Despite an aggressive strategy that saw retailer Game Crazy attempt to tighten its belt and survive the bankruptcy and reorganization of their parent company, news is now trickling in that all Game Crazy stores and Hollywood Video stores remaining will enter liquidation. Rumors suggest that liquidation firms are already bidding for the rights to chop it up and close it down; and within two weeks it will all come to an end for Game Crazy as well as Hollywood Video stores remaining.

Parent company Movie Gallery has struggled and has failed to adapt to the changing rental environment. While Game Crazy was considered by most to be the closest thing to a retail gaming chain competitor of Game Stop and although the store clearly had some advantages over Game Stop, it just never could adapt to the changing gaming landscape as quickly and was not successful in many locations across the U.S.

As for the inventory at Game Crazy locations, it remains unknown what the winning liquidator will do. It is unlikely that much of the new sealed product will be sold at store level liquidation sales. Instead, it might be shipped out where it can be sold at a much higher price. The used product, however, will likely be what is sold off locally; and as with most sales of this type, the good stuff will go quickly, but the real deals will not likely come till the end.

While a number of the Game Crazy stores were closed earlier this year, our experience was that the prices were not all that great at the beginning. We do suspect, however, that once a liquidator is more involved the prices will come down a bit faster, but this will have a lot to do with the amount of inventory that they have to sell.

It will be sad to see Game Crazy go, but many think they got better service from independents or Game Stop, so in the end there should be enough options to fill the gaps left by the departing Game Crazy.