The GameStop crisis continues: nearly 200 employees laid off

GameStop, famous video game chain all over the world has not been sailing in good waters for some time now; in fact, in recent months, it has had to close numerous stores, carried out continuous layoffs and sudden changes in strategies to compete with what is now the demand of today's market which sees more and more moving to online purchases but not only.

According to the second quarter financial report, GameStop will close between 180 and 200 "underperforming" stores around the globe by the end of this year. The financial director James Bell however, he said he was enthusiastic about the more than 5700 points of sale in the world, stating that 95% of them proved to be very profitable and better than many others.

“While this is an impressive statistic, we have a clear opportunity to improve our overall profitability by de-densifying our chain,” he said. “This work is well underway. We are in the process of closing between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year. And while these closures will offer more opportunities, we expect to close far more stores over the next 12-24 months. "

This "policy" is part of GameStop's famous "reboot" plan, posting losses in recent quarters of as much as $ 415 million. Additionally, 50 employees lost their jobs in August and another 120 people were subsequently fired including seven Game Informer staff members. GameStop, however, has announced several strategic plans aimed at reviving the economic decline as soon as possible through stores focused oneSport and retro-gaming. Despite this, it is assumed that the famous chain will not see profit improvements for some time also due to the present end generation of consoles. These are the words of Bell.

“We expect our year-over-year sales to decline over the next three to four quarters, reflecting the end of the [console] cycle,” he said. Compounding this negative impact on sales is the fact that console makers have confirmed the launch earlier than they have in the past. We expect this to lead to a much lighter list of titles for the remainder of 2019 and early 2020 ”.