News
GameStop Purchases Flash Game Site, Kongregate
What's the Trade-In Value on Bloons Tower Defense?
GameStop already has a stranglehold on both the new and used console game markets. Because of this, the company makes enough money that they can dress all their employees in fancy suits made entirely of $100 bills. What more could they possibly want? Well, it looks like they want a slice of that highly-coveted casual gaming market, too, and have purchased online free game portal, Kongregate to ensure that they get it.
According to the press release, GameStop will hold the rights to Kongregate, but founders Jim and Emily Greer will continue to run the site's day-to-day operations. GameStop's CEO, J. Paul Raines, explained the move, "Kongregate advances GameStop's digital strategy by providing a gaming platform for casual, mobile and browser games that can be promoted and played by our existing gamers. We welcome the Kongregate team to the GameStop family."
This is not the first time that GameStop has delved into the free casual gaming market. Their own website featured a "Free2Play" section for some time, but it is no longer available. Taking over and existing, successful Flash game site seems like a much better plan for the retail giant than trying to create an a audience on a site where people primarily buy and pre-order retail games.
Comments
This is sort of awesome. I think. I love me some Kongregate.
Oh man I play kongregate games way too often. God damn need to get award points that don't mean anything...
I hope this means they'll use their power to enhance the already great formula at Kongregate. Unfortunately, I smell a scheme of profiting off of it.
I'm surprised gamestop hasn't tried a Steam-like software distribution site. Valve seems to maintain a pretty good stranglehold on that market, and business is good.