GameStop Staff Layoffs Are Announced As Chief Financial Officer Leaves

This business has tried to cheat its extinction but surely it’s the La Brea tar pit for it before long..

Gamestop is really drawing out its own demise as long as possible, huh?

Shops on the high street are deader than dead.

I wonder how much the execs are making

The more videogames goes digital, the more extinct GameStop is getting close to. Physical games are going the limited route and only a few such as those from big publishers would still release standard physical copies. Once the big publishers decide to limit their physical stocks then GameStop themselves will be over, that also means harder for us to get physical copies of games soon too.

@Crockin likely too much

The stocks couldn't save them.

I would feel a bit sad since I visited my local Gamestop a lot when I was young, but with how many baffling business decisions they've made (remember that Tiktok dance for money debacle?), I'm not at all surprised they're going down this path. I'll stick to Smyths thanks.

There are a lot of locally owned places I like going to, so I couldn't care less if GameStop is going under.

I actually like gamestop on occasion. They got pokemon tcg sometimes and the game selection isn't bad especially last gen used.

@BartoxTharglod No one is wishing for physical to go away but as big publishers are starting to embrace digital, it seems the industry is going that way. My guess is that triple A titles may still required a physical copy but smaller games may go the way of digital. How the big three will preserve digital in the future is anyone's guess I just hope that physical isn't entirely extinct.

GameStop used a be an amazing place to go as a kid, I haven’t been able to go to it since it closed down in my town so nowadays if I wanted a physical game I could just order it on Amazon

REMINDER: Physical retail did not have to die this way. The rise of e-commerce was understood as inevitable DECADES ago. They could have transitioned to a complimentary mix of offerings while having some thriving brick and mortar stores.

Instead, idiot retail executives fleeced these companies, workers lost their jobs, and we get the joy of an Amazon near monopoly (which I'm sure will work out swell).

@Orokosaki I think this is true for chains but some independent stores are killing it. I think as long as there's demand for physical, the actual brick and mortar stores will survive in some form.

Also at first I read "number of reductions" in the article as "number of reeducations" 😬 Is it weird that I was surprised but not shocked?

The stock sale probably bought them a couple more years but the reality is they're going to need to do more to cut costs and that includes closing additional stores.

@Royalblues
Yeah it's nice having a dedicated video games store. I understand people not liking their pricing on used games, etc. Hopefully Best Buy can hang on at least. I will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to Walmart for my gaming needs (or Amazon for that matter) even if they are a dollar or two cheaper on new games.

This is too bad. GameStop absolutely provided a way for many gamers to enjoy a wide variety of games on a limited budget. I've had my share of complaints involving some of their practices — such as selling open games as brand new — but there have been so many times that GameStop was the only way I was able to obtain a limited-release game or console.

Treating employees and customers like crap, not offering competitive pricing, absurd shipping and late delivery from the website, and plans to shove NFT fraud down our throats? And Gamestop wonders why they can't succeed? Hmmm

@Muddy_4_Ever Capitalist greed prioritizes short-term gains over long term security. This is why the banks caused the Great Recession a decade ago. Share holders want their money now and push corporations to take stupid risks for nothing. Until the investment market is reformed, this issue won't go away.

If anything, I hope Gamestop's demise resurrects the local game store market that they helped kill

Anyone remember Babbages & Electronics Boutique?

@Acein210 Not to mention the occasional pre-order bonuses. Turns out my Kirby & the Forgotten Land came with Kirby & Elfilin pins.

Don't have a use for em, but my collectable-obsessed friend in the UK is envious.

This is why top pays should reflect the lowest worker pay. If they can't do the job then they shouldn't get the paycheck. The GS stores are forced to take the crapp from Top Management at expense of customers.

