GameStop Closes Hundreds of Stores as CEO Eyes $35 Billion Payout

GameStop is closing hundreds of stores conscionable days into the caller twelvemonth arsenic CEO Ryan Cohen aims to instrumentality location $35 cardinal successful performance-based banal options.

Reports the gaming and pop-culture retailer would soon adjacent stores started to look soon aft 2026 began. Some shoppers were capable to find and stock signage informing their determination would soon unopen down, offering a 20% trade-in bonus (for a constricted time) arsenic compensation.

Been going to this GameStop for implicit 12 years. Sad to spot it go. All the champion to the guys Jose, Nick and more. Check them retired earlier they adjacent connected the 8th. This is the 18th av determination successful Bensonhurst Brooklyn. pic.twitter.com/hV8NxgESUO

“This store is closed effectual 1/8/26,” a antithetic motion posted to Reddit January 2, 2026, says. “Thank you for being a loyal GameStop customer.”

Signs past instruct customers with crippled oregon memorabilia reservations to question to caller stores to prime up their purchases, but the abrupt quality and wide reports near GameStop buyers with much questions than answers. With reports of what seemed to beryllium dozens of store closures online, a blog that tracks GameStop enactment utilizing worker reports and the company’s store locator claims to person recorded 390 store closures (via Polygon). An further 10 stores are inactive successful the process of being confirmed to person unopen down, which, if accurate, brings the full to 400 shuttered GameStop locations a small much than 1 week into the year.

It’s different deed to GameStop’s carnal beingness successful the gaming market, with a December 2025 filing from the institution noting it had ceased operations astatine 590 locations successful the U.S. successful fiscal 2024. Now, the once-titan known for giving “power to the players” seems to beryllium keeping with its aboriginal plans, too, with the aforesaid papers saying it anticipated “closing a important fig of further stores successful fiscal 2025.” For the past 10 years, GameStop has closed much stores than it has opened successful the U.S. each year, with closures often numbering successful the hundreds.

Meanwhile, GameStop announced earlier this week that Cohen, who took implicit arsenic CEO successful September 2023, is up to person a staggering $35 cardinal successful performance-based banal options. For Cohen to person the payout, the company’s committee of directors states GameStop would request to scope a marketplace capitalization of $100 cardinal and, earlier interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, execute $10 cardinal successful cumulative performance. GameStop’s marketplace headdress presently sits astatine astir $9.5 billion.

“The grant is designed to incentivize Mr. Cohen to execute bonzer growth,” the announcement says.

GameStop has looked to new, bizarre ways to summation traction successful caller years arsenic it continues to treble down connected collectibles and memes. August 2023 saw the institution propulsion retired of crypto, moving to shutter its short-lived NFT marketplace conscionable a fewer months later. More precocious (and overmuch to the dismay of its employees), it held its first-ever Trade Anything Day, which saw customers bringing successful virtually thing for trade-in recognition astatine their section stores. Earlier this week, The New Zealand Herald reported that GameStop’s EB Games subdivision had made a connection to adjacent its remaining stores successful New Zealand.

Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.

Michael Cripe is simply a freelance writer with IGN. He's champion known for his enactment astatine sites similar The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be definite to springiness him a travel connected Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).