Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Preamble

I'm going to talk about some of the community's sentiment towards Genshin Impact and what to anticipate for and to expect in the future from miHoYo and future games they release.
If you think this post is too long, at least skip to sections you might be interested in. Or to the last section and things that interest you in that section (11. My personal thoughts on what to anticipate for and to expect). I've removed a lot of hyperlinks to save on characters.
Very little people know about miHoYo's upcoming game, Project X:

Project X: Project X is a new ray-traced action shooter from popular anime game developer Mihoyo, coming in mid-2021. The game features next-gen anime-style rendering and advanced interactive physics on a spherical open-world planet.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/gtc-china-2019-ray-tracing-games/
Relevant game experience

I've been playing Honkai Impact 3rd (HI3) since it's global release back in March 2018 and am still playing/plan on playing until its story finishes, completely F2P
I've dabbled in Guns GirlZ (miHoYo's game before HI3) a long time ago
I go on the Google Play store and preregister any game that has anime aesthetics. I've tried playing any semi-popular gacha game you could think of
I've tried and played a lot of MMOs
I'm primarily a PC gamer (e.g. League of Legends since season 1)

Preface

I'll be mainly drawing comparisons between GI and HI3 in the "My personal thoughts on what to anticipate for and to expect" section. As of writing this, GI is essentially how HI3 is in terms of the systems in place (and YouTube and social media). I'll also be basing what I anticipate for and expect of the game with what I've experienced in HI3.
I went into this game blind. I never played the Closed Beta Test (CBT), watched any gameplay of the CBT or read anything about the game besides what was on the official website.
Reminders
I'd like to remind everyone that a subreddit is only a very small minority of the actual population of the user base a subreddit is about. Subreddits are almost always echo chambers for topics and tend to silence opposing opinions.
Companies are for profit. miHoYo is no exception. They know what they're doing to maximize profits. They had/have such a successful game with HI3 to convince investors to invest in the development of game. If you want things to change, you vote with your wallet.

Should I keep playing? (16 sec)
Game release expectations (59 sec)
What is Genshin Impact? (48 sec)
"End game" (16 sec)
Spiral Abyss & the "meta" (1 min 10 sec)
Power creep (23 sec)
Primo Gems, Gacha and Resin (2 mins 16 sec)
Addressing community statements (4 mins 50 sec)
Notoriety of miHoYo (26 sec)
The future of Genshin Impact (35 sec)
My personal thoughts on what to anticipate for and to expect (13 mins 42 sec, every unbolded point below totalled)
Successful release (1 min 5 sec)
System, QOL and in-game content changes and updates to anticipate for and expect (1 min 17 sec)
Power creep (23 sec)
Animations, music and story to anticipate for and expect (2 mins 3 sec)
Nitpicks (38 sec)
Addressing the player base that mainly play gacha games (4 mins 34 sec)
Addressing the player base that mainly play PC games/MMOs (1 min 22 sec)
Project X (16 sec)
Final Thoughts (44 sec)
Bias (19 sec)
TL;DR (15 sec)

Approximate reading time of ~26 mins at 225wpm.
With all that out of the way, lets get started.

Should I keep playing?

Do you still enjoy playing the game? If so, go ahead and continue to enjoy playing the game. If not, you might want to consider taking a break until new content comes out, or if there is a significant systematic change to the game.
There's nothing keeping you from not playing the game, you can always quit.

Game release expectations

From the general sentiment of Reddit and the first auto suggested result from Google, people expected GI to be an MMORPG-like game where you can play with your friends (like a typical MMORPG) but were confused about what Genshin Impact was/is once they started playing (specifically when they reached Adventure Rank (AR) 7).
If you're a person that falls into what I said above, you won't like hearing the following.
It's not miHoYo's fault, it's yours.
You were misled by the game's marketing when you could have done due diligence and researched details about the game beforehand (e.g by going on YouTube and finding out details about the game from their 3 closed betas).
An analogy to this is AMD vs Intel & AMD vs NVIDIA, where the three companies try to sell you their products with cherry picked performance numbers. The community always echoes to "wait for the product to be released instead of pre-ordering" and "wait for 3rd party reviews".
When people have expectations and those expectations are broken, most of the time depending on context, all they're left with are negative feelings (e.g. disappointment) whether or not it's warranted.
But even though it's not miHoYo's fault, it's the company's job to keep their player base invested in their game, and by extension their company.

What is Genshin Impact?

Genshin Impact is a mostly single player RPG with co-op elements. The game implements the gacha mechanic to get characters and weapons exclusive to gacha. The game also implements the typical stamina/energy mechanic in gacha games in the form of resin.
This is where a disconnect comes from. Typical PC gamers aren't able to endlessly grind the game to progress (I've played Black Desert Online starting in beta, I understand grinding; grinding for hours in the same location for a couple thousandths of a percentage of character experience points per mob kill) while gacha gamers don't like the gacha system in place due the system being worse than other gacha games in terms of the resin recharge rate and gacha rates.
But people still play GI as there are various reasons why people like playing this game e.g.:

Open world
Aesthetics
Music
Combat/gameplay
Characters they like

But the thing I want to stress is the main point of this game is the story. Everything else is secondary/complimentary to the story. Everything revolves around the story.

"End game"

A lot of people on this subreddit are probably at the point in the game where there's no more story content to do, and all they're doing are:

Daily commissions
Farming materials (mats) in the world
Using naturally regenerated resin to get domain-only mats & world boss mats
Doing the "real end game" of GI, Spiral Abyss.

Spiral Abyss & the "meta"

Spiral Abyss is currently the end game of GI due to its difficulty and rewards. Once you're able to fully clear the Spiral Abyss, you're free to do whatever you want in the game (though you've always been free to do whatever you want) for now (until they release something else that replaces Spiral Abyss as the end game).
This brings me to the "meta" and tier lists. You can have a tier list with ratings for multiple categories (e.g. exploration, aesthetics, etc.). But generally when you see a tier list for GI, it's going to be about how strong characters are in combat, and specifically the Spiral Abyss. There are world bosses too, but they currently seem to scale off of AR and what the game thinks how strong your characters should be at that AR. Comparing this to the Spiral Abyss where it requires you to max out your characters, weapons and artifacts. All this results in the "meta", which is what characters are optimal in clearing the Spiral Abyss.
But the game as it is right now has nothing that pits players against each other (typically in the form of a leader board), so the "meta" doesn't matter.
The Spiral Abyss as we know of now will have their mobs change over time. This will require you at a base level to have one main damage character of each element maxed out.
Note the existence of a timer in Spiral Abyss. You need to be able to do enough damage within the time constraints to clear floors. Doing damage sells.

Power creep

As the story progresses, characters develop and characters are bound to get stronger. The characters available now are inevitably going to be power crept by newer (and existing) characters.
If there is (or isn't) a mechanic in the game (e.g. shields, attack speed, etc.), miHoYo will make characters, weapons, artifacts and mobs that revolve around that mechanic.
Yu-Gi-Oh! is the go to example of power creep for every game.

