is that Wizards of the Coast’s Magic R&D team has been deliberately pushing certain cards of a higher rarity in order to sell cards. My first response is that Wizards of the Coast is a subsidiary of Hasbro, which is a big-name toy and game company, if not the biggest name today; of course they’re going to want to sell their products! So Oko, Thief of Crowns is pushed to mass-usage in major tournament scenes and is a $50+ card in financial terms. That’s not going to remain a problem when they ban it in the formats where it proves a problem. Look at Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, and its impact on Modern. It had an impact and now it’s banned. Wrenn and Six isn’t banned yet because it’s easy enough to kill it with an early-game burn spell in Legacy and Modern. Oko is a likely candidate for a Standard ban given some more time to prove how ridiculous the card is.
Source: Wizards.com
Of these examples that you originally gave, Hogaak has been dealt with, W6 doesn’t necessarily need to be dealt with, and Oko is probably on its way out come November 18th. The counterbalance to poor quality of cards is a healthy ban list. This game has seen instances where cards needed to be banned often and en masse in the past. Look at Mirrodin Standard season. Artifactlands, Disciple of the Vault, and Skullclamp were all banned from Standard. That is seven cards banned in not even just a single Standard season, but in a single block of sets! Comparatively, the current Standard season is child’s play. Modern is clearly also being slowly phased out in favor of Pioneer (despite what Wizards is saying), but that’s meant to breathe life into the game, and it looks like it’s working.
On Ken’s WPN Status
On to the next complaint: Ken Stewart losing his status as a Wizards Play Network affiliate. On the surface (as I can’t speak as a store owner so can’t go further down), this feels like a gripe that is his own problem. He claims that while the WPN status is linked to stores with an emphasis on tabletop gaming, Wizards of the Coast, with its “[PC] games, books, [licensed] intellectual property for tv shows, toy lines, and movies and many other random things”, tabletop gaming is not 75% of its priority.
I’m sorry, what?
Firstly, elaborate on those “many other random things”. How many of those things are completely unrelated to Magic: The Gathering or Dungeons & Dragons? Remember Dungeons & Dragons? I certainly do. It’s Wizards of the Coast’s other big seller and, more relevantly, is a tabletop game that is still very much supported by the company.
Anyway, your main concern was with Magic, and still, you’re in the wrong because without the cards printed for tabletop, we wouldn’t have the Magic: The Gathering: Arena game, the books associated with the storyline of the game, any of the toys by Funko or thereabouts (including Arena of the Planeswalkers, a tabletop boardgame spin-off), the movie (which is still in development hell), or the Netflix show. And if you think for a moment that Wizards of the Coast won’t be pressured by Hasbro to provide tabletop card game material as tie-ins for the Netflix series, you’d be sorely mistaken.
Anyway, back to your lost WPN status. You are sore about this because they rejected your reapplication on the grounds that your bathroom “shows signs of rust”, and you defend this by saying the building is over a century old. I’m no expert on infrastructure, but so was my childhood home. I lived in Rockaway Park, in New York, which is a suburban part of the state close to the water and was devastated by Hurricane Sandy back in 2012. And you know what my family did when the basement showed signs of rusting and mold? We fixed it. It took a fair amount of contracting, but we took the initiative to fix that basement. And we didn’t even have a huge influx of people visiting it every day, so there wasn’t a huge incentive to do so. But please, do gripe about how you want to keep your bathroom rusty. I’m sure your players enjoy using it.
On a similar note, I’ll tell you about a store that I saw lose its WPN status. Perhaps you have heard of it; it was called A Store Of Fire And Dice, and its WPN status was revoked for reasons of a highly-controversial nature. ASOFAD lost its status because they had defaced the poster that was given to them by WPN about store etiquette, and also flew the flag of “Kekistan”, an alt-right troll-created fake country, in open sight.
This isn’t okay. At all. Source: Reddit
This store is still functioning and is based in Long Island, New York. Before I moved upstate, I frequented the store. It was only once I moved that I learned about the revoked status. The owner, Jesse DeMarco, is still spouting alt-right philosophies and throwing shade towards Wizards of the Coast on his Twitter and Facebook pages. A lot of people across the Magic community see the place as a blemish and him as a madman. As someone who identifies as agender and is therefore in a demographic that is marginalized by the alt-right (among many others), I don’t believe they’re wrong. Wizards of the Coast cares about the players in all demographics. Have you noticed the initiatives they’ve taken to support marginalized groups? They’re definitely there.
I also know of a few really good WPN-affiliated stores, such as Alterniverse in Hyde Park, New York, which despite downsizing to a major degree and moving to a more rural area than previous locations, is still being supported by the Wizards Play Network. I don’t know about rural stores being the problem. Anthony Just, the owner, even happens to sell comics as a primary focus, so I don’t know about the comic focus being the problem either.
A comic book signing at Alterniverse. Source: Facebook
So yeah, if there’s one thing I can agree with Ken on it’s that we should voice our opinions to the Wizards Play Network, however we see fit. But honestly, they close places for good reasons. If he wants to complain about Magic when it’s specifically the WPN that’s letting him down, he has every right to do so, but in doing so he’s wrong to misguide his frustrations.
Ken: Do you really want to be another Jesse DeMarco just because your bathroom isn’t up to snuff? Or would you rather be an Anthony Just, and make it despite the odds? Maybe your piece is enough to let Wizards see that you’re trying. But really, you should do more than complain, because actions speak far louder than words.