@Maximumbeans there’s still quite a few independents in the UK but they just can’t compete with prices against online. Even retro stuff is generally cheaper on eBay.
I generally buy digital these days and always wait for the inevitable sale, I’ve got loads to play in my backlog so I don’t need to buy stuff at full price, I can wait.
I do but physical versions of Nintendo 1st party titles though as they always hold strong money when it comes to selling them on after I’ve finished with them. I recently bought Kirby The Forgotten land for £30 of Facebook marketplace then sold it on eBay for £35 after finishing it, less my eBay fees it didn’t cost me anything really.

@Orokosaki Hey I'm exactly the same man, I can wait for a long time until things come down. UK-based too. Remember the Gamestation days? Those guys were my bread and butter.

@Mando44646 100%. Transitioning to a new model of physical retail commerce would have cost money and taken time. The grifters running these outfits only care about quarterly earnings and their next job.

@Maximumbeans I used to love Gamestation, there was one in my old town, Crewe, where I used to live, had a great bunch of people working there and stocked loads of good stuff…..then GAME took it over and it was pretty dreadful.

@Orokosaki Same story for mine. I remember I could take some stuff to trade in at GAME, then walk down the road and try Gamestation who would offer me like £10, sometimes as much as £20 extra for the exact same stuff. Dark day when I learned they were getting bought out.

@Maximumbeans I think from memory Gamestation had import stuff too. Sad to see how the industry is heading but inevitable I guess.

I ship GameStop and Activision. I think the two of them could have a very happy future together.

...I say that jokingly, but as I'm typing this, I suddenly imagined a disturbing outcome where Kotick gets offered an executive position at GameStop when it's time for him to step down from Activision. I can imagine GameStop's PR statement now: "Kotick has led Activision through unprecedented financial success for years. We believe that under his leadership, we'll be able to take the initiatives we need to make GameStop a serious competitor in the electronic space again. We are excited to have someone with such experience in the gaming marketplace to take us into this bold new direction."

Apologies in advance if I just prophesied this into existence, but something like that feels incredibly believeable to me. 😖

-Walks into GameStop

Me: "Hello, I would like to purchase a new copy of [insert newly released game here]"

Employee: "Sure"
-Walks over to shelf and pulls off display game case that has been handled by 100 people already and pulls copy of game out of drawer behind desk.

Employee: "That will be $64.49."

Me: "I wanted a new copy..."

Employee: "This one is new."

Me: "Yeah, no thanks..."

This is why I never buy from them.

Bring back FuncoLand!

@Serpenterror I do not buy digital aside from Steam. The way I see it, all of my Nintendo purchases for the near future will be physical unless they make their account system more consumer friendly.

I remember growing up going to Software Etc. at the mall. I LOVED that store. Playing the SNES kiosk, the Genesis kiosk, digging through their new releases. It was so much fun.

Then one day GameStop bought them out, and I saw the store gradually change. The clean, modern look devolved into more of a cluttered, cheap look. They got rid of the kiosks and some of the more obscure games that they used to sell in exchange for toys. The employees, at one time extremely friendly and knowledgeable, became rude and disinterested. I just no longer like going there.

And as I told my wife yesterday, I've shifted into a mostly digital gamer anymore. I think the last physical game I bought was the Super Mario 3D Anniversary collection.

@Riderkicker yes exactly. I have a nice gamestop employee here who always saves me a pre order bonus

I stopped buying new games from them years ago when they sold me a "new" game by taking an open case off the shelf and putting the game in from a drawer behind the counter. Also, the staff can be overbearing and also rude sometimes. Goodbye Gamestop, I hope the local shops take over your business.

NFT and blockchain. Aren't those just words stupid people use to sound smart? Not that I'm accusing Gamestop of anything like that.

If they want to go down faster crypto may be the way to go.

i have enjoyed shopping at game stop but they have quite a few stores in my area recently....

@Gitface all those cases you pick off the shelf are empty the games are behind the counter in a locked desk to prevent theft..