The more text and conditions there are in a description, the more power crept the thing is

Primo Gems, Gacha and Resin

Here's every post I thoroughly read about the topic, and a couple comment threads in each (sorted by upvotes):

It's interesting how low the gacha rate of this game is compared to most other gacha games (Exos Heroes with the 0.5% though). But you have to remember that there's a pity system in place of 90, with 75 being a soft pity:

https://www.reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/jo9d9d/the_5_rate_is_not_uniform_06_there_is_a_soft_pity/

You have gacha games where there's a higher gacha rate, but then you see/know of people that have spent multiple times the expected pull rate currency amount without getting what they wanted.
You also have to take into account what you're getting out of a character in GI (explained later on in Addressing the player base that mainly play gacha games).
The stamina mechanic in GI is in the form of the resin system. Resin is the cost for a lot of in-game content that rewards progression mats (e.g. talent books, mora, etc.). The cost of a resin refill increases over time, further discouraging players from progressing faster than at the rate miHoYo set the recharge rate to.
This is really interesting because in combination with the relative low gacha rates of 0.5% for a 5⭐ and 5.1% for a 4⭐ with characteweapon progression being stunted by resin, it discourages a vast majority of the player base to spend money and wish because they wouldn't even be able to use their newly wished character unless they already had the mats.
This is what the system in place is trying to do. It's getting players to play the game once or twice a day, for 20-30 minutes for daily commissions and using resin.
This is what you see for the stamina mechanic typically implemented in gacha games, but to the extreme to discouraging players from playing more and progressing more than the amount the system intends.
How you enjoy the game is your preference and might not be the same for others, whether you enjoy grinding for hours and hours, or enjoy playing for a couple minutes to a couple hours every day. This typically correlates to the amount of time a person can allocate throughout a day.
One thing I'd like to point out are people saying that there's nothing to do outside of resin. What they typically mean is that there's no activity that "directly contributes to instantly progress my characters/weapons/artifacts". You can spend hours and hours traversing the world, fighting mobs and collecting mats from them, collecting mats in the world, challenging the Spiral Abyss, etc.. Look at Enviosity on Twitch for example.
Having options is nice.
Which brings me to...

Addressing community statements

I'll reiterate that I thoroughly read every post and a couple of the top comment threads of each post. There are a lot of valid complaints about the game and great suggestions for the game.
The three things that ticked me off the most are the statements/imperatives that:

Because miHoYo targeted/appealed GI to the global main stream audience on Android and iOS, alongside releases on PC and PS4 (and eventually the Nintendo Switch), it puts GI in some upper echelon AAA tier, so the gacha mechanic causes the game to have an identity crisis
Tell other people "how to play the game" on the basis of their own preferences, leading to obvious hypocrisy
Generalistic statements about different subsets of the player base with no explanation and making sweeping assumptions based on statements

1.
First things first is that a lot of these statements are black-and-white, but the topic they're making these statements about aren't. This means these statements are wrong and misleading. These statements typically have the person:

Stating things are mutually exclusive, when they aren't
Claims that are relative, without providing a (absolute) basis to be relative to

Wikipedia says an "AAA (pronounced and sometimes written Triple-A) is an informal classification used for video games produced and distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, typically having higher development and marketing budgets."
I assume what people typically think when they think of an AAA game is a game that takes the limits of what computer hardware at the time can provide (depending on platform) and implements that in the game. They can do so because there's money to do so. This can also correlate to the amount of money used in marketing or the existing franchise itself (if a franchise is popular, it has innate marketing in it's fan base).
From what I've stated above, do I consider GI an AAA game for the global main stream audience? Yes.
So assuming GI is an AAA game for the main stream audience, then comes the statement/sentiment that because it implements the gacha mechanic, the game has an identity crisis.
Being an AAA game and having the gacha mechanic aren't mutually exclusive. I've already proven it above by stating GI is an AAA game from the definition provided.
The gacha mechanic is specifically about spending a currency to randomly receive an object (capsule-toy vending machine). The gacha mechanic is essentially the loot box mechanic found in many AAA western games.
The resin system GI has in place is not the gacha mechanic. It's the stamina/energy mechanic you typically see in mobile gacha games to stunt progression until it regenerates over time, typically allowing players to pay a currency to recharge/refresh stamina/energy.
And the same as before, being an AAA game and having a stamina mechanic aren't mutually exclusive.
It's an AAA game with the gacha mechanic and stamina mechanic, there's no identity crisis. miHoYo knows what they're doing.
Does the stamina mechanic detract from the game? You have a subset of the players that typically have played games that can be played for hours and hours upon end that don't like this system because they can't progress at the rate they want. You have a subset of the players that typically play gacha games that don't like how slow the resin recharge rate and high resin recharge is, relative to what they've experienced.
Does the gacha mechanic detract from the game? You have a subset of the players that typically have played games that can be played for hours and hours upon end to get things they want. You have a subset of the players that typically play gacha games that don't like how the gacha mechanic is implemented, typically complaining about the gacha rates.
The answers to the two questions above are completely subjective (the person's preferences), and you'll see that a subset of the extremes for the two types of players I mentioned (the "far PC gamer" and the "far gacha gamer") are the ones that express the most issue with the game, and in the form of black-and-white statements.
Which all comes back to "the main stream audience", "casual audience", whatever term you want to use. I mentioned before "that a subreddit is only a very small minority of the actual population of the user base a subreddit is about. Subreddits are almost always echo chambers for topics and tend to silence opposing opinions."
When you take a look at who's writing these posts/threads/articles/etc., they aren't a part of the "main stream audience". They might think they are, but they're assuming the main stream audience has the same gaming tendencies they do.
But then here comes the grey. You have players that are okay with the system in place, which I'll address in point 3.
2.
The far ends of the player base have specific preferences on how they want the game to work. A subset of them don't like this, so they express so. But in a lot of instances, they think/make negative comments on the people that have opposing preferences (or don't mind the system in place).
A subset of the far ends put down how these players enjoy the game, and at the same time are defensive at how they typically enjoy games and simultaneously push their preferences/views on other people.
This is hypocrisy.
3.
Finally, for some of the people that make these statements on social media or to people that think this way.
Do they actually read what the people that oppose their thoughts and opinions say or do they see a post on Reddit/a headline somewhere, glance at the title, notice it's not attacking the system, and not read the post at all or to try and understand where the opposing side is coming from?
A person making a factual statement (or a subjective statement) does not mean they are defending or attacking the statement's various opinions around the statement's topic.
For example, I could say that "I like X bubble tea made by Y store". The statement does not:

Defend, support or attack Y store/X bubble tea
Defend, support or attack people that don't like bubble tea/X bubble tea/Y store
Say that X bubble tea/Y store can/can't be better
Etc.

See where I'm going with this?

