Trying to justify their existence in the face of rising digital distribution and increasing price competition from big box retailer, Game Stop has decided to open up shop on Facebook. Wait, what? You can see gamers' favorite pawn shops all over town, usually attempting to coerce someone that came in to buy a controller to pre order the next six months worth of releases.
For Game Stop this is a second or third attempt to get the digital content fire going. For Facebook this is the second rather quite announcement that points towards an E-Commerce bent for the social network. Along with Warner Brothers announcing movie rentals on Facebook, the site has at least made quiet moves to be an all in one destination.
For some people this is going to reek of the halcyon days of AOL, with keywords being as important as Fan Pages. Tech Crunch seems pretty agnostic on the Facebook side of the equation, their story focuses far more on the wider digital strategy, though considering you can sell used digital downloads, I don't think Game Stop is going to have a prayer in this space.
Facebook seems to have decided that it doesn't need to communicate it's plans. Instead the continue to hammer on the idea that they are the destination to see what your friends are doing. In fact sharing is an important part of the Game Stop storefront. I think that these destinations inside Facebook are important steps, most web sites already have to power to integrate Facebook profiles into their sites via Facebook account. However, I think that it is important to note that this move, like Warner Brothers, is about these companies borrowing the Facebook brand, not the other way around.
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