Neither the down economic climate nor pressure from online retailers seem to be having much impact on GameStop's plans for global domination of brick-and-mortar videogame stores. Vice President and Managing Director Europe James Kirk says, "Our plan for 2009 is to open 200-300 stores worldwide" in an online excerpt from an article in the December issue of RLI. As ambitious as that sounds, the company opened over 550 locations during 2008. At their current pace they open a whopping 20 to 30 stores weekly.

"We are a rapid growth company and grow where we have the opportunity; outside the US, we are hugely successful in Australia," says Kirk. That's just the tip of the iceberg too. Gamestop became Europe's largest videogame retailer with its recent purchase of the French chain MicroMania and its 300 plus stores. But don't think that they intend to rest on that status. Kirk said that they specifically want to target the UK since it's the largest computer games market in Europe. In the next six months they aim to open in around 10-15 malls there.

The expansion plans are truly global as well with Kirk mentioning potential points ranging everywhere from the Middle East to China and the Far East. Given the continuing gloomy economic outlook around the world it will be interesting to see how GameStop's plans evolve over the coming year. Kirk did say, "Every real estate deal has to stand on its own and be profitable." Whether they can pull that off depends on a number of factors that even selling millions of copies of World of Warcraft expansions may not be able to overcome.

Read More...