Gamestop Closing Up to 225 Stores Worldwide

Next time you're planning to visit your local Gamestop, you might want to do a quick check and make sure that it's actually still running. Gamestop is arguably the biggest video game retailer in North America, so it's surprising (at least to me) to hear that they've had a tough time recently, and as a result, need to make some changes. It's always a sad thing when any corporation closes down stores in the mass amounts. Jobs are lost and that's definitely a bummer.

Apparently, 2016 was a very disappointing year for Gamestop, and as a result, they will be closing 2-3% of stores worldwide. Based on this data, around 225 of Gamestop's 7,500 worldwide stores could be shutting down for good. Gamestop explained that they had a very difficult holiday period with much lower than anticipated sales on many AAA titles. Gamestop's fourth quarter profits had dipped down to 13.6% in 2016 compared to the previous years, resulting in their stock plummeting by 31%. They attributed their loss in profit to the over-aggressive marketing or consoles on thanksgiving and black Friday as well as poor sales of certain AAA titles.

Gamespot's saving grace turned out to be the sale of collectibles and the success of their technology oriented affiliate brands such as Spring Mobile. Gamestop reported a 27.8% increase in collectible sales, and as such, they will be opening roughly 35 new collectible stores, and 65 new technology stores. Although it's sad that around 225 stores will be closing, at least there is a silver lining. Jobs will be lost, but Jobs will also be gained.

You might be losing your local Gamestop, but you also might be gaining a new technology/collectible store. This mostly affects console players, since PC players really only concern ourselves with whatever's happening on Steam. Let's see Gamestop beat Steam sales. Yea, not gonna happen.