Notoriety of miHoYo

From what the Chinese community have said about miHoYo, the gist is that miHoYo has a monopoly on high quality gacha games. HI3 was released in 2016 in China, and the only game that matches or beats its quality today is GI, Punishing: Gray Raven (released December 2019; in essence HI3 with Nier aesthetics) and X2: Eclipse (currently in CBT). As such, miHoYo sets up a system to really encourage (using predatory tactics to entice) users to spend money to progress (e.g. progression of collecting characters, maxing out characters, etc.) in anything but the story.

The future of Genshin Impact

I see GI, and by this extension this subreddit, like Fire Emblem Heroes. Initially the community was full of life e.g. strategy guides, fan art, cosplay, etc.. But due to decisions to maximize profit, the game died off and only a smaller dedicated fan base is left.
GI was released during a pretty optimal time. Other major games weren't releasing or were delayed when GI was released (Cyberpunk 2077 being released in 2077?), so the game's still on the top of everyone's attention. Once other games of the same or higher quality come out (mainly Blue Protocol, but unknow global release date, and isn't the same genre of game as GI), the player base of Genshin Impact might lower or won't spend as much money, forcing miHoYo to take action.

My personal thoughts on what to anticipate for and to expect

If you reached this part (or skipped to this part), it probably means you're going to continue playing GI for now and want to know what to anticipate for and to expect.
But first, I don't think the points I mentioned in The future of Genchin Impact will happen to GI due to its high quality.
Successful release
The release of GI was great (US$245 million in the first month, sure if it takes into account every platform), but I personally expected more in terms of quality of the game and content since HI3 was already the highest quality gacha game until now (my criteria under Addressing the player base that mainly play gacha games). Though they're killing it in the music department.
You have to realize how successful the release of this actually game was, and by extension HI3.
This game has no previous franchise that automatically gives it a huge dedicated fan base. When I say huge, I am talking about the likes of, Fate/Grand Order (F/GO) with the Fate franchise, any mobile game based off a huge/popular anime/manga franchise, any typical PC/console game that's based off a huge/popular franchise, etc..
For how high quality the game is, HI3 must have done pretty good to convince investors to invest in GI with GI's US$100 million development cost.
Note that GI is aimed towards the main stream audience (your typical PC gamer and mobile gamer). HI3 specifically to mobile gamers (until they added a PC port). Also, the genre is a huge part in the popularity of HI3. Fantasy is more popular than sci-fi.
It's up to miHoYo to retain their player base for GI and for their future products.
System, QOL and in-game content changes and updates to anticipate for and expect
Almost all the quality of life changes that're applicable to GI and HI3 are already in HI3 e.g.:

Upcoming Archive System

Expect to see the following added to GI that already exist in HI3 (though I'm probably forgetting things):

Locking weapons and artifacts
Characters having load outs for weapons and artifacts (no longer will you need to search for artifacts when testing/swapping artifacts)
Higher FPS options over 60fps
Changing key bindings

Also the nice attention to small details e.g.:

Weapons change how they look after being fully upgraded
Item descriptions
CEO of miHoYo in the game, throwing HOMUs at you (HI3's iconic mascot)
I wouldn't be surprised if Diona's eyes glow in the dark like a cat

Everything you see for GI in terms of YouTube and social media content have been the same and/or higher quality as HI3 e.g.:

Character Collected Miscellanies, Character Tales
OST releases
2D/3D animations
Manga
Major story/version updates
Multi language content
Art contests

So...
Expect to see the things that GI hasn't done yet but have done for HI3 (not in any specific order):

New game modes/content
New weapons
New outfit showcases (HI3 has a magazine styled demo for new outfits on YouTube, but I don't think they'd do the same for GI), depending on the tier of outfit they can change how character abilities look and sound, and the character's animations and voice lines
Pets
Customizable housing
Official wallpapers on their website
Short animated series' on YouTube
Event websites that may/may not contain contests
More contests (e.g. cosplay)
Merch

I expect them to implement more MMO aspects e.g.:

Fishing
Seasons changing

Power creep
I touched on this before. In HI3, miHoYo started releasing character specific weapons and artifacts. Because of this, it stripped out any real strategy out of weapons and artifacts. Genshin Impact seems to be different since there're no artifacts locked behind gacha. All the unique strengths of characters are dumped into their constellations.
If characters are power crept, expect miHoYo to do something to make the characters that were power crept more relevant, typically correlating the the progression of the story and its characters.
Animations, music and story to anticipate for and expect
It's the resounding sentiment of the HI3 fan base of "when is an anime for HI3 coming out?". The story of HI3 started in 2016 and is said to progress for 3 more years until a new arc/story takes place. There is so much content in the main story and side stories that can span multiple seasons for an anime.
I'm reiterating that the story of GI is the main point of the game. I'm worried they won't do anything unique or special (unlike HI3) outside of your typical fantasy/RPG story plot lines since this game is aimed towards the main stream audience.
miHoYo has their own music label HOYO-MiX. and their own animation studio miHoYoAnime (they've previously outsourced help). They've produced/are producing banger OSTs and animations. In HI3, when there's a major character development arc, they come out with a banger animated short with a banger song (with lyrics) for that animated short for that character. They sometimes do this for events e.g. (spoiler alert for everything except the last video):

https://youtu.be/Q-b6rdyIJsY
https://youtu.be/8dmvNGxYPCU
https://youtu.be/N-VNG8vW5RA
https://youtu.be/xTK8P6vRiIg
https://youtu.be/gVHD6ieRmTI
https://youtu.be/v1sd5CzR504
https://youtu.be/_J7Ppq2ZShs, the ED of Cooking with Valkyries S2 sung by the 花玲 / Huā Líng, the Chinese voice actress for Klee and Theresa Apocalypse in HI3

I'm waiting for the same in GI.
The difference in GI and HI3 is that HI3's main story isn't canon with the existence of the player (captain). It's like a story book. The manga (and short visual novels) are the same. HI3 has an alternative universe that involves the player that comes in the form of in game event stories (with all the event stories following the same story). GI seems to be reversed. We're playing GI with the player (traveller) that's canon to the main story of GI. The manga is not canon with the traveller. You'll need to read the manga if you want to know everything about the GI world.
The problem is that I don't know how there's going to be an epic anime-style animation/song for now since the story revolves around the player travelling to different regions. We don't have enough story and character development with the different characters in the game, so there won't be any animation/song that can evoke any strong emotions.
There're songs/OSTs in HI3 that are sorely missing on their official YouTube and/or Spotify/Apple Music:

Guns GirlZ has some great songs:

You'd have to dig for them on YouTube (pretty easy on YouTube) or Google, because of the disparity between the Chinese community and the global community.
You can find GI's songs/OSTs here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/GenshinImpact/playlists

Common links:

Nitpicks

I wish some in game resources that load into the game were higher resolution so that they wouldn't be pixelated when I look at them
The character models in GI are the same quality as HI3, except GI has better lighting probably due to a newer game engine (HI3 was released in 2016).
There's a disparity between content that's advertised for the Chinese community and the global community, even though it's available for everyone. You'll only know about it if you randomly read something online that mentions it (e.g. MMD 3D models)

