Paul Raines, IE 85, wasn’t a gamer before taking the joystick—figuratively speaking—as CEO of GameStop, the chain of gaming retail stores. But he did bring a wealth of retail experience, having “leveled up” to executive vice president at Home Depot.
In his two years on the job, Raines has led a dramatic turnaround for the company, and he even opened a new outlet at his alma mater, in Technology Square. He recently talked to the Alumni Magazine about technology, leadership and the future of his company.
Were you reluctant to move into video games? When I first got the call, I was like, “I don’t know. A video game company?” But the more I heard about them, about changing the culture of the company, it became more attractive. I’ve been a retailer for a long time. This has been an interesting transformation.
What are some of the particular challenges to competing in this industry? Our category is very dynamic, much more dynamic than anything I’ve ever seen. That puts pressure on you. For us to be successful, we need to have a higher rate of internal change than the rate of change going on around us. We evaluate products constantly. We have a group that we’ve created [GameStop Digital Ventures] that has done five digital acquisitions. The goal is to cast a wide net, much wider than we have historically.
How are you combating challenges from the digital realm, and how are you trying to use digital technology to your advantage? We’ve tried to be experts on the consumer and know what they’re going to adopt. What we try to do is understand what the community is looking for. What that drives you toward is moving quickly into certain digital technology, and we’ve addressed most of those through acquisition. We also have developed digital content in-store. Our digital revenues in 2012 were about $600 million.
Is gaming something you’ve had much personal experience with? I have to say, I didn’t understand the depth of the category. The interesting thing is we’ve transformed GameStop into a video game and technology company. I spend a fair amount of time understanding games. I negotiated with my wife to let me play video games about four hours a week. I think maybe it’s the Georgia Tech man in me, but I think leaders need to be authentic. When I was at Home Depot, I did a lot of home improvement work. You want to understand what the customers are going through.
How does your Georgia Tech education shape the way you do your job? I don’t want to say it’s a blue-collar school, but it’s a working-person school. I came from a very modest background. [My parents] had a vision of education that was really special. Georgia Tech sounded like a place to them that was the right kind of education. I had Ivy League aspirations, but it became clear that Georgia Tech was the one they’d be able to afford. It was the perfect environment for a kid who had a couple of cultures in his background. I encountered a place that was absolutely unforgiving academically. It’s a place where you develop resilience. I learned at Georgia Tech to be prepared. I learned to climb that hill every winter quarter. It wasn’t fun, but you had to do it. And then the network of Tech people has been fantastic.
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