Posted by The internet, while connecting everyone in a way impractical or impossible to achieve before, also made leaving the house less of a necessity. People had to go out and get things if they wanted them. People had to meet up to see each other. Consequently, playing multiplayer games was an activity done together in-person. Game systems became the rage, and early multiplayer games like Pong were a massive hit. However, the internet allowed for these games to be taken online.
Gamestop became the place to pick up your video games of all sorts. The new consoles, shoot-em-ups and pokemon games were on full display, and *mostly* youth would flock to Gamestop to spend their allowance. As time progressed, consoles like the Xbox and Playstation incorporated online multiplayer features. This didn’t stop people from going to Gamestop and getting their games. After all, you still needed the game to play the game online. Meanwhile, gaming on computers was less flashy but was developing at an incredible rate. In fact, a website would soon come that would make the trip to Gamestop for computer gamers unnecessary entirely. This website is “Steam”.
Steam functioned both as a marketplace and a community. People could create accounts that they could use to play their computer games together. The library of games that Steam had was massive. Any game you could want would be there, at market price or at an enticing discount, ready to be downloaded straight onto your computer. Steam had all of the files, meaning no physical copies were needed to run the games, they were on your computer in your Steam library. For Gamestop, this meant that anyone who played computer games simply didn’t need their store anymore. They could get their games faster, easier, and at a potential discount without needing physical disks.
Over the years, the ability to download games made Gamestop obsolete. However, the internet, specifically Reddit, brought a massive resurgence to the company’s prominence. Things were looking grim for the company, but for now nostalgia prevails.