I'm disappointed with is the level of "coolness" of the characters' talents (subjective). HI3's characters have super cool character abilities and ability combos. I'm still waiting for the same in Genshin Impact (probably after characters are power crept).
Addressing the player base that mainly play gacha games
The gacha rates for 5⭐ and 4⭐ characters and weapons are low compared to other gacha games.
Now actually consider what you get from the characters (weapons give you higher stats):

A high quality 3D model & animations
A playable character
A vast array of character voice lines from amazing voice actors/actresses in English/Japanese/Chinese/Korean

Compare this to almost every other gacha game, where you either get static/animated 2D art or low quality 3D models, maybe with multiple voice languages. Quality being completely dependent on the character's rarity.
GI on the other hand beats every other gacha game out of the water, with in my opinion the 4⭐ characters being the actual stars of the show (but not Bennett, sorry Bennett).
miHoYo invests in their characters that make you like them.
There are other reasons to play a game as I stated previously besides what you typically do for gacha games (e.g. collecting characters/weapons, auto-battling etc.).
There are a lot of gacha games out there in a saturated market and the vast majority of them all follow the same gacha system. It might be a good idea to think about the game you're going to download and play because of the game publisher's marketing, and whether to invest time and resources into it because they're so many other games in the same genre.
To do so, you have to think about a game in a more critical manner outside of the content of the game.
Of course, if a game as a monopoly of the genre (GI being the only open world gacha game), there's no other choice.
What I look for in a gacha game before even trying to play it is:

Game optimization
Game UI/design
Audio quality
Gameplay/gameplay quality
The game producer's past history and tendencies

Game optimization
If I a game runs poorly and is unoptimized even though other more demanding games run better, I have no reason to invest in the game.
One example that falls into this category is the gacha game that's been recently released called Illusion Connect. The game doesn't run on Android 11 at the time of writing is, with their support saying it's because Android 11 is too new:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superprism.illusion&hl=en_CA&gl=US&reviewId=gp%3AAOqpTOFC-IBCuWinIURXdr3ZpChpbtlWdmQuM9kseAkpR0_1LHfpyOZN3qb_edaM76jOQqVcV2cOgdea5LL70Q

Look at every other game that runs on Android 11. Look at GI that runs great on mobile.
Game UI/design
If the game UI/design is bad, I don't invest in the game. You can search online on what makes good game design/UI, but a couple points for me are:

Consistent style/design
Clean/uncluttered UI
Proper UI scaling on devices
Animations/transition animations
Difficulty in getting to different parts of the UI/game due to how things are organized

Style is subjective, but inconsistent style/design in UI isn't.
In terms of gacha games, you'll typically have characters that are drawn by different artists, causing a discrepancy in what you consider a character's art to be in terms of quality. This can be jarring for players.
For example, F/GO has bad UI:

The majority of UI elements are needlessly large, though you may like this yourself
It takes many traverses through different UI levels/layers to get to specific things, in part due to large UI elements taking up screen space
a lot of UI animations aren't smooth, and vary in smoothness causing inconsistency

A good example of UI/design is Apple. All their products follow a consistent style (hardware and software), and they pay close attention to the small details in their operating systems, apps, etc., specifically transition animations.
Audio quality
I'm specifically talking about the quality of audio:

Good stereo audio and depth
Audio bitrate
Quality of sound effects

The worst offenders are gacha games that have audio that sounds like they're 16kbps.
You then have extras like songs and original sound tracks (OSTs).
Gameplay/gameplay quality
The vast majority of gacha games follow the same setup:

Advertise the game primarily with art/animation, and not the actual game/gameplay, which means they're clearly enticing players to play their game to collecting characters -> gacha
Turn-based strategy in the form of two teams of characters fighting, having auto-battle as an option
Use of low quality 2D sprites/3D models

If you enjoy the gameplay, go ahead and enjoy the gameplay.
The game producer's past history and tendencies
If a game passes every previous check, then I'll look at the game producer's past history and tendencies to assume what to expect of the game.
I'm looking at F/GO once again. The game's the top grossing gacha game in the world, yet the game producer doesn't update the game and it's UI to be better or higher quality.
Conclusion
I put gacha games on par with high profile PC games. I'm not going to be wasting time and resources on a low quality game that I'm looking to invest in for an extended period of time.
The following, most notable gacha games to me that fit the criteria above are:

GI [miHoYo Limited]
HI3 [miHoYo Limited]
Exos Heroes [LINE Games], bad optimization. pay a lot to progress in story

Epic Seven [Smilegate Megaport], Arknights [Yostar Limited.] (the UI is 👌), The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross [Netmarble] and Fire Emblem Heroes [Nintendo Co., Ltd.] almost gets a pass.
Addressing the player base that mainly play PC games/MMOs
I suggest reading the section above.
Welcome to the gacha mechanic and stamina mechanic.
As long as miHoYo generates their intended profit, you'll be stuck with these two mechanics in their current state if you continue playing.
I suspect they're so restrictive on resin so the player doesn't get bored with the game (less time played = less bored of seeing/doing the same things) since there is a lack of end game content that will hopefully get resolved in the future as they add more to the game.
Feel free to disagree with me.
There are other aspects of the game to enjoy.
The gacha mechanic isn't a bad model for a game depending on how it's set up, and whether you're talking about the perspective of the player or game producer. In terms of the game producer, the gacha mechanic is great for profit.
This is probably your first time playing a gacha game and knowing about the company miHoYo. Companies don't owe you anything, and you're not a long time fan of miHoYo to warrant being owed to.
This isn't like living in a country where if you don't like something about the country, (most of the time) you are stuck in the country. It's a game and you're welcome to not play it.
This is the only time I mention in post that this AAA level game is free to play.
Everything I've stated previously says that GI discourages you from wishing and spending primo gems on resin refreshes. It makes people that really want a charactecharacters and/or really want to progress in the game spend money, so it's even more on them if they do spend money.
This game will last a while, and there is a lot of content coming up.
Project X
I'm leaning towards the game being a story based open-world game (alien-robot/mech) with the gacha mechanic for characters and weapons. I learn towards this because of the proven successful game model miHoYo's used. On the other hand it could be a PvP shooter with a cosmetics shop. It's really up in the air for me until we get more news. I'm heavily leaning towards miHoYo to use the same/similar engine/aesthetics as their Lumi N0va Desktop instead of what they use in HI3 and GI:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdS7c_U9QrpEn5MxZje7RXA
Final Thoughts
miHoYo is one of my favourite game companies to date from the experience I had with HI3 and now GI. miHoYo has done what I've always wanted in a game (until Matrix levels of technology come out), which is a high quality 3D anime-style open world story-driven RPG with tons of great out-of-game content. For me, the story & character development takes priority over to everything else (then the music and animations).
One of the big things miHoYo did that propelled my opinion of them is their creating of a PC port of HI3 with higher quality graphics settings. They didn't need to, but they did because they could and a subset of the player base wanted it.
You can read a brief history of miHoYo, their CEO, and their games from:

https://apps.apple.com/jp/story/id1527991813

People loved something, were inspired by it and set out to create and spread what they loved to the world.
Bias
You might think that because I like miHoYo, that I'm bias towards them, that everything/a lot of things I've said is invalidated. That's where you're wrong kiddo. Just because I'm bias towards miHoYo doesn't mean everything/a lot of things I've said is invalidated (liking the games miHoYo have produced and the things they've done in the games and out of the games). They aren't mutually exclusive.
TL;DR

