BLOCKBUSTER PLANS TEST OF GAMES-ONLY STORES

DAN ALAIMO

CHICAGO -- Blockbuster Entertainment, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will open five video games-only stores in the Southeast next month as a test, said Tim Pivnicny, senior buyer of video games.

The stores will focus primarily on game sales, but rentals and a used-game exchange also will be part of the test, Pivnicny said during a seminar at the Video Software Dealers Association's first Videogame and New Technology Conference here April 10 and 11. The stores will be called Blockbuster Games.

Blockbuster rents games in its video units. "This will be very different from what you see at Blockbuster video stores. Our intention is to test it, find out what kind of business can be done and if it is the right kind of business for us," said Pivnicny.

If the test is successful, "we will try to figure out what we need to do to support it and how far we can go with it. The wherewithal is always there to do more, but only if it is the right concept for us," he said.

Blockbuster's test follows the opening of a games-only store last October by West Coast Entertainment, Philadelphia, the nation's second-largest video specialty retailer. The store is named Game Power Headquarters.

West Coast is about to open seven scaled-down versions of the games store in existing video stores and hopes to have 55 of these departments by the end of the year, said Steve Apple, vice president of communications and new business development. Apple, who also spoke at the seminar, has said the company would like to extend the Games Power Headquarters concept to supermarkets as well.

Store design, locations and product selection are now in the works for the Blockbuster test,

said Pivnicny. "We plan to experiment a lot, which is a good thing to do since we are jumping headlong into it," he said.

None of the games stores will be next to Blockbuster Video units, he said. Two or three will be in malls, and the rest in strip shopping centers.

"We feel that for it to be successful as a sell-through outlet, it needs to draw its own customer. It needs to be a place where people will want to make a special trip to spend a lot of money on games and accessories," said Pivnicny.

"We have recognized that this will be a different environment than the video stores, which are very convenient -- customers come in, drop a couple of dollars to rent some movies and buy some popcorn," he said.

"We have learned a lot about this from the music stores that we operate. So we will find out more and perhaps report back at the VSDA convention [in July]," said Pivnicny.