GameStop's VP of merchandising Eric Bright insists that he isn't worried about the gaming industry becoming mostly digital and says stores will move with the times.
There used to be a time when GameStop and Best Buy were the top videogame retailers. However, it appears that physical stores are being phased out thanks to platforms such as Steam, the Epic Game Store, Xbox Game Pass, EA Access, and Uplay+.
If Google gets to control as much of the market as it envisions, even downloading will become a thing of the past. The fact that the upcoming next-gen Xbox will be fitted with a hard drive was so shocking, it sort of made the news.
PlayStation's inbound console is also said to be the last of its kind, so gaming as we know it could be considered prehistoric in a few short years.
The rapid developments in the industry haven't put a damper on Bright, though.
"No, it does not concern me," he says (via Gamesindustry.biz). "GameStop is focused on games and gaming culture overall. Any way that we can look at monetizing overall digital sales, we will.
"You can be assured of that given the fact that we have 65 million members in PowerUp Rewards, we're no more than a skateboard ride away from 80 percent of the overall population of the United States, and we have 45,000 of the most knowledgeable game associates, which are basically the distributed sales force for the entire industry, working for us."
Bright also revealed that the store's partners are well aware that it would be best to involve GameStop in their monetization endeavors and he has no doubt that the company will be able to evolve in order to cope with the changes taking place all around it.
"Our partners know that partnering with GameStop on all the new ways of monetization are in their best interest, so we're engaging in conversations with everyone as new formats come out," he continued. "Much like we were able to sell digital and are able to sell digital codes in every single GameStop store and online today, as new subscription models come out and evolve, GameStop will evolve right along with it."