As a result, some staff said they would lie to customers about whether they had new copies in stock. In 2017, GameStop made headlines for its controversial Circle of Life program, which essentially punished employees for selling new instead of pre-owned games. It was impossible to call or visit a GameStop store without being pushed to pre-order whatever games were coming out next. Worker performance was tied to the number of game pre-orders and rewards cards they sold, which led to constant hawking. Many video game fans grew tired of the way GameStop treated staff and the way those employees had to act with customers. Sometimes, customers would take home a “new” game only to discover that someone else’s save file was already on the cartridge. The company also became known for questionable practices such as selling opened copies of games as if they were new.
Social media is full of jokes about how you can trade GameStop’s stock back to the retailer for a fraction of the price. Older games would return a few bucks at most. A brand new game, which cost $60, might fetch $30 at your local GameStop. The store made it easy to trade in old games for money or to be used toward other purchases, which cash-strapped fans could appreciate. Over the years, many gamers begrudgingly shopped at GameStop only because they had little choice. Gamers have a long list of complaints about Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop, from the way they treat employees to their pushy and controversial sales tactics. “It’s like in movies when the bullies vote for the nerd to be prom queen just to prank her,” said Andy Cortez, a host and producer for the video game YouTube channel Kinda Funny. The Reddit community choosing GameStop as the stock to pump may have been one giant practical joke. But unlike the beloved retailer Toys R Us Inc., GameStop was never very popular among gamers.
GameStop’s resuscitation may seem like it should be inherently good news for video game fans. By Wednesday afternoon, it was over $340, valuing the unprofitable company at more than $25 billion. At the beginning of this year, GameStop was trading at $17.
Over the past week, a collective of individual traders on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets community sent GameStop stock to astronomical heights in an experiment to stick it to hedge funds, which had sold the stock short. After all, video game fans have loved to hate the struggling retailer for decades. NEW YORK: There’s some irony in the fact that Reddit, an online chat community full of gamers, has propelled GameStop Corp.