Many GameStop Locations Will Shut Down Across America: Here’s Why

Taking a trip to GameStop to sell a game or buy a new one is nostalgic for many, but it may soon be even harder to find a location. The company announced a large number of locations will close. Keep reading to find out why.

GameStop has been somewhat of a staple here in America since 1999. The company was founded in Dallas in 1984 as Babbage’s, and took on its current name in 1999.

Although the digital revolution hurt GameStop, they were able to survive and thrive for some time, with well over 2,500 stores in America at its peak. But, per a recent earnings call, the company plans to close down a large number of locations.

Why Gamestop is Closing Locations

If you are lucky enough to have a vivid memory of playing a video game so much that you got sick of it, took it to GameStop to sell it back to them and got a few bucks toward a new game, consider yourself blessed.

Let’s face it, people aren’t buying as many actual copies of video games anymore now that you can just download a game right to your system.

GameStop have tried different things to help boost sales — such as selling branded items like T-shirts, figurines and other collectibles — but ultimately those have fallen below flat.

In GameStop’s recent Q2 earnings call, they announced a whopping 31percent decrease in revenue across the board. You don’t have to have a business degree to see that this is not good for business and that something has to change.

GameStop is now performing a store portfolio optimization review where they say, “While this review is ongoing and a specific set of stores has not been identified for closure, we anticipate that it may result in the closure of a larger number of stores than we have closed in the past few years.”

In the past years, since the pandemic hit, GameStop has closed well over 1,000 locations, with more than 400 locations closing in one year at its peak of closures. According to their latest release, they will close more than in the past.

That would leave one to believe that in the coming future, GameStop is going to shut down a significant amount of locations across America.