Dive Brief:

• Gaming retailer GameStop said it has formed the “GameStop Technology Institute” with Texas A&M’s Center for Retailing Studies to reinvent its retail strategies, the company said Tuesday.

• IBM is also a founding partner of the institute, and the project hopes to add more companies and universities to the effort to create new shopping channels for gaming, with a goal of “open innovation” in the sector.

• A major initial aim is to digitize the GameStop store and revolutionize the customer’s experience, company officials said. 

Dive Insight:

Gaming is certainly an area ripe ​for attractive and intense customer experience; after all, that’s precisely what they sell. Much of GameStop’s efforts to protect its business have been in playing hardball with game developers to avoid digital distribution of their products. And their website is a well-known monstrosity. Looks like the gaming retailer is now ready to figure out how to stay relevant through revolutionizing its retail strategy, and it's pulling out the stops to do so by engaging with the best minds in the business.