EB Games faces ‘Kodak moment’ as store closures loom

Friday, 9 January 2026

EB Games is having a “Kodak moment”, says retail analyst Chris Wilkinson, struggling to stay relevant to the gaming community in the face of big shifts in technology.

Despite this, the company’s directors have pointed to the weak local economy as the reason its stores here are underperforming compared with those in Australia.

EB Games told staff earlier this week that it was considering closing all 38 outlets across the country.

Staff, who leaked the “proposal” to the media, said they believed the decision to close the stores had already been made, with the company going through the legally-required process of consulting staff.

They expected final confirmation of the closures early next week, though EB Games managing director has said that no decision had been made, and that the company was committed to engaging with its team members.

Read More:

• Three years after NZ’s largest-ever privacy breach, the investigation isn’t complete

• My health data was among those hacked - here’s why I’m not surprised

• Australian lender fails in bid to avoid High Court in case taken by Commerce Commission

Wilkinson said the retail sector was continually renewing itself with brands entering, and exiting the market, and EB Games was “having a Kodak moment”.

That refers to Kodak’s decline after the advent of digital cameras, which meant people no longer had to buy Kodak film, or head into stores to get photos developed.

For EB Games, the technology shift has been the move from gaming on devices to online gaming. “This is a perfect example of an organisation that hasn’t been able to adapt,” Wilkinson said.

Calamitous 31% revenue drop

Gaming has largely moved online with gamers downloading games rather than heading into stores to buy them on physical discs.

EB Games’ stores had tried to compensate by expanding their sales of merchandise (commonly referred to as “merch”) related to gaming, comics and movies through the Zing brand, and moving into the increasingly popular board and card games, but it found itself in a crowded market.

One former EB Games enthusiast told The Post that once a mall visit was not complete without a trip to EB Games, but that was no longer the case.

His impression was that more diversified rivals like JB Hi-Fi, which is growing sales and store numbers, and Mighty Ape, had eaten into EB Games’ viability, accelerating its decline.

EB Games’ New Zealand revenue fell 31% in the 2024/25 financial year, according to its latest statements. The downturn appears steeper than the decline in its Australian stores, which the company has not indicated it intends to close.

The company’s financial statement show it made $52.7 million of sales in the 12 months to the end of January 2025 in New Zealand - $25m less than the previous year.

It slumped to a $4.2m loss after tax following a wafer-thin profit of $321,000 in the previous year.

Its proposal to close the stores indicated its decline had not been arrested in its current financial year, and a visit to its store in St Lukes Mall in Auckland, stock levels were low, and the store was empty of customers.

‘Triggered by recession’

EB Games is part of the Electronics Boutique Australia Pty Limited group (EBA), which also suffered a large drop in revenue.

However, the drop in New Zealand was larger than that shown in the accounts of its parent.

EBA’s combined revenue from both its Australian and New Zealand stores fell from A$813.1m in 2023/24 to A$638.7m in 2024/25, a drop of 21.5%, lower than the 31% fall in New Zealand store revenue.

The company’s directors said the New Zealand revenue decline was “triggered primarily by New Zealand’s recession”.

In 2024, the Australian economy grew by 1.3% compared to New Zealand’s stagnant economy, and the gap in growth between the two countries’ economies continued in 2025.

Global decline in EB Games

The declines in EB Games in New Zealand and Australia have been replicated across the entire network of GameStop stores.

GameStop is the American New York Stock Exchange-listed owner of the EB Games operations in Australasia.

The company made global headlines in 2021 when an orchestrated campaign through Reddit to support the company’s share price caused mayhem and losses for hedge funds which were betting on its decline in the face of the rise of online gaming.

At one point in 2021, GameStop’s share price hit US$500. That proved unsustainable, and on Thursday its shares were trading around US$21.40.

But its latest year-end release to the NYSE showed net sales were US$3.8b for fiscal year 2024, compared to $5.3b in the previous year.

It had sold its Italian operation, was winding down its operations in Germany. In 2025, it sold its Canadian and French operations. In 2024, GameStop closed 590 stores in the United States.

In a surprise move last year, GameStop started investing in Bitcoin as it sought for a more viable business model.

Bodies in the ‘retail graveyard’

Wilkinson said retail was an exciting sector to work in because of its continual cycle of renewal and evolution.

However, that did mean that some brands, and types of store, could decline in number, or disappear altogether to join what some call the retail graveyard.

Video stores, with the exception of one remaining survivor in Morrinsville, had vanished.

Photo development stores were largely gone.

Many bookshops and most record shops had vanished, department stores had closed, and toy stores had vanished in the face of competition from both big box retailers, and online sales. Insurers have closed most of their physical branches, and there had been a sharp decline in bank branches.

But while online gaming, and downloads, had decimated physical gaming assets, Wilkinson had observed a boom in stores selling physical board and card games, and hosting meets of gamers, who come to socialise and play.

These include card games like Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering, and Flesh and Blood.

Wilkinson saw this as almost a cult phenomenon of people seeking community in the real world, not gaming online.

“We have got these other games businesses that are growing,” he said. “Hundreds of people come nightly to play these games.”

Their success was having a ripple effect on neighbouring businesses, he said, supporting shopping areas, and local food businesses, helping “activate town centres after dark”.

EB Games had tried overseas to cash in on the trend for board and card gaming, but in New Zealand it was not providing the authentic, local communities players wanted, Wilkinson said.

“The people that are attracted to the games are not attracted to the chain-type stores.”