Expectations can completely make or break a person's initial and ongoing experience with something whether the expectations were warranted or not
If you don't like something or want something, voice your opinion but don't attack people with opposing opinions because you don't agree with them
https://reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/jqdtga/thoughts_on_genshin_impact_and_what_to_anticipate/gbndm3o/
https://www.reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/jqdtga/thoughts_on_genshin_impact_and_what_to_anticipate/gbqjadn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
https://www.reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/jqdtga/thoughts_on_genshin_impact_and_what_to_anticipate/gbohl5z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

First off, let me start this post by establishing two things: I'm not a bot (just what a bot would say) and I'm pro GME (13 shares @ $153 average). If you require proof for either my position or my identity, let me know and I'll provide it.
Second, this is not going to be a DD about GameStop solely as a stock, but a look into the future of what they need to do - as a failing brick & mortar business - to successfully pivot into an e-commerce model. Just a little background about me: I love doing big write-ups about the video-game world, it's a side-hobby I really enjoy, and as I've just had surgery on my ankle tendon I'll be glued to a computer this next month as my sole form of entertainment lol.
With all that out of the way, let's get started!

The three models of the video-game industry, as well as the history of GameStop!

There are three concepts we need to define and explore to understand what kind of issues GameStop will need to overcome in order to adapt to an e-commerce business model: Games as a Product, Games as a Service & Software As A Service.
Games as a Product is a really simple concept and how a large portion of the video-game industry operated until the early 2000's. If I have $35.00 and I want to buy a game, I simply go to a store, exchange cash for goods, then walk out. That game is mine now. I can play it, I can eat it, it's mine to do with as I please. However, the video-game industry - by an large - hated this as a concept because it empowered the consumer and cut the developepublisher out of the equation.
Numerous lawsuits were filed with proponents of the industry screaming software infringement! It's damn software infringement! They argued that you can buy the physical product (disc or cartridge), but the content of the game, the software, cannot be resold as it was both proprietary and owned by the developepublisher. This argument did not hold up in court and as a result, a new industry grew around the fringes of the video-game world: the used games market!
After the video game crash of the 80s, a revitalization of the market was taking place, thanks in part to Nintendo's NES and R.O.B the robot! This is where we first pick up on GameStop (then called Babbage's) a software retailer that was founded in 1984. By 1987, a large portion of Babbage's sales were solely from games on the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo NES (which was released to the States in 1985). They would begin to shift into the company we know today, GameStop, in 1999, with the first 30 stores opening up in strip malls in various locations around the company's headquarters in Grapevine, Texas, and also the gamestop.com website! By then it was official: they cast their lot in with video-games entirely and became a business centralized around the idea of selling, buying and re-selling games. At this time they were owned by a division of Barnes & Nobles, curiously enough.
GameStop thrived on the Games as a Product model, it was perfect for their business. No longer would you have to make back alley deals on Craigslist or try to find a friend to pawn Crash Dummies for the SNES on.
This does begin to bring us to our second concept: Games as a Service. Games As A Service (often abbreviated GaaS) has a really different core compared to Games as a Product, but it can be defined by a continuing, evolving experience, as opposed to a single, defined experience. A game that uses the GaaS model will have DLC, will create new content, will patch out bugs and tries to keep the player as involved/invested as possible. If you can keep a consumer playing, it can lead to higher profits for the developer over time and you get to use your existing world, something established by name, to create new material. It's a win for consumers if done right and it's a big win for developers. Though this didn't get around the consumer rights issue they encountered with Games as a Product, it did give them more opportunities for financial transaction before sale.
By introducing a model of games that could continually dump profits back to a developer, artificially increase the life-span of a game, as well as get users to focus on developer based add-ons (like DLC, in game item purchases, or cosmetic extras) you essentially had a bustling side business to generate profits on top of your one time buy the game purchase.
By adopting this GaaS model, profits across the industry soared and profits for intermediaries like GameStop, climbed with it.
Since this is WSB and not a video-game oriented sub, I'll skip the nitty gritty of what GaaS did for the industry: free-to-play games, loot-boxes, DLC, DRM restrictions, internet connectivity checks, online play, online subscription services, etc., just know that it was thanks to GaaS that the entire industry morphed from physical media to digital.
GameStop did not adapt with the industry, but they remained profitable until 2016 due to some very poor financial investments. The business tried to supplement its loss of income by attempting to break into other markets: trading cards, nerd paraphernalia (hats, bracelets, shirts, shit like that), figures, posters, a disastrous entry into smartphones, Radioshack, a number of studios that closed shortly after investment, just a lot of weird, almost shotgun-scatter type ventures. Faced with competing pressure from business giants like Amazon, Wal-Mart or other big retailers that were pivoting to an e-commerce market, GameStop was left in the dust.
They couldn't beat competitor prices and they didn't have a platform that could outperform digitally, like Steam, PlayStation Store, X-Box Marketplace and the Nintendo e-shop. They were relying on the physical and ignoring the core of their business, video games.
GameStop's business model also relied heavily on foot traffi. The most profitable part of their business was the buyback program. By buying games back for cheap and then selling them back to consumers for much higher profits, it was easy money. They also, smartly, offered higher in store trade credits compared to cash, luring the customer in to using store credit to purchase directly after, then repeating the cycle.
With the decrease of foot traffic in retail stores (close to 17% according to some estimates) they hemorrhaged money to keep physical stores open. They had rampant and aggressive growth during the profitable years, but now that everything was slowing down that growth began a financial chokehold.
GameStop entered into a pitfall and couldn't dig its way out financially. The company leadership fished around for private investors, but could never quite seal the deal. Without some type of business model in place that could re-focus the efforts of the physical locations to a digital platform, they were stuck in a loop of constant losses, layoffs and closures.
Efforts were taken in 2019 to revitalize the company, with a new organizational system taking hold that resulted in further staff reduction at physical locations, along with layoffs from the company's magazine, Game Informer. The new focus of the company would be on retrogamers and competitive gamers, two markets that they were desperately hoping to tap in order to infuse new funds into the company. But still, they didn't have a strong digital arm that could keep up with the times or compete with any of the big guys in the field.
Now we begin to come to modern day: Ryan Cohen, Chewy.com founder (a popular online retailer for animals) has taken over as CEO of GameStop and also purchased 13% of stock in the company. Three new board members were also added in the past month, with all their credentials pointing an aggressive change to an e-commerce business model, but what exactly would that look like? How do they break in?
I know it seems like a long, rambling, bullshit post that doesn't really pertain, but understanding the history of the video-game industry and the ways the video game industry has changed to generate profits, is really important to help break down just the kind of new business GameStop will have to be in order to succeed.
GaaS, I strongly feel, will not be the prevailing model for video game companies in the near future. The king of earnings will fall and be supplanted by another model and I think it's going to be something called Software As A Service (SaaS).
To those affiliated with hobbyist creative fields, you probably understand SaaS a lot better than everyone else. SaaS differs from GaaS on one fundamental level that makes it unique: you cannot own it. To understand this concept you can look at streaming services or subscription services like Netflix or the Adobe Creative Suite. You pay month to month to use their services, but according to the software agreement and EULA language within, you do not own what you're paying for, period. This is an incredible business model for video game companies in a digital marketplace, as it ensures the sale of used games (not on physical media) can NOT be resold at your discretion. By agreeing to use the X-Box Marketplace or PlayStation Store, you also agree that the digital products you purchase are not yours and that individual ownership/usage is at the discretion of the company you buy it from, effectively locking you in.
The recent release of the PS5 also came in two variants: a cheaper, digital only copy, and a more expensive physical retail edition. The digital edition scares me to no end. It was created. It was distributed. People bought it. How can you walk away from it or sell it back, full well knowing the games you've purchased (for full retail price, I might add) wouldn't come with it? Its tied to your Sony account, not on the console itself. If they ban you, it's over, how do you get your time or money back? Gah, fucking insanity!
If Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo (Nintendo probably wouldn't, thanks to their Blue Ocean philosophy they've kept since Iwata) adopted a SaaS model and began using a subscription service for playing their games, exclusively, on their digital market-place, how does GameStop manage to get a piece of that action?

