Yehuda: Obviously, for some individuals, financial concerns make it a choice is "no games" vs. "discount games" -- but as a market, that is not the only choice.

Nathan: The prime argument is that online sales are skewed towards people who are "alpha" gamers. Those that buy a lot of games and spend time reading BGG and other forums don't have as much of a "need" for a local gaming store, because they take the time to get relatively well educated. Those that can be helped by a local gaming store are new gamers, non-gamers buying games for someone else, and, of course, people looking for a place to play and network. If the loss of the alpha gamers' money causes local stores to go out of business, then it becomes harder for new gamers to get introduced to the hobby and exposed to a wide variety of games.

Half the people say that deep discounters are good for the consumer, because people can buy more games and people without access to local stores can buy games.

People without access to local stores could also buy games directly from the manufacturer/publisher [who generally don't discount on their online stores, because hobby game stores generally frown on that], or from online gaming stores that don't discount. The choice isn't black and white "no games" vs. "discounted games."