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[qwertz12345]

https://www.thegamer.com/gamestop-store-manager-layoffs-stores-empty/

Things are rough over at GameStop these days. With falling revenues, rising costs, and an increasing number of customers switching to digital, GameStop staff are feeling the brunt of it. One of those was laying off workers throughout 2022, leaving stores understaffed and remaining employees overworked. Things don't seem to have gotten any better in 2023, as a viral TikTok video shows.

TikTok user Red (@redsonjattv) gave us an update on the current state of GameStop. "Everything's on clearance," wrote Red. "No one comes in anymore and the corporate layoffs have started."

GameStop attempted to pivot away from strictly being a games retailer in 2021. First it wanted to mirror Amazon and become a massive online retailer, and then it looked to use its windfall from the bizarre Reddit stock fiasco to break into NFTs. With NFTs failing, GameStop might have looked to its basic retail business as a means of securing much-needed cash, but Red told The Daily Dot that’s not happening either.

"It was dead pre-Christmas, picked up during the holidays and then immediately died again after New Years," she said. "It even had its dead moments during the holidays too, which was odd. I mean, for Black Friday we opened at 5, [and] I got there at 3 to make sure everything was set up and ready – no customers showed up until after 8 AM."

Although Red says her store doesn't plan to close, more have closed in her area and across the country. "Tons of GameStop stores have closed over the years and recently. Currently, there are stores going through closure in other cities/states, but the employees are being told to still push reservations for games coming out after the store will be closed. It’s a little disgusting on corporate’s part."

In addition to store closures, Red said she's heard of 50 district managers losing their jobs, an entire warehouse closed, and both a technical support team and a customer service team all being laid off. Red said that she blames poor management for the state of GameStop and that she expects to leave on her own even if her store doesn’t close.

 

[GymWolf]

The one i visit sometimes is always choke full of people.

 

[Antwix]

-Selling used games as new
-Poor trading values and poor inventory
-Increased free shipping threshold
-Frequent website errors and 2 "hacks" in the last 2 years
-Revamping Pro memberships including disallowing $5 system currency codes
-Completely removing account points balances if you lapse pro membership
-Frequent policy differences between stores

Not surprising. It'll continue to get worse.

 

[Puscifer]

I mean honestly there's too many GameStop's and always have been, like a freaking Starbucks except more people like coffee than video games. Smaller stores with better selection might bring me back but at this point I'm good

 

[BadBurger]

The one i visit sometimes is always choke full of people.

Same, but for that happen a location in a nearby mall and one located in another shopping center about five miles away both closed. So now aside from Best Buy and Target, both of which do not have terribly impressive selections overall where I live, it's the only reliable retail source for games within about a 45 minute drive (seriously, the next nearest Game Stop is now 45 minutes away on a good, light traffic day).

 

[Spaceman292]

Probably because Gamestop is shit

 

[f~N_CH_1:3:3:3_SushiBoat]

Always prefer the local / ma-pa shops, anyway. Gotta keep my eye out for these clearances. Got my Dreamcast collection basiclly from Game Crazy closures.

 

[fart town usa]

GameStop has no soul. It's just plastic shit everywhere and the employees are required to try to upsale everything which makes for an awkward experience everytime at check out. It's a shame, they rarely have consoles to play too. It's just a lame stuffy atmosphere.

I'd go in more often if the selection included old consoles and felt less corporate. I try to support my local GS but there isn't much of anything in it that I want to buy.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Physical is dead.

 

[Punished Miku]

Gamestop makes Walmart look good.

 

[Gaiff]

Well, yeah, I think I bought like 3 physical games for my PS4 out of 15. When I get the PS5, I might get one or two but I've pretty much gone all digital and haven't seriously visited a Gamestop since the PS360 era. I imagine things will just keep getting worse for them.

 

[Kacho]

Good riddance.

Funcoland had character. I miss the days seeing shelves stocked with Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation One games. That's when going into the shops felt special. Now it's just a bunch of funko shit.

 

[Pidull]

They just need to start valuing games the way collectors do and their image will change.

Give different pricing for Complete-In-Box, factory sealed, damaged goods, etc.

Devote portions of the store to retro games again, and purchase the highly collectible stuff at good prices to build that inventory.

Value the product the way your customers do, and people will come back.

 

[Puscifer]

Always prefer the local / ma-pa shops, anyway. Gotta keep my eye out for these clearances. Got my Dreamcast collection basiclly from Game Crazy closures.

