GameStop opens inaugural tournament center

by James Ransom-Wiley { Dec 11th 2007 at 7:30PM }

GameStop has finally found a way to exploit those pesky loiterers through its latest PR initiative to open a new class of hybrid retail locations. No, corporate hasn't altered its strategy from making green to 'going green,' rather these new super structures will feature a "tournament center," in addition to a standard retail store, where the usual kiosk crew is no longer an obstacle, but the star attraction. San Jose will serve as the testing ground for the new tournament series where the first of these combination stores opened today with 24 networked gaming stations, each equipped with a plasma display. Competition will be hosted "most weekends" starting with a Madden tourney on Saturday. Winner ~~takes home~~ goes next door for a $1,000 GameStop shopping spree. Losers wait for winner in the parking lot.

Tags: ca, gamestop, madden, san-jose

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Fernando Rocker @ Dec 11th 2007 7:33PM

I hope they do Guitar Hero tournament. $1,000 easy for me

=)

bounchfx @ Dec 11th 2007 7:59PM

I disagree. depending on who's there.

you won't even be considered if you can't beat dragonforce or jordan on expert, 5*ing each.

have you SEEN some of the top players? and I used to consider myself good. (considering I was in the top .0001% of the scoreboards.)

Fernando Rocker @ Dec 11th 2007 8:05PM

I can do Jordan in Expert with 5 stars... only 4 in the Dragonforce song... I need to practice.

Gunner McGrath @ Dec 11th 2007 7:35PM

Are they gonna be $1000 prizes every week? because if they are I'm stoked for a Chicago store.

sifer2400 @ Dec 11th 2007 7:37PM

lol this ought to be a good Laugh, i wish i had a guitar to smash on the mangers head lol

phihexy27 @ Dec 11th 2007 7:46PM

@ sifer

For what reason???

sifer2400 @ Dec 11th 2007 7:50PM

Because every time i go there He becomes an asshole. he just hates me lol its a mutual thing tho

phihexy27 @ Dec 11th 2007 10:53PM

That's a shame, but fortunately not all the managers that work Gamestop are assholes.

ColossalHat @ Dec 11th 2007 7:40PM

Who wants to make a bet that they only let you buy used games or pre-order with that shopping spree? ;p

gonk @ Dec 11th 2007 8:08PM

these days that's all you CAN get there

loof @ Dec 11th 2007 7:40PM

This is actually a pretty cool idea gamestop/lan center kind of thing.

Obie @ Dec 11th 2007 7:43PM

The problem is everytime your turn is up they come over and beg you to preorder a game you don't want on a system you don't have.

sifer2400 @ Dec 11th 2007 7:44PM

lmao priceless and so true. lol

Jose @ Dec 11th 2007 7:49PM

Lol, I hope they have people guarding that poor kid who wins :P

--

http://www.free-ipod-touch.blogspot.com

shinsnake @ Dec 11th 2007 8:01PM

Crap. Had this idea too and never acted on it. Some people have the balls and some don't.

WedgeTalon @ Dec 11th 2007 8:11PM

Yeah, I was wanting to open something like this in my area, but once I got down to the details and figured how much money I'd need to drop to Do It Right(tm), I knew I couldn't.

I just hope that existing game centers are able to crush GS. GS has a lot more money it can sink in running startups out of business just to "succeed".

I doubt GS can Do It Right, but they also could throw enough $$ into it that they can bulldoze past tight spots that private owners typically can't.

sigh

gonk @ Dec 11th 2007 8:06PM

anybody out there that hasn't seen these yet?

they still make me laugh every time

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/18

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/30

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/31

sifer2400 @ Dec 11th 2007 8:22PM

LMAO so funny especially the 1st and 3rd lOL

phihexy27 @ Dec 11th 2007 10:45PM

@ gonk

Yeah I've seen them like every other time you've posted a reply to a Gamestop article.

eialba @ Dec 11th 2007 10:49PM

I dunno, I thought the second one was particulary hilarious.

Chris @ Dec 11th 2007 8:08PM

Heh, my girlfriend went into the test store and thought the stage thing was stupid. She'll probably think a 24 screen tournament center is even more stupid.

I, on the other hand, think it might be cool, and if they have a tourney for a game I'm decent at, I might be tempted. 1 in 24 odds of $1,000 is pretty sweet.

Donald @ Dec 11th 2007 8:11PM

Let me know when they set up a Pokemon tournament.

Ryudo @ Dec 11th 2007 8:15PM

This link shows why Gamestop is doing this

http://www.playntrade.com/index.htm

zuburi @ Dec 11th 2007 8:21PM

Why is Jeff Goldblum highfiving a stuffed cat?

Nick Ritch @ Dec 11th 2007 8:31PM

It's Andy Sandberg from SNL, and I don't know.

zuburi @ Dec 11th 2007 8:32PM

My attempt at lulz didn't work :(

Luke @ Dec 12th 2007 12:18AM

lulz

343 Guilty Fart @ Dec 11th 2007 8:28PM

In San Jose you say? I live about 2 blocks from the one downtown... not that this really makes me want to go anyways.

Norm @ Dec 11th 2007 8:53PM

Boy, I sure hope those nice PLASMA TVs don't have INPUT LAG!

ShortFuse @ Dec 11th 2007 10:38PM

Nobody plays 480i games anymore. Lag is irrelevant nowadays

Norm @ Dec 11th 2007 11:21PM

Ok, so nobody plays SD games, but you are talking about playing SMASH? Are you serious? Have you ever heard of EVOLUTION? Its one of the biggest fighting game tourneys in the world, and they sure as hell play them. Smash included.

ShortFuse @ Dec 12th 2007 12:00AM

Yes, and Smash supports 480p on the GameCube and on the Wii. Where have you been? And we're talking about HDTVs. HDTVs lag most when deinterlacing 480i games. Evo uses SDTVs for 480i games and if the game supports 480p or higher, sometimes uses 480p/720p on HDTVs. They don't do 480i on HDTVs.

ShortFuse @ Dec 11th 2007 10:37PM

Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash!

Please?

gonk @ Dec 12th 2007 12:31AM

so you can fight fox or mr falcon on battlefield over and over? ugh

ShortFuse @ Dec 12th 2007 1:34AM

there's nothing wrong in liking the game on a casual level but melee is one of the technical fighting games ever made.

it's frame based not attack/blocking window based like other fighters which allows things like frame counting and powershielding.

you can play smash how you want but imposing tournament should play with random items on stages with randomly timed hazards in tournament where money is on the line is ignorant.

smash melee was made to be easy to pick up but difficult to master. if not why is fastfalling, l-cancelling, shorthopping, dashdancing, pivoting, dash cancelling, csticking aerials, chaingrabbing, powershielding and others implemented into brawl if they only cater to technical players? and now there are more things like tripping and dash braking based on the E4All demo played by the public? yeah wavedashing is gone but that's because they air dodge was changed. wavelanding is still in.

as i said, play how you want but don't think tourneys are ruining game when the rules are set to pit one player's skill against another FAIRLY by removing items and banning stages because of random level hazards. truth is, if a $5000 reward is depedent on one last stock, you'd be pissed too if a starman randomly apeared next to your opponent.