Current Events > Toys R Us blames videogames for their bankruptcy

(+) Yeah! (+)

LittleRoyal posted...

DevsBro posted...

But...

They have a video game department...

Read the article *sighs* nobody in this topic seems to read.


They are blaming their low sales of games.

Why would I do that?
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Saxon posted...

I remember back in the day when they had bins full of Earthbound for SNES on clearance 'cause nobody bought that damn game when it was new.

Now it's 1000 dollar game sealed in the box.

I wish I knew then what I know now and I would have bought every damn one of them for 20 bucks each.

damn bro u must be like 45 years old!

Toys R Us got a lot of buisness from me as a kid buying videogames. They shouldnt complain
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I think half the reason is the cost of everything seems to be higher there compared to walmart/amazon.
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Kinda funny how Toys R Us relies heavily (and fails) on video game sales now a days yet Gamestop ironically is transitioning more and more into a toy store than a video game store these days.

Yet both are failing. With digital download, premium games, Amazon and online retailing, I just feel most retail store shopping is gunna be a thing of the past.

Jiggy101011 posted...

Gamestop has the same problem on their hands which is every year digital sales are getting higher whereas physical sales of games are going lower. And like Gamestop, TRU can point to "this game sales were down which is why we had a bad quarter" but it ultimately comes down to foot traffic and how do you compete with convenience.

Since the start of the Xbox One/PS4 gen I now own roughly 200 games, 8 of them are physical, which was the complete opposite for me last gen. Trends show year over year more gamers are adopting digital, regardless of that Gamefaqs member screaming "yeah but you don't actual own those games." There is something nice about pre-loading a game and right at midnight I can launch it without having to get in my car and drive to Gamestop for a midnight release.

TL;DR digital distribution is the future and all of these execs saw the writing on the wall with music, tv shows, and movies and didn't do anything. So now they are playing catch up.

Yeah, but physical console games tend to have better discounts than digital ones.
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XXHornDogXX posted...

Gamestop ironically is transitioning more and more into a toy store than a video game store these days.

I know right? GameStop has more kicknacks and "collector's" items these days than actual games

although my local GameStops have started selling older retro games, like NES/SNES era stuff
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Questionmarktarius posted...

NES Classic: never in stock, then discontinued.
NES Classic accessories: plenty in stock, nobody buys them.
Switch: Never in stock
Switch games: Plenty in stock, except for the game you wanted to buy today.
Joycons: Plenty in stock, nobody buys them, much.
Amiibos: Never the ones you want, plenty of Animal Crossing amiibos though, next to the Infinity figures.
Disney Infinity: Buy-one-get-four. They can't even give the damn things away.
Skylanders: Pretty much the same.
Lego Dimensions: Ditto, except for that one set you went in there to buy.
X1, games: Do "bros" even walk inside a TRU?
PS4, games: ditto.

This
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XXHornDogXX posted...

Kinda funny how Toys R Us relies heavily (and fails) on video game sales now a days yet Gamestop ironically is transitioning more and more into a toy store than a video game store these days.

Yet both are failing. With digital download, premium games, Amazon and online retailing, I just feel most retail store shopping is gunna be a thing of the past.

not quite. GameStop merged with ThinkGeek so ThinkGeek could put their shit in their retail stores.
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Sad to see them fall so far. It used to be magical when I was a kid and got to go to a Toys R Us.
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NocturneD85 posted...

Actually kind of miss the old ticket system for video games. Just take a slip of paper off the shelf for the game you want, pay for it and bring it to the counter. Magical times when you were a kid.

I wouldn't say I miss the ticket system per se, but yeah I remember that and it was kinda magical when I was a kid.
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I'll be 43 in October and I was there in the good times when Toys R Us was the place to be when you wanted to find a new video game or system in the mid to late 90s.

Without reading the whole topic, the guy who mentioned that the price of toys to video games going from 15:1 to 3:1 is right.

Much like comic books, manchildren completely took over the toy market and are pretty much ruining it by making the majority of toys a bunch of statues you're not meant to play with.

No parent is going to spend 20 bucks a pop for an action figure that their kid is probably just going to break. And kids just aren't that into toys anyways because of technology and wanting to be more grown up at a younger age.

You want to see a toy company that consistently stays in the game? Lego. And it's because they cater to kids, not their weird grown up fans who want nothing but classic Pirate and Castle sets.
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Saxon posted...

I'll be 43 in October and I was there in the good times when Toys R Us was the place to be when you wanted to find a new video game or system in the mid to late 90s.

TRU stopped being the go-to place to games shortly after the SNES came out for me.

I started going to "Electronics Boutique" before it was called EB Games and then later got eaten by GameStop. Once a Best Buy opened up near me it was GG though never went back to TRU unless I was Amiibo hunting.
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Yeah, Toys R Us was more for NES for me. I moved on to Funcoland for SNES/Genesis through the Playstation 1.
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Ironically, before I could get through the first sentence of the article, a full-window Gamestop ad shoved itself over top and tried to murder my headphones.

CEO has a point.
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GOATTHlEF posted...

Video games have been around for a while. Kinda your fault if you didn't see the writing on the wall and got your child based franchise geared more towards video games.

Or board games, or card games. Kids are playing those too. When the hobby stores collapsed Toys R Us could have snapped those up but they didn't.

Instead they're just yet another Boomer franchise entitled to consumer's time, energy, and money. And instead consumers placed their faith in another model that suited them.

Remember how netflix got started? Yeah because Blockbuster refused to adapt. We're going to see this all over society soon enough and big box stores will be going the way of the dodo. Wal Mart will live because it's Wal Mart. McDonalds too. Other franchises? Get to serving Millennial needs, or get the fuck out. Boomer money won't sustain you for very much longer.

Millennial are the ones still buying toys, though...
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Questionmarktarius posted...

NES Classic: never in stock, then discontinued.
NES Classic accessories: plenty in stock, nobody buys them.
Switch: Never in stock
Switch games: Plenty in stock, except for the game you wanted to buy today.
Joycons: Plenty in stock, nobody buys them, much.
Amiibos: Never the ones you want, plenty of Animal Crossing amiibos though, next to the Infinity figures.
Disney Infinity: Buy-one-get-four. They can't even give the damn things away.
Skylanders: Pretty much the same.
Lego Dimensions: Ditto, except for that one set you went in there to buy.
X1, games: Do "bros" even walk inside a TRU?
PS4, games: ditto.

Poor management I guess.
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The title is misleading, they're blaming low video games sales not the video games themselves. It makes sense too because a lot of people prefer buying digital than physical copies. The only time I feel people buy physical copies are usually for collector editions. Generations change and there's hardly an incentive to come to toys r us anymore, especially when Toys R Us is notorious for selling some of their toys over the MSRP.
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Final verdict:
Toys R Us will be gone completely within 3 years...not a store left in existence followed closely by Gamestop that disappears by 2022.

untrustful posted...

Poor management I guess.

More like getting screwed over by a volatile industry. That list distills down to a few facts, that TRU had little influence over:

Nintendo being Nintendo
The Toys-to-Life fad imploding
Bros buying games elsewhere

The last one is the only one TRU can do anything about, by directly competing with Bestbuy and Amazon with a "discount club" of sorts.

As an action figure collector it breaks my heart that Toys R Us is on death's door. I still like to go in and browse the action figure aisles. I can't get mad at the increase in prices either. Toys are way better than they were 20 years ago. Sadly today's kids are focused on technology instead of physical toys though. And that is what I feel will be what killed Toys R Us.
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EvalAngell posted...

As an action figure collector it breaks my heart that Toys R Us is on death's door.

They're not, or at least not much more than usual.