Dish Network recently picked up the scraps of Blockbuster Video in a bankruptcy auction for $230-million. It’s hard to believe that the company once sold for billions of dollars. Blockbuster used to be one of the mightiest forces in the movie industry, the company is now a cautionary tale of what happens to old media that doesn’t adapt to the new.
As I was reading this entertaining article on TechCrunch, I was linked to this excellent timeline of Blockbuster’s demise on Fast Company. It’s amazing that the company was so dismissive of Netflix and ignored obvious trends until it was too late. CEO Jim Keyes (former president of 7-Eleven) has some excellent quotes in the timeline, most of which make him seem like a moron that was better off hocking Slurpees.
I’ve always hated Blockbuster ever since it put the local mom-and-pop video-store out of business when I was in high school. Sure I gave the company lots of money over the years, but it was mostly because there weren’t many other options. While it’s sad that lots of people lost their Blockbuster jobs in recent years, I’m happy that geek Darwinism left the company to die.
Source via TechCrunch
Yeah I read those articles the other day. I was surprised that they outbid Carl Icahn. He has been jonesing for that corporation ever since he tried to merge it with Circuit City.
This could be great if they start to liquidate these brick and mortar stores after the summer.
RIP cockknocker
i loved blockbuster for years, only because they ran incredibly idiotic deals with used games. For example, you could trade in any 3 games, get the credit for them, then get any used game for 5 bucks….
so, id go to walmart, buy a 10 dollar 3 pack of games, go into blockbuster, trade them in, and get the most expensive game possible….i would do this at every local blockbuster, then trade in the new games for 35 bucks a piece…so, i could turn 30 dollars at walmart into 105 dollars store credit, plus a new game…..at one point i had 280 dollars store credit…ah, im a cheap bastard
Way to play the market! You're like the Bernie Madoff of videogame retail.
it was actually funny, because the ones who tipped me off to the scam were the actual store employees
and also, there was a time period where they gave you 8 bucks store credit for ANY dvd you traded in…that was so stupid, i had a dvd burner at the time, so i racked up a ton of money that way too. Its amazing to me that it took this long for blockbuster to go bankrupt
Back in the PS1/N64 era, EB would run ridiculous pre-order deals like that. I just so happened to work at a local competitor of theirs at the time. Except, the way I got the games to trade was through the people that came into the store wanting cash for their games.
If someone came into trade a game, we would give them 25% to 50% of what we would sell the game for in trade credit. If they want cash, it was 50% of the trade value. So now we got someone selling us a game for like 2 bucks. I would do the whole process on the computer so they could see what the store's policies were and all that. When they opted for cash, I would hit the button to open the cash drawer (without processing the sale completely in the system), give them the money out of the drawer that they were due, cancel the process, wait for them to leave, and drop my own $2 in the drawer. Now, I just bought a game for $2.
I remember EB doing a "trade-in any 4 games and get FFVIII free" deal vividly because I ended up with like 4 brand new copies of that game that I either gave away or sold.
Sad to see any business have to go through this. But the fact that it is Blockbuster makes it much easier to take.
I have always hated Blockbuster. I used to use them for everything. Then I left town for sometime and went back to go rent a movie. Apparently after 3 months of inactivity your account is canceled (or was back in the day) and they said I would have to reapply and get a new card. I started using Hasting's Entertainment from then on.
Blockbuster sending Reed Hastings a kitchen sink in mail. Oh, the irony and karma.
Having worked for this company for 6 years, there's a lot more to the problems there than lack a of willingness to adapt. Viacom bought out the company and rode it as a cash cow for years without putting any money back in, and then spun it off (along with it's "debt") in much the same fashion as they recently did w/ Harmonix. The company never really recovered from that point on as it was constantly working from the red. We used to call Viacom "The Umbrella Company" because of the way they abused BBV and then left it to die.
That being said, they had an opportunity to buy Netflix and passed on it, which shows that there wasn't a lot of corporate foresight either. They were also slow to adapt to the DVD format and hung on to VHS way too long. They moved faster w/ Blu-Ray, but by that point they were already screwed. They never figured out what to do with their game section, and to this day you're just as likely to find 20 copies of the latest Toy Story game as something that gamers would actually want to rent. There was a period when we were selling DirecTV in Blockbuster, and I never got why we were partnered with our competition at the time.
Despite all the issues, it was still sad when my old store closed. It was the district bottom feeder when I took it over and I put 3 years into turning it into a money maker. Feels kinda hollow when they turn and close your store after you leave (although the girl they replaced with with when I left couldn't even keep the store looking decent).
But combine this with Borders recently filing for bankruptcy and the company I was working for going out of business in October, every place I've ever worked for outside of my high school job bagging groceries has gone under. I'm like the kiss of death or something.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE… work for the IRS!
Big Blak likes this
Nooo!!!
Noooooo! My wife is a tax accountant. Without the IRS (and stupid people) she'd be out of a job.
(My wife said to type that.)
Now that she's gone, I hope Nightshade goes to work for them and has them go the way of Blockbuster and Circuit City. I’ll be the first in line to repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Besides, I'd want her to stay home and take care of our kid, anyway.
-M
@Iceman
NOOOOOOO
Let him go work for ATT or any other cable company or telephone company. Then he can go to work for Express. That damn place is so expensive. I don't shop there but my gf does. It's appalling how much that shit is. A pair of pants for $80? Really??
Then he can go work for the Atlanta Falcons.
Yes Nightshade, I'm trying to map out your working careers for you. I'm sure you'll be paid well and do what you do….hehe.
How about working for Comcast? Specifically the site where most of you "met" me. Ha!
I happen to know that there are quite a few people who are still under that employ that I would feel bad for convincing Nightshade to work his mojo and leave them unemployed.
I got it…
@ Nightshade
Get a job working for PETA.
I second N8R's idea.
you never worked for the government did you nightshade?
cause they are shutting down too
Maybe you could get a job at fox news?
I'm willing to bet he sold Saturns at one time.
@ Smartguy: No, but we own 2 of them and have owned 4 in total.
@ Thunder:
Amazing what happens when you elect people who don't believe in the concept of government to run the House, isn't it?
For the sake of my OWN job prospects and the future of my family, I'd like to find a job in a stable industry for a change if you don't all mind…..
@Smartguy
I hate Saturn's. In fact (unpopular comment coming up) I hate the majority of all American made cars-I just happen to own a saturn now so theya where the bulk of my dislike lays currently.
@Nightshade
For your sake I also hope you end up in a stable industry next. But I wouldn't mind seeing some other corporations going under.