Remember 2 dollar "Classic Plastic" at Gamecrazy when Hollywood video clearanced out PS1/N64/Dreamcast to make room for 360/ps3/wii? Good times!

 

[*Nightwing]

Finally!!!

Glad r/wallstreetbets lifeline didn’t last more than a couple of years… time to celebrate

 

[Pachi72]

They been empty since they went to shit.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It seemed like a surefire success to have game stores full of tablet/cell phone trade ins, walls of FUNKO toys and piles of Call of Duty Black Ops: The Card Game.

What went wrong?

Maybe the clerks didn't upsell enough cardboard box guarantees for their Walking Dead Monopoly games.

 

[Vick]

The one i visit sometimes is always choke full of people.

Same.

 

[belmarduk]

Always preferred mom and pop game shops but I would rather visit any dedicated game store over a Wal-Mart any day of the week.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Good

 

[BadBurger]

Always preferred mom and pop game shops but I would rather visit any dedicated game store over a Wal-Mart any day of the week.

Walmart never even comes into my consideration. Haven't shopped at one in at least four years, and that was only because I needed something for an emergency and they were the only 24 hour store around at the time.

 

[Evil Calvin]

-Selling used games as new
-Poor trading values and poor inventory
-Increased free shipping threshold
-Frequent website errors and 2 "hacks" in the last 2 years
-Revamping Pro memberships including disallowing $5 system currency codes
-Completely removing account points balances if you lapse pro membership
-Frequent policy differences between stores

Not surprising. It'll continue to get worse.

Don't forget selling items unseen on their website---don't know if you'll get a case or a paper sleeve
A few years back I sold a few game which were immaculate. Newer than the 'new' games they have open there. They gave me a trade-in price and there was a $2.00 reduction of each trade in for 'refurbishing'. I called them out on the bullshit and contacted the DM. I got my money back and a 50% off coupon from him to use. So that worked out.

 

[Fox Mulder]

They did it to themselves with years of shitty practices. The pandemic accelerated digital and Amazon really killing them off which was inevitable anyways, but they gave customers no reason to want to stay around.

They’re just a hot topic now with all the funko pops, tshirts, and random shit filling 90% of the store.

 

[belmarduk]

Walmart never even comes into my consideration. Haven't shopped at one in at least four years, and that was only because I needed something for an emergency and they were the only 24 hour store around at the time.

It's such an overall unpleasant experience. I hate going there and will do anything I can to avoid it.

GameStop employees are (mostly) knowledgable about games at least.

 

[ComputerBlue]

I don’t go to mine very often but every time I do there’s always a few other people in there at least, and they have never have shit on clearance, so this might be a sign of the location more than anything, or maybe the location I go to is the anomaly and most others are fucked.

 

[PSYGN]

-Selling used games as new
-Poor trading values and poor inventory
-Increased free shipping threshold
-Frequent website errors and 2 "hacks" in the last 2 years
-Revamping Pro memberships including disallowing $5 system currency codes
-Completely removing account points balances if you lapse pro membership
-Frequent policy differences between stores

Not surprising. It'll continue to get worse.

Not related but nice World Industries avatar!

 

[Antwix]

Don't forget selling items unseen on their website---don't know if you'll get a case or a paper sleeve
A few years back I sold a few game which were immaculate. Newer than the 'new' games they have open there. They gave me a trade-in price and there was a $2.00 reduction of each trade in for 'refurbishing'. I called them out on the bullshit and contacted the DM. I got my money back and a 50% off coupon from him to use. So that worked out.

Oh yeah, there's countless other BS things they do like using magic eraser on the entire outer shell of any "refurbished" consoles they take in.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The old Radio Shack (I think they are all dead).

Car dealership.

Furniture store.

Gamestop/EB.

What do they have in common? You walk in the door. You're probably no more than 5 ft in. You probably havent even decided which aisle to go to yet.

Before you even decide you get the 'ol Vulture Eyes in seconds just to make you know they are there to ring you in a sale: "Hi, if there's anything I can do, just ask".

 

[VAVA Mk2]

 

[BackBackPunch]

Any store that has employees take opened game boxes off the shelf, dig around in a drawer to get the disc out of paper sleeve, and sell that as “brand new” deserves to go out of business

 

[Spyxos]

The 1 Gamestop in Germany that i live nearbuy is still pretty full, but we also don't have 3 Gamestops across the street like in Us.