Like many others I loved Software, etc. Babbages. EB. They all had a professional/library-like atmosphere that made it feel like you were buying pricy software from a professional store. Once GameStop (nee Barnes & Noble) bought it all out it felt like a cheap venture targeting teens. I bought all the time until, like others said, they started opening new games. I argued with them about that more than once, then just walked across the parking lot to Best Buy and bought a new copy... For less money. From a larger inventory. So much for loyalty.

They have, or have had their purpose, and the stores sometimes have been fun to wander in, but they really stopped providing a purpose for going there. The only thing I buy there now is Game Informer. The last print mag around.

I wonder what they will do with their inventory as they close stores? Shift to online only?

@Gitface I remember being a bit annoyed at this too. But a local GameStop kind of made their point one night when some idiots drove a truck through the window & tried to steal the games.

Turns out taking those games out of their cases helps them all fit in the safe in the back when the store closes, so they left empty-handed.

Then again, I know of a pair of friends that got fired for taking those "new" games home & playing them, so you're not wrong either. From what they tell me, employees can use GameStop as a game rental place & as long they actually pay for the ones they intend to keep & if they're in good standing with the boss of your shift, can get away with it.

@Riderkicker And this is exactly why I was never comfortable paying new game prices to them. Once the shrink wrap comes off, it is no longer new.

This awful company was granted a second lease by people buying games during Covid lockdowns. Then it was granted a third lease by people messing with the stock.

If GameStop shuts down, I'll have to be forced to pre-order games from Amazon. It's not even rewarding! I mean, sure, you can buy a gift card to load a balance onto it to pay for the game, but you don't get any bonuses. I mean, is the satisfaction of buying from an honest business the bonus you need and deserve? Probably.

And if you wanted to sell your game away, and you can't even drive to a mom-and-pop game store to do so, you're stuck having to get a bank account just to sell the game yourself on eBay! I can't even go through with that hassle! One, I lack the means to even secure a bank account, and two, I lack the patience to have my parents drive me to the post office, in the event that I DO ship my sellings to potential buyers!

@Serpenterror looking at how sony is taking away digital movies that people paid money for access to and how nintendo online has poorly handled emulators, digital games are most likely to descend farther down the money-grubbing hellhole

@Gitface @Riderkicker not gonna lie, the gamestop employee rental program allowed me to play lots of games during my super broke undergrad years. I had someone bump into me once as I was bringing a game back and I dropped it. Of course it popped out of the case and landed on the pavement. We had to mark as used and my boss took the difference out of my pay. I only rented cartridge games after that.

I always forget GameStop is still around until articles like this. Figured it went the way of blockbuster by now after the stonks thing. Pretty unnecessary place especially with how bad they rip everyone off.

@YoshiAngemon Don't worry you'll be a grown up someday and then you'll regret it.

You have to wonder after 25 plus years of taking in game trades for say $20- $25 and selling them for $45 you gotta wonder where all that profit went??

Here’s an idea… how about you liquidate GameStop and it’s assets altogether, seeing as just about everything they offer can be purchased digitally or via an online retailer, i.e. Amazon.

@joey302 Covering their overhead costs? lol 😂

I feel like GameStop has a place. You may say that physical games are dying and all that but many of us still want to get them. If they just focused on retro games and making a good online store then they really could do well imo. GameStop was one of the only places I remember where I could buy a switch near launch for $300

@ClaytThaGreat or executive salaries maybe? Lol

Diamond hands. To the moon. Hold the line hold the line.

I guess I should hurry to trade in my Animal Crossing: New Horizons then.

@Doomcrow I do.m that's where I bought all my games and consoles in the 90's. Also went to Funcoland a few times. Got a Sega 32X from there.

Some bad practices in the GameStop I went to, like only allowing you to buy a console in a bundle and not RRP. I remember they put scratched disks or faulty games on discount and when returned, they placed them back on the shelf for the next unsuspecting customer. Trade in value was like theft too. Maybe it is time to close?