How the business could grow in the e-commerce model

1) A GameStop video game console (unlikely, given the volatility of the video-game market and the inflated cost of triple AAA development).
Posing this as an idea isn't as crazy as it seems though: the name GameStop is known throughout the world and if they could create a network to assist development across indie studies (which are massively in demand/popular right now) they could lock in a lot of console exclusives, as well as gain some much needed goodwill from the development community. Traditional game development is disgustingly brutal, with unpaid overtime, horrible sedentary work conditions, no home/life balance or quality of job security, but GameStop could take that and build on it by giving indie developers a chance to grow under a known quantity. By doing this they could also construct their own digital media platform, as well as partner with sites like FanGamer to do physical distributions (also a huge industry for collector's editions that rabid fans go nuts for...I know because I bought Hollow Knight's Collector Edition on it). This one is a long-shot, hail Mary, cuckoo-bananas thing to attempt as an initial way to become an e-commerce business, so it's definitely not something I think they'd ever try lol.
2) Use the retail locations as HUBs for demos, competitive tournaments, community outreach and use Game Informer as a publishing arm to create buzz (also transitioning to a digital only magazine would help a lot, physical media is hard to keep alive). If there's one thing that's boomed during the pandemic, it's e-sports. It's a really different world now for competitive gaming and absolutely unrecognizable from my early days of trying to find Korean cast StarCraft matches on random sites. Now I can just go to Twitch or YouTube and watch what I want. It's grand.
Twitch and YouTube aren't super great though...both platforms have come under intense scrutiny by its users for some really shitty business practices (bans, not banning hard enough, advertisement spam like crazy, shitting on the smaller folks, you get the idea).
Enter GameStop, a company with name recognition that could potentially step in and begin their own streaming services. A bit of expansion on their physical locations could afford them the opportunity to host competitive e-sports leagues, let store staff sell in the background and also generate quite a bit more foot traffic. The foot traffic is important for the purchase back model I listed above but people also get hungry for snacks/drinks and all sorts of junk that have huge markups. It could work and the whole idea becomes a lot more functional when you leave the pandemic scenario.
If GameStop could harness the e-sports momentum and begin their own streaming service, I feel that it could be a great business venture.
3) Pairing with the big guys. They did this originally with the GaaS model with in store purchase exclusives, but didn't adapt to the digital marketplace. This is crucial to living as an e-commerce business, as in the example above, if the industry moves to a SaaS format, the entire business model of GameStop is virtually fucked. I don't see a single example where GameStop could gain a profit on a digital exclusive sales platform by its lonesome.
In October 2020, GameStop brokered a deal with Microsoft, which was a great first step towards a potential partnership; GameStop would use the 365 cloud software for a lot of their back-end needs: website, applications, etc., as well as use Microsoft Teams, and Surface Tablets for inter-office communication as well as sales by the floor-staff. They even managed to haggle a deal for a piece of Microsoft's digital video-game sales. They absolutely need an industry partner on their side to turn the tides in their favor and it looks like Microsoft might be willing to share the profits if it means hedging out more of a customer base.
Of course Nintendo will do its own thing, independent of the others, and Sony has, historically, never worked well with others, but if Microsoft sits down at the table with GameStop, the others will have to follow suit to keep competitive.
4) Cloud based gaming. This one is also another long-shot because of the start-up costs, as well as the infrastructure necessary to do it. Still, the partnership with Microsoft potentially puts this on the table.
For those that don't know, cloud-based gaming takes hardware out of the equation for the user. As long as the usesubscribecustomer has a good internet connection, you could technically host the game on your own server hardware and stream it to their mobile device, TV or whatever monitor they have available. By eliminating the hardware component of the equation and the financial barrier for entry, you could effectively allow the average user to play for a much lower cost compared to a $600 console and $70 games.
5) Beat digital prices and win with a centralized digital platform. This one is tricky, as - unless the developers are first party and its your platform - you don't have much control over what a developer wants to charge for their game. Still, there's a weird disconnect between physical/digital media. By all accounts you would think not having to distribute a game, physically, would lead to a reduction in price, but that's not the case. Digital games often times meet a 1 to 1 ratio with the price of physical games, which sure, the platform still has to host the data to be downloaded, but I can't imagine that cost being greater than physical distribution in the long-run. It's a disservice. Still, as a devil's advocate sort of scenario, if GameStop did lower prices the larger competitors would likely just do the same to equalize the playing field.
I personally dislike the Epic Game Store, but I'll be damned if I don't have it downloaded on my computer because they offer a free game every now and again. The incentives warrant me downloading The Epic Game Store launcher and keeping it. If you can get eyes on your digital platform by offering incentives to use it, you're much more likely to make sales to your users. This is important to note, as GameStop would HAVE to offer a digital environment that could be not only competitive, but would need incentives large enough to draw people away from popular platforms like Steam.
Again, I know all of this seems like the ramblings of an insane person (my surgery was today and I was prescribed hydrocodone, so likely yeah...I'm a wee bit manic) it's still important to consider the history of the gaming industry, as well as GameStop.
These are some of the hurdles they'll have to overcome to be competitive again. The partnership with Microsoft, along with the recent additions to the board of directors is a very encouraging sign, but theres still quite a road map before it becomes sustainable as a business again. The squeeze, whether you believe in it or not, is still a factor and there's not enough data available to make accurate conclusions about the future of the stock, but hopefully this helps to make your consideration a little easier. I've always found knowing the history puts me at ease.
Thank you for reading my long ass post. I'm coming down from my meds, but if you want any of the above points proven, I'll list/link a source tomorrow when I wake up.

