In 2008, Americans spent $11.6 billion on boxed video games. By 2025 that number was $1.5 billion, an 87% collapse. And the chain of events that emptied the aisle started with the thing gamers loved most about it, the trade-in counter. Publishers made $0 every time a used copy changed hands. GameStop built an empire in that gap, buying your copy back for $15 and selling it again for $35 while the studio that spent four years making the game got nothing on the resale. The used counter was…

RetroByteVault@RetroByteVault1d ago

POV: It’s the early 2000s and you’re walking through the video game aisle at Best Buy. PS2, Xbox, GameCube, PC games… rows of cases you’d stare at forever while trying to decide what was worth spending your money on. Sometimes browsing the aisle was almost as much fun as bringing a game home.