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GameStop began in 1984 in Dallas, Texas as Babbage’s by James McCurry and Gary Kusin. The company was originally a software retailer selling Atari games and in 1987, Nintendo games.

In 1994, Babbage’s merged with Software Etc. In 1996, the company had 800 total stores and filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The company was kept afloat by Leonard Riggio, of Barnes and Noble.

In 2004, GameStop was spun off from Barnes & Noble as its own company.

In 2005, the company merged with EB Games (formerly Electronics Boutique).

In 2007, the company acquired Rhino Video Game from Blockbuster. In 2011, Spawn Labs was acquired.

The overall market for physical game media has been in a state of decline since online services, including Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, have become popular. GameStop, whose business was long rooted in new and pre-owned software, has begun feeling the effects of this changing market. In 2017, GameStop reported a 16.4% drop in sales for the 2016 holiday season but expressed optimism in its non-physical gaming businesses. Reasons cited for the decline in sales included industry weakness, promotional pricing pressure, and overall lower in-store traffic.

GameStop currently operates over 5,630 stores in 18 countries worldwide. Revenue in 2017 was $9.22 billion.

In September 2019, the company announced that it was closing approximately 200 locations, with a company spokesperson stating that the company would close “a larger number” of stores in 2020, but declined to give an actual number of stores.

Recently appointed CEO George Sherman stated that the company realizes that it must change along with gamers but declined to say how the company would accomplish this.

Company headquarters are located in Grapevine, Texas.