First off, let me start this post by establishing two things: I'm not a bot (just what a bot would say) and I'm pro GME (13 shares @ $153 average). If you require proof for either my position or my identity, let me know and I'll provide it.
Second, this is not going to be a DD about GameStop solely as a stock, but a look into the future of what they need to do - as a failing brick & mortar business - to successfully pivot into an e-commerce model. Just a little background about me: I love doing big write-ups about the video-game world, it's a side-hobby I really enjoy, and as I've just had surgery on my ankle tendon I'll be glued to a computer this next month as my sole form of entertainment lol.
With all that out of the way, let's get started!

The three models of the video-game industry, as well as the history of GameStop!

There are three concepts we need to define and explore to understand what kind of issues GameStop will need to overcome in order to adapt to an e-commerce business model: Games as a Product, Games as a Service & Software As A Service.
Games as a Product is a really simple concept and how a large portion of the video-game industry operated until the early 2000's. If I have $35.00 and I want to buy a game, I simply go to a store, exchange cash for goods, then walk out. That game is mine now. I can play it, I can eat it, it's mine to do with as I please. However, the video-game industry - by an large - hated this as a concept because it empowered the consumer and cut the developepublisher out of the equation.
Numerous lawsuits were filed with proponents of the industry screaming software infringement! It's damn software infringement! They argued that you can buy the physical product (disc or cartridge), but the content of the game, the software, cannot be resold as it was both proprietary and owned by the developepublisher. This argument did not hold up in court and as a result, a new industry grew around the fringes of the video-game world: the used games market!
After the video game crash of the 80s, a revitalization of the market was taking place, thanks in part to Nintendo's NES and R.O.B the robot! This is where we first pick up on GameStop (then called Babbage's) a software retailer that was founded in 1984. By 1987, a large portion of Babbage's sales were solely from games on the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo NES (which was released to the States in 1985). They would begin to shift into the company we know today, GameStop, in 1999, with the first 30 stores opening up in strip malls in various locations around the company's headquarters in Grapevine, Texas, and also the gamestop.com website! By then it was official: they cast their lot in with video-games entirely and became a business centralized around the idea of selling, buying and re-selling games. At this time they were owned by a division of Barnes & Nobles, curiously enough.
GameStop thrived on the Games as a Product model, it was perfect for their business. No longer would you have to make back alley deals on Craigslist or try to find a friend to pawn Crash Dummies for the SNES on.
This does begin to bring us to our second concept: Games as a Service. Games As A Service (often abbreviated GaaS) has a really different core compared to Games as a Product, but it can be defined by a continuing, evolving experience, as opposed to a single, defined experience. A game that uses the GaaS model will have DLC, will create new content, will patch out bugs and tries to keep the player as involved/invested as possible. If you can keep a consumer playing, it can lead to higher profits for the developer over time and you get to use your existing world, something established by name, to create new material. It's a win for consumers if done right and it's a big win for developers. Though this didn't get around the consumer rights issue they encountered with Games as a Product, it did give them more opportunities for financial transaction before sale.
By introducing a model of games that could continually dump profits back to a developer, artificially increase the life-span of a game, as well as get users to focus on developer based add-ons (like DLC, in game item purchases, or cosmetic extras) you essentially had a bustling side business to generate profits on top of your one time buy the game purchase.
By adopting this GaaS model, profits across the industry soared and profits for intermediaries like GameStop, climbed with it.
Since this is GME and not a video-game oriented sub, I'll skip the nitty gritty of what GaaS did for the industry: free-to-play games, loot-boxes, DLC, DRM restrictions, internet connectivity checks, online play, online subscription services, etc., just know that it was thanks to GaaS that the entire industry morphed from physical media to digital.
GameStop did not adapt with the industry, but they remained profitable until 2016 due to some very poor financial investments. The business tried to supplement its loss of income by attempting to break into other markets: trading cards, nerd paraphernalia (hats, bracelets, shirts, shit like that), figures, posters, a disastrous entry into smartphones, Radioshack, a number of studios that closed shortly after investment, just a lot of weird, almost shotgun-scatter type ventures. Faced with competing pressure from business giants like Amazon, Wal-Mart or other big retailers that were pivoting to an e-commerce market, GameStop was left in the dust.
They couldn't beat competitor prices and they didn't have a platform that could outperform digitally, like Steam, PlayStation Store, X-Box Marketplace and the Nintendo e-shop. They were relying on the physical and ignoring the core of their business, video games.
GameStop's business model also relied heavily on foot traffi. The most profitable part of their business was the buyback program. By buying games back for cheap and then selling them back to consumers for much higher profits, it was easy money. They also, smartly, offered higher in store trade credits compared to cash, luring the customer in to using store credit to purchase directly after, then repeating the cycle.
With the decrease of foot traffic in retail stores (close to 17% according to some estimates) they hemorrhaged money to keep physical stores open. They had rampant and aggressive growth during the profitable years, but now that everything was slowing down that growth began a financial chokehold.
GameStop entered into a pitfall and couldn't dig its way out financially. The company leadership fished around for private investors, but could never quite seal the deal. Without some type of business model in place that could re-focus the efforts of the physical locations to a digital platform, they were stuck in a loop of constant losses, layoffs and closures.
Efforts were taken in 2019 to revitalize the company, with a new organizational system taking hold that resulted in further staff reduction at physical locations, along with layoffs from the company's magazine, Game Informer. The new focus of the company would be on retrogamers and competitive gamers, two markets that they were desperately hoping to tap in order to infuse new funds into the company. But still, they didn't have a strong digital arm that could keep up with the times or compete with any of the big guys in the field.
Now we begin to come to modern day: Ryan Cohen, Chewy.com founder (a popular online retailer for animals) has taken over as CEO of GameStop and also purchased 13% of stock in the company. Three new board members were also added in the past month, with all their credentials pointing an aggressive change to an e-commerce business model, but what exactly would that look like? How do they break in?
I know it seems like a long, rambling, bullshit post that doesn't really pertain, but understanding the history of the video-game industry and the ways the video game industry has changed to generate profits, is really important to help break down just the kind of new business GameStop will have to be in order to succeed.
GaaS, I strongly feel, will not be the prevailing model for video game companies in the near future. The king of earnings will fall and be supplanted by another model and I think it's going to be something called Software As A Service (SaaS).
To those affiliated with hobbyist creative fields, you probably understand SaaS a lot better than everyone else. SaaS differs from GaaS on one fundamental level that makes it unique: you cannot own it. To understand this concept you can look at streaming services or subscription services like Netflix or the Adobe Creative Suite. You pay month to month to use their services, but according to the software agreement and EULA language within, you do not own what you're paying for, period. This is an incredible business model for video game companies in a digital marketplace, as it ensures the sale of used games (not on physical media) can NOT be resold at your discretion. By agreeing to use the X-Box Marketplace or PlayStation Store, you also agree that the digital products you purchase are not yours and that individual ownership/usage is at the discretion of the company you buy it from, effectively locking you in.
The recent release of the PS5 also came in two variants: a cheaper, digital only copy, and a more expensive physical retail edition. The digital edition scares me to no end. It was created. It was distributed. People bought it. How can you walk away from it or sell it back, full well knowing the games you've purchased (for full retail price, I might add) wouldn't come with it? Its tied to your Sony account, not on the console itself. If they ban you, it's over, how do you get your time or money back? Gah, fucking insanity!
If Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo (Nintendo probably wouldn't, thanks to their Blue Ocean philosophy they've kept since Iwata) adopted a SaaS model and began using a subscription service for playing their games, exclusively, on their digital market-place, how does GameStop manage to get a piece of that action?

