GameStop is reportedly getting out of Germany and closing all remaining stores in the country, which would mean 69 locations being shuttered and their staff laid off.

The retailer that used to sell video games before it started selling every Funko Pop under the sun and maybe sometimes video games continues its terribly slow death, as this is the latest news of cuts after it was confirmed that GameStop was shutting down all its remaining stores in Italy just days ago.

A post on Reddit (spotted by GamesMarkt) from a user that claims to be a store manager at a German location claims they received the call on Thursday that their store and all others in the country would be closed by February 2025.

“Yeah, its over for us at the end of January, all 69 stores are closing…I was 3 years with the company as SM for most of the time. It was the best work experience I’ve had in my life,” the post reads.

If that doesn’t sound like the GameStop employee experience you know, the user does also note that they haven’t been able to relate to stories they’ve read from U.S.-based employees, and that their experience of working with GameStop was “much more human” than what they’ve read U.S. employees go through.

When consoles began hosting their own digital platforms for people to buy games, anyone could see that physical discs were not going to hold the same weight they did in the industry as before.

That’s definitely still true, but physical media,- whether that’s games, music, or movies – haven’t lost their value. And specifically in games, publishers like Ubisoft are reminding players why it’s important to have physical copies of everything.

Not to mention the fact that GameStop shut down Game Informer earlier this year, ending the longest running U.S.-based print publication covering video games.

Sure, it’s easier to just buy a game and download it to your console, but collecting culture has shown across all kinds of media has shown that there will always be someone who wants to have something they can hold on to.

GameStop had the chance to be a tentpole within gaming culture and collecting culture, rather than the constant thorn in the side of everyone who just wanted to buy a video game or two.

No one will shed a tear or give second thought to the executives and ‘leaders’ who have driven GameStop to its death and killed any chance it had of actually mattering, but there will be those, like the store manager who shared the news about German stores on Reddit, who will miss the ideal that GameStop could have been.

Posted: Dec 06, 2024 11:27 am
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.psu.com/news/gamestop-is-reportedly-getting-out-of-germany-all-remaining-stores-to-close/