 

[JayK47]

I will miss them when they are gone. I still prefer physical to digital for consoles. I hate Amazon and they are my go to for console games.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

I prefer my local DVD/Blu-Ray/Video game (all generations)/electronics pawnshop type place to Gamestop. It's cheaper and I support a local business that way.

 

[kiphalfton]

Their PowerUp Pro membership is a joke.

They've stopped offering 10% off pre-owned games and accessories, 20 points per dollar for trades, and their $5 monthly coupon now has more exclusions (used to work on pretty much everything). Not even sure if you get Game Informer anymore (not that that matters, but just goes to show how stripped down their yearly membership subscription is).

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Yeah GameStop has brought most of this on themselves, but I still think this is very bad for the industry. You want your physical games now, you can either buy them online and wait for a week, go to a Walmart or maybe some other retailer who doesn’t know a thing or care about video games. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about working at GameStop, but for some reason I usually had good experiences shopping at there strangely enough.

 

[OuterLimits]

The one i visit sometimes is always choke full of people.

Yeah, same with the one about mile from my house. It is in a shopping center with a very busy Wal-Mart though, which helps.

I may be in the minority, but I would hate to see Gamestop disappear. They have become a dependable alternative for getting new releases at launch while Amazon has sadly often been terrible in that regard lately.

 

[TonyK]

Physical games has no sense except for collectors (same as movies or music). And there are no PS5 or Series X on store. To buy a Switch or Series S you can go anywhere, you don't need a dedicated game store.

It's not only Gamestop, it's the physical games as business, sadly, it doesn't have future. I know people don't like the idea, but future is inevitably digital.

 

[Nydius]

I think it's been eight years since I last set foot in a GameStop. The last time I ordered from them online was about a year ago and that was just for an amiibo that I couldn't find anywhere else. For new games, I have myriad different options besides GameStop: Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, or digital distribution. For used games, I'd rather buy from people selling online or from the shop that used to be local to me when I lived in Virginia (eStarland). Likewise, when I'm done with a game, I try to sell it myself which, even after reseller site fees, nets me more than GameStop would pay -- or, again, I go with eStarland.

I've had no need of GameStop and if it vanished tomorrow it would have zero impact on my gaming purchasing habits.

 

[Games of Today]

I worked for gamestop for about a year and a half. I had the typical, same lame employee experience that everyone else has had. But honestly it was actually fun working there especially because I would get the 15% employee discount and I would never ask people if they wanted the shitty warranty unless they asked for one.

They eventually secretly laid me off simply by just not specifically telling me when I was scheduled to work though somehow I was able to keep my employee discount for about a year after they stopped calling me in. That was strike 1.

Strike 2 was ending the awesome midnight releases which happened around the same time. Literally half of the atmosphere around being a gamer was instantly gone along with the winding down of E3 after the epic 2016 Sony press conference.

And now Gamestop doesn't even get retail copies of games on launch day. I used to be able to buy a game day 1 from their store even if I didn't pre-order it. That was strike 3.

But surprisingly (A BIG SURPRISE HONESTLY), they have actually redeemed themselves within the past two weeks for me. After getting pissed off trying to by Hogwarts Legacy on launch day and being told they don't have any copies in stock unless I pre-ordered it, I discovered that I could go on their website, buy the game on launch day and choose to either pick it up in my local store or have it delivered to my house.

So I got my copy of Hogwarts doing this and now Atomic Heart is on it's way in an Uber from my local gamestop to my house.

 

[adamsapple]

Today was the first day I walked into a gamestop in a long time to pick up Dying Light (XOne) for $2.99. They gave it to me in a generic case without the box art. Yes, I basically got it for free, but .. yeah .. I can totally see people not going into GS's.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Gamestop against streaming and downloading was doomed to fail family videos shut down last year.

 

[Gambit2483]

They never have anything I want in stock. The only reason I purchased anything from them recently was because Amazon screwed up their Bayonetta 3 special edition

A shame that places like Bestbuy and Target can beat them out on game sales..

 

[EDMIX]

Not shocked, I feel sorry for those about to lose their jobs.

This has nothing to do with used games, this has to do with how bad GameStop is. Period.

I buy used games all the time. Amazon, Ebay, even fucking Walmart (don't sleep on em, you can find some fucking gems), Gamestop....dear god, even when I fucking TRY to give them business they fuck it up. I remember looking for a copy of some game I was buying for a friends birthday that was coming up, was waiting for Chinese food to be finished so decide shit, kill 2 birds with one stone and head next door to see if Gamestop has it.