@SteamEngenius You DO realize I'm 37, and that was apparently a joke, right? Not a really good joke, though.

Cue the typical "GameStop is doomed" comments. Probably the only company involving video games that gets just as much of those kinds of comments as Nintendo.

That's not to say that they won't go out of business, as their financial situation is much shakier than Nintendo's ever was (even during the Wii U era). But nothing is ever a sure thing.

It is entirely possible that they can turn their fortunes around. Stranger things have happened, after all. Personally, I hope they can climb out of this hole they dug, as I always enjoy going to my local branch.

The world will be a nicer looking planet without GameStop in it. What a wreck of a store. Like put some effort into designing it so it doesn’t look like dirty thrift store. Someone needs to think about the UX of that place but that’s probably the least of it’s problems and it’s too late.

@Royalblues Holy shoot, that's crazy. I live a good 1-2 hours away from NYC, and around here it's frustrating how full all the parks are lately. It feels like most of the former mall traffic has moved there.

GameStop should really aim to change their product line. I don't think merchandise is helping them at all whatsoever. I always believed that if they were to dive into video game hardware, especially with gaming PCs, they might have a better chance competing against the likes of the tech stores.

I recall the forum wars if Gamespot was a different kind of piracy back in the Xbox 360 era. As already mentioned they pushed, really hard, the used copies that were just a few bucks cheaper than new. I really do wonder how much money the dev/pub lost out on this practice.

If GameStop is like GamePlanet and Gamers here in Mexico nowadays, it's probably like 2/8 actual videogames and accessories, 6/8 funkos + gaming PC equipment + collectibles + geeky clothes.

So, not a whole lot of the original purpose.

Gamestop has always been an awful company, hated them since they bought out all the good video game stores back in the day.

@Doomcrow

The words were so deeply burned into my brain that I still call it Electronics Boutique.

what some folks don't comprehend is that; thanks to the higher ups at gamestop for being dumb, plus the employees being dumber from the dumb actions they did in the whole admit towards viol- i mean, "protest" season, they not only lost their jobs which these same employees complained about on twitter - not joshing here, but they also cost the super flames to go to gamestop one of the only stores for some people in countries to get access to physical copies of games, and other gaming stuff.
now, i know about online, but majority of the time folks are just getting tired of the online shopping crap that they do in fact miss going out shopping; thankfully they're some gaming stores that sell games but, unfortunately there not that many of them world wide where customers will be at ...and i am living in one of those depressed places...- note; i also want to make it aware that people's stuff that get ordered online have been stolen, more then others - to it's getting bad, around where i live at, people's mail have been stolen including my place as well -which is a first :c...it's bad..

i am forced to do online shopping at times that i just don't like it at all, to a point where i gave up on shopping just general for any switch games; the only time my bum would ever go out shopping if i find a gaming store around this cruddy place, i would do so to buy games i enjoy, and gaming accessories too love peach bookbags..but the prices en e;;...

They should've kept that weird bunny mascot.

Here's the irony those wanting GameStop to go. Digital you can't return or resale. Nor can you return opened physical games only exchange. Otherwise you go selling on eBay. THINK really hard I know people have small brains here. Digital isn't OwnerShip regardless of how you want to misinform others on here. And you can't give or transfer it away. People talk but dealing with Amazon you agree to their terms not yours. Think Why are people thinking Amazon is your friend they aren't they are in the business of selling and profits. Your just $$$ to them and customer service is last on the agenda. GameStop is the only place in-person you can trade or sell games off and still get a value back for physical games. If one doesn't know why watch this old but true story.
Digital Distribution Vs Physical Media and True Ownership
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsWQGAlopk
End of the Day Amazon is to make money so is GameStop but you get to sell games back not with Amazon.

They'll be the next radio shack. They need to just close.

@BirdBoy16 You, and just about everyone else. I'm not wading through mall zombies to go pickup a game. A lot of malls in Florida are literally filled with people with no intention of buying anything, especially during the summer.