Many GameStop Stores Will Close Across America: Here’s Why

Heading to GameStop to sell a game or buy a new one is nostalgic for many, but finding a location may soon be even harder. The company has announced that many locations will be closing. Read on to find out why.

GameStop has been popular in America since 1999. The company was founded in Dallas in 1984 as Babbage’s, and adopted its current name in 1999.

Although the digital revolution hurt GameStop, they were able to survive and thrive for a while, with over 2,500 stores in America at their peak. However, according to a recent earnings report, the company plans to close a large number of locations.

Why Gamestop is closing locations

If you’re lucky enough to remember a video game so well that you eventually got bored of it, so you took it to GameStop to resell it and get a few bucks for a new game, consider yourself lucky.

Let’s be honest, people don’t buy as many copies of video games anymore when they can just download the game directly to their computer.

GameStop tried various ways to increase sales — such as selling branded products like T-shirts, figurines and other collectibles — but ultimately the sales did not produce the expected results.

In GameStop’s recent Q2 earnings conference call, they announced a massive 31 percent revenue decline across the board. You don’t need a business degree to see that this isn’t good for business and that something needs to change.

GameStop is currently conducting a store portfolio optimization review, stating, “While this review is ongoing and has not yet identified a specific set of stores to close, we anticipate that it may result in the closure of more stores than we have closed over the past several years.”

In recent years, GameStop has closed more than 1,000 locations since the pandemic began, with more than 400 locations closing in a single year at the peak of the closures. According to their latest announcement, they will be closing more than they have in the past.

This suggests that GameStop will be closing a significant number of stores across America in the near future.