It was like $50 used, yet $29 new lol, I even asked them if it was a mistake, like an old sticker and if they could tell me the updated price....it very much was $50 lol. They had no more new copies and every time I tried to just find a different game and cross reference with Amazon and Ebay, it was always like $10 to $15 more to buy it at Gamestop.

There is no helping a company this fucking greedy.

I can't see me pre-ordering anything there as Amazon and Best Buy have me covered as I'd rather just get it online, any hardware launch I can't see me going thru them either. I don't see how I could use this company. They are not the cheapest, they are not the most reliable, they are not the fastest, they are not the most convenient.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I thought Gamestop was "doomed" a while back. What happened?

 

[Nydius]

I thought Gamestop was "doomed" a while back. What happened?

They got thrown a temporary life raft with all the crazy "stonks" business.
If it hadn't been for that, this would have happened a long time ago.

They completely squandered the opportunity and now they're back to sinking.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I can go get the same stuff (assuming I want physical, which I don’t) at Amazon, Target, or Walmart and have a better experience, without having to go into a depressing pawn shop where some dweeb tries to sell me extended warranties/club memberships/preorders.

I have no idea how they survived this long even.

Also LOL at the Black Friday story. Reminds me of this Radio Shack employee’s blog back in the day. There was one story about how the manager mandated that everybody show up at 4:30 AM on Black Friday to prepare. Then they opened at 6 AM and nobody came in.

 

[Gambit2483]

They got thrown a temporary life raft with all the crazy "stonks" business.
If it hadn't been for that, this would have happened a long time ago.

They completely squandered the opportunity and now they're back to sinking.

True, they had a "10 second window " to get their shit together but they blew it. Can't really feel sorry for them at this point

 

[goldenpp72]

While the writing was likely always on the wall for GS, they certainly helped accelerate their demise by simply being an unpleasant experience. As someone who collects pretty significant amounts of games, I still felt pretty devalued as a customer there. I think the last straw I had was buying a collectors edition of Toki for Switch that was 'new but used' only to have pieces missing from it, and the lady put up a fight that 'that stuff doesn't matter' when it's literally the only reason I am here in your store versus being digital. They don't even value the physical nature of the product which is literally why they exist.

You basically had to become a true regular to get them to cut down their (admittedly forced) sales pushes. Aside all that though, the quality/condition of the items, their inability to pivot at all to the current landscape, as well as overloading all their stores with shitty toys and board games, didn't really help. Gamestop is a depressing store to go into now, it's a hollowed out sad existence in contrast to even 5 years ago.

Gamestop should have moved to offering a Limited Run Games like service where they publish retail versions of games that otherwise would not have seen a retail existence, they should have pivoted better into retro/collecting markets, and they also should have learned to treat their customers better. Even with all this, they would need to scale down their store numbers, but they could have at least continued to survive in some capacity as a unique place some people want to go to. Their policy of selling you used titles as new was also always bullshit.

I have ordered a few things from them online as well, and for some reason on 2 occasions they did not send me items I ordered, which has never happened with any other retailer, their online site is a joke and their entire business model feels ancient. If you could use their site reliably and still have it function towards their stores reliably, that would have been nice too. Instead if you buy a used game online, you literally are playing the lottery on what you'll get condition/completeness wise. Meanwhile, even Amazon goes far enough to list condition notes on returned/used items, really ridiculous. GS has been outclassed significantly from almost every angle, and every move they make just makes it worse.

Truly everything they do, is half assed. They provide no incentive to shop their for new goods because your new game might not even be new, no discounts, no real loyalty programs anymore... Their used games are often incomplete or destroyed, they offer no quality services for console repairs or anything like that, they have no authentication methods for their retro games which is why people keep ending up with bootleg Pokémon games for full price, awful online experience, bad customer service, and an unpleasant in store experience, all things they could have improved to keep people wanting to use them.

Gamestop has become a weird mutant of a pawn shop meets a collector shop, while serving really no side well.

 

[TheMan]

The end was inevitable but it is a shame to lose the only remaining dedicated game retailer left (besides local mom and pop used game stores.) Remember when we used to have tons of different stores? GameStop, Babbages, Software Etc, Electronics Boutique? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

 

[Gambit2483]

The end was inevitable but it is a shame to lose the only remaining dedicated game retailer left (besides local mom and pop used game stores.) Remember when we used to have tons of different stores? GameStop, Babbages, Software Etc, Electronics Boutique? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Digital sales changed everything. The times, they are a'changing..