How the business could grow in the e-commerce model

1) A GameStop video game console (unlikely, given the volatility of the video-game market and the inflated cost of triple AAA development).
Posing this as an idea isn't as crazy as it seems though: the name GameStop is known throughout the world and if they could create a network to assist development across indie studies (which are massively in demand/popular right now) they could lock in a lot of console exclusives, as well as gain some much needed goodwill from the development community. Traditional game development is disgustingly brutal, with unpaid overtime, horrible sedentary work conditions, no home/life balance or quality of job security, but GameStop could take that and build on it by giving indie developers a chance to grow under a known quantity. By doing this they could also construct their own digital media platform, as well as partner with sites like FanGamer to do physical distributions (also a huge industry for collector's editions that rabid fans go nuts for...I know because I bought Hollow Knight's Collector Edition on it). This one is a long-shot, hail Mary, cuckoo-bananas thing to attempt as an initial way to become an e-commerce business, so it's definitely not something I think they'd ever try lol.
2) Use the retail locations as HUBs for demos, competitive tournaments, community outreach and use Game Informer as a publishing arm to create buzz (also transitioning to a digital only magazine would help a lot, physical media is hard to keep alive). If there's one thing that's boomed during the pandemic, it's e-sports. It's a really different world now for competitive gaming and absolutely unrecognizable from my early days of trying to find Korean cast StarCraft matches on random sites. Now I can just go to Twitch or YouTube and watch what I want. It's grand.
Twitch and YouTube aren't super great though...both platforms have come under intense scrutiny by its users for some really shitty business practices (bans, not banning hard enough, advertisement spam like crazy, shitting on the smaller folks, you get the idea).
Enter GameStop, a company with name recognition that could potentially step in and begin their own streaming services. A bit of expansion on their physical locations could afford them the opportunity to host competitive e-sports leagues, let store staff sell in the background and also generate quite a bit more foot traffic. The foot traffic is important for the purchase back model I listed above but people also get hungry for snacks/drinks and all sorts of junk that have huge markups. It could work and the whole idea becomes a lot more functional when you leave the pandemic scenario.
If GameStop could harness the e-sports momentum and begin their own streaming service, I feel that it could be a great business venture.
3) Pairing with the big guys. They did this originally with the GaaS model with in store purchase exclusives, but didn't adapt to the digital marketplace. This is crucial to living as an e-commerce business, as in the example above, if the industry moves to a SaaS format, the entire business model of GameStop is virtually fucked. I don't see a single example where GameStop could gain a profit on a digital exclusive sales platform by its lonesome.
In October 2020, GameStop brokered a deal with Microsoft, which was a great first step towards a potential partnership; GameStop would use the 365 cloud software for a lot of their back-end needs: website, applications, etc., as well as use Microsoft Teams, and Surface Tablets for inter-office communication as well as sales by the floor-staff. They even managed to haggle a deal for a piece of Microsoft's digital video-game sales. They absolutely need an industry partner on their side to turn the tides in their favor and it looks like Microsoft might be willing to share the profits if it means hedging out more of a customer base.
Of course Nintendo will do its own thing, independent of the others, and Sony has, historically, never worked well with others, but if Microsoft sits down at the table with GameStop, the others will have to follow suit to keep competitive.
4) Cloud based gaming. This one is also another long-shot because of the start-up costs, as well as the infrastructure necessary to do it. Still, the partnership with Microsoft potentially puts this on the table.
For those that don't know, cloud-based gaming takes hardware out of the equation for the user. As long as the usesubscribecustomer has a good internet connection, you could technically host the game on your own server hardware and stream it to their mobile device, TV or whatever monitor they have available. By eliminating the hardware component of the equation and the financial barrier for entry, you could effectively allow the average user to play for a much lower cost compared to a $600 console and $70 games.
5) Beat digital prices and win with a centralized digital platform. This one is tricky, as - unless the developers are first party and its your platform - you don't have much control over what a developer wants to charge for their game. Still, there's a weird disconnect between physical/digital media. By all accounts you would think not having to distribute a game, physically, would lead to a reduction in price, but that's not the case. Digital games often times meet a 1 to 1 ratio with the price of physical games, which sure, the platform still has to host the data to be downloaded, but I can't imagine that cost being greater than physical distribution in the long-run. It's a disservice. Still, as a devil's advocate sort of scenario, if GameStop did lower prices the larger competitors would likely just do the same to equalize the playing field.
I personally dislike the Epic Game Store, but I'll be damned if I don't have it downloaded on my computer because they offer a free game every now and again. The incentives warrant me downloading The Epic Game Store launcher and keeping it. If you can get eyes on your digital platform by offering incentives to use it, you're much more likely to make sales to your users. This is important to note, as GameStop would HAVE to offer a digital environment that could be not only competitive, but would need incentives large enough to draw people away from popular platforms like Steam.
Again, I know all of this seems like the ramblings of an insane person (my surgery was today and I was prescribed hydrocodone, so likely yeah...I'm a wee bit manic) it's still important to consider the history of the gaming industry, as well as GameStop.
These are some of the hurdles they'll have to overcome to be competitive again. The partnership with Microsoft, along with the recent additions to the board of directors is a very encouraging sign, but theres still quite a road map before it becomes sustainable as a business again. The squeeze, whether you believe in it or not, is still a factor and there's not enough data available to make accurate conclusions about the future of the stock, but hopefully this helps to make your consideration a little easier. I've always found knowing the history puts me at ease.
Thank you for reading my long ass post. I'm coming down from my meds, but if you want any of the above points proven, I'll list/link a source tomorrow when I wake up.

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GameStop - what would an e-commerce business model look like and how does it achieve success? A speculative look at how GameStop fits into the new age, digital market and how video game industry practices have evolved over the past 40 years.

The three models of the video-game industry, as well as the history of GameStop!

How the business could grow in the e-commerce model

GameStop - what would an e-commerce business model look like and how does it achieve success? A speculative look at how GameStop fits into the new age, digital market and how video game industry practices have evolved over the past 40 years.

The three models of the video-game industry, as well as the history of GameStop!

How the business could grow in the e-commerce model

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