EB Video games lives once more—in Canada, not less than. GameStop Canada has been acquired by Stephan Tetrault, an entrepreneur and “longtime chief within the collectibles and leisure house,” and is being relaunched as EB Video games Canada, “a beloved and iconic identify many Canadian players nonetheless affiliate with their earliest gaming experiences.”
It looks as if an odd transfer at first blush. The rise of on-line buying has been completely homicide for standard retail, and nowhere is that more true than within the discipline of videogame gross sales. Why go to the difficulty of driving to the mall, in spite of everything, when you possibly can simply browse over to your digital storefront of selection and select from amongst, effectively, every thing?
“This is not only a enterprise determination—it is about bringing one thing again that Canadians really cherished,” Tetrault stated in a press release. “We’ll construct one thing particular right here, with group, nostalgia, and innovation at its coronary heart.”
Tetrault is certainly going to must lean into these aspirational qualities. Promoting videogames is just about a sideline for sport retailers today, which usually appear to be extra centered on Funkos, reward playing cards, peripherals, varied forms of game-adjacent swag and sometimes getting silly with NFTs, that’s. However that appears to be extra up his alley anyway: He is the founder and proprietor of Imports Dragon, a “world toy producer and distributor that has grow to be one of many quickest rising toy firms in Canada,” and can be co-owner of McFarlane Toys.
It is form of amusing (to me, not less than) that GameStop hasn’t really been in Canada all that terribly lengthy. It has been legally—GameStop acquired EB Video games in 2005—nevertheless it continued to function within the nation as EB Video games till 2021, when it lastly obtained round to rebranding. Lower than 4 years later, all of it looks as if form of a waste of time: The outdated identify is coming again, however for many people who aren’t common guests, it by no means actually left.
It has been years since EB (or GameStop) had any relevance to PC gaming, however I am sufficiently old to recollect when it was a vacation spot—a time earlier than the eminence of Steam, when PC video games got here in packing containers, took up as a lot house on the cabinets as console video games, and searching the cut price bins—which to be clear have been actually wire bins with low-cost video games dumped into them—was a real and sometimes rewarding thrill. And I do know that is not coming again, besides it’s going to be good to see the outdated shingle again over the door—and yeah, I will in all probability stick my head in once I’m on the town anyway.
