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In this day and age, there is objectively little reason to actually walk into a store to buy a game. Online methods of acquiring games are guaranteed to provide results, and often at lower prices than a store will offer. Particularly in the case of older games (a matter of great importance to me), finding them in a store is a crapshoot at best and impossible at worst. And yet... for mysterious reasons I cannot quite stop going into game stores altogether. There must be a reason I would take valuable time and wander around being bumped by the sheep who patronize retail establishment to usually come away with nothing.
Though my local options for video games are quite limited, I still find myself gravitating towards them if in the neighborhood. I rarely make an impulse buy in the world of video games, probably because I rarely find anything that I don't already own and want to pay full price for in the store. The possibility that something might be in the store at a reasonable price that I feel like purchasing still exists, and it is the only explanation for why I keep looking at the racks of product in GameStop and Target (I said the selection is low around here).
Aside from a good deal, there is the nice feeling of having a game immediately and being able to take it home without waiting. This seems to be an important point for many shoppers, especially those who want a game on its day of release. I have picked up exactly two games on release day from a store in the past year, so it is clearly not vital to me, but I understand the appeal.
The reason I have not bought many video games from a store recently is because of how much more convenient it is to purchase online. Amazon's release dates for upcoming items are rather haphazardly entered (Nostalgia is still not listed on the site even though Ignition announced the game's North American release weeks ago), but ordering games from the site is simple and fast. Amazon also guarantees whatever bonuses companies provide upon reservation along with sometimes giving price discounts, which is very nice. If one is willing to forgo discount prices and pay for the fastest shipping method, it is possible to obtain a game just as fast as stores get it in stock. Amazon's restrictions on shipping technology items make it hard to get a game released in the United States to any other country, but there are plentiful other options on the internet to get over that hurdle, which is an enormous advantage online shopping has over physical stores.
I realize that this is the sort of behavior video game companies would probably read as indicative of support for download-only releases, which is not really my intent. Window shopping is impossible to completely recreate online, though the few games I purchased simply because of appealing box art in the past were all disappointments. I just can no longer justify going after games in a store that requires me to spend a significant amount of time in transit and deal with lines when the online method is so much smoother, except on rare occasions. I am not typical of the video gaming audience in many respects, but I suspect I'm not alone in this tendency to sidestep the hassles of stores.
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