• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

[Rumor] Former GameStop employee warning that GameStop is doing mass closures, urging people to cancel preorders

Reader mode

Deleted member 3812

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,821
A YouTuber who goes by the name of CAMELOT331 who is a former employee of GameStop has posted this video reporting that mass closures of GameStop stores in the U.S is currently occurring and is urging everyone who pre-ordered games at GameStop to immediately go and cancel their preorders because if a GameStop closes, their store managers are allowed to cancel all preorders and put the amounts on gift cards and ship them to corporate meaning the person who pre-ordered can't get their money refunded (reported at 8:50 in the video):



 
Last edited:

reKon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,736
if true, nooooooooooo

I needed them to survive until the PS5 launch....

I have trade credit + console trade in to do...
 
CommodoreKong

CommodoreKong

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,710
If true it's surprising they weren't able to make it past the holiday season.

I'll take this with a grain of salt until there's more reports or it is officially announced.
 
nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,770
its their own fault for eating up every competitor and then keeping all those stores open despite having 4 locations in one small ass city
 
Zingela

Zingela

Member
Nov 2, 2017
67
KSweeley said:
their store managers are allowed to cancel all preorders and put the amounts on gift cards and ship them to corporate meaning the person who pre-ordered can't get their money refunded:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If it's the same process as a couple of years ago, they cancel out the preorders and manually move them to the nearest designated location. If a title is still available to order, it gets applied back to it. If it was something limited or sold out though, it's no longer guaranteed and the manager at the receiving store will have to pester corporate with product requests and hope some free up somewhere.
 
Saint-14

Saint-14

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
14,477
I don't buy it, if something this big was happening I'd think it would be already reported by some bigger media and not someone on YouTube.
 
Skid 4

Skid 4

Member
Jan 18, 2018
636
will miss the convenience of selling my console but, god damn did i always dread going in. good riddance.
 

Deleted member 12790

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
24,537
Soulflarz said:
googling funcoland for lols brought me to this, and i are VERY confused https://fictional-retail.fandom.com/wiki/Funcoland
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't quite understand what you're confused about? Funcoland was one of the first major used game stores back in the day. I remember my dad outright thought the newspaper ads was a joke because no way could you buy video games that cheap.

Going to funcoland was an amazing experience back in the day. NES games for $0.01. Ahhh, the good times.
 
SpaceCrystal

SpaceCrystal

Banned
Apr 1, 2019
7,714
nsilvias said:
It's their own fault for eating up every competitor and then keeping all those stores open despite having 4 locations in one small ass city
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This. It's Blockbuster Video all over again, in which they ran off all of the mom & pop video stores out of business & were invincible until Netflix came along (then Redbox) & took away their business.
 
Last edited:
Professor RAWR

Professor RAWR

Member
Jul 26, 2018
2,386
Is this what caused my Cyberpunk 2077 CE preorder to be canceled all the sudden? Just boop... disappeared off my orders.

This was a while ago though.
 

CanUKlehead

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,404
I want to say Gamestation in the UK did something like this?

Man, I could feel their desperation when they tried to convince me not to cancel my Vita preorder.
 

Deleted member 17676

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,454
nsilvias said:
its their own fault for eating up every competitor and then keeping all those stores open despite having 4 locations in one small ass city
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If they hadn't eaten up their competitors they would have been out of business now regardless.

Running a game store is not profitable unless you add retro section. Less people are trading in than ever and more people are buying digital. Then you have the online stores being cheaper because they have less overheads. Then you have the likes of Walmart who sell games too, but that's not their primary business. Selling games as a primary business is just tough to do in this era.

It's a similar situation here in the UK with GAME. They been on the brink for years and just about survived. Even some online retailers over here like ShopTo are now focusing on selling digital cards.

Its sad that they won't be able to last another year for the console launches because it should boost them. Also nothing beats a midnight console launch.
 
Vern

Vern

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,097
Wouldn't a publicly traded company need to report something like mass closures to their shareholders?
 
Reinhard

Reinhard

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,603
Gamestop will be far better off closing at least half of its stores, there is always like 3 or 4 of them really close to each other. I assume most preorders will be moved to nearby stores that aren't closing, although I imagine people who ordered limited editions will be screwed. I have no idea what the guy is taking about about sending gift cards to corporate...
 
The Bear

The Bear

Forest Animal
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
4,195
Saint-14 said:
I don't buy it, if something this big was happening I'd think it would be already reported by some bigger media and not someone on YouTube.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

There's at least been lots of reports of Gamestop exiting northern europe as a whole, so I would 't be surprised if this ended up being true as well.
 
JoJoBae

JoJoBae

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,493
Layton, UT
Vern said:
Wouldn't a publicly traded company need to report something like mass closures to their shareholders?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
At the next shareholder meeting, sure. Until then? No. It's covered in vague language from the previous one. "continue to work towards improving... etc etc blah blah"

As much as I dislike GameStop on the whole this blows. There are only a couple other mom and pop places by me but only one of them has prices that aren't higher than GS. And they mainly cater to stuff from a couple gens back or farther. Not so much current/last gen stuff.
 

reKon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,736
Making a list of PS4 and Switch exclusives to order in the next couple of weeks.

There's still going to be Game Stop sales during the month right? I'm not spending $60 of credit on something that's cheap at target and Best Buy..
 
Vern

Vern

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,097
JoJoBae said:
At the next shareholder meeting, sure. Until then? No. It's covered in vague language from the previous one. "continue to work towards improving... etc etc blah blah"

As much as I dislike GameStop on the whole this blows. There are only a couple other mom and pop places by me but only one of them has prices that aren't higher than GS. And they mainly cater to stuff from a couple gens back or farther. Not so much current/last gen stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well has anyone looked outside then and seen a bunch of GameStops closing?
 
Dragonyeuw

Dragonyeuw

Member
Nov 4, 2017
4,372
KSweeley said:
Snip- if a GameStop closes, their store managers are allowed to cancel all preorders and put the amounts on gift cards and ship them to corporate meaning the person who pre-ordered can't get their money refunded
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Jesus. I'm not familiar with consumer protection laws in the US but surely they can't get away with doing that?!
 
Soulflarz

Soulflarz

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,807
Krejlooc said:
I don't quite understand what you're confused about? Funcoland was one of the first major used game stores back in the day. I remember my dad outright thought the newspaper ads was a joke because no way could you buy video games that cheap.

Going to funcoland was an amazing experience back in the day. NES games for $0.01. Ahhh, the good times.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What the hell is the site i found LOL
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
matrixman92 said:
I thought when a store closes the preorders just get transferred to the next nearest store
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I used to work for Gamestop and this is exactly how we handled our pre-orders when the store I was was working at closed. We transferred them to the closest location. I'm not sure if what this guy in the youtube vid is saying is true or not with his experience.
 

shark97

Banned
Nov 7, 2017
5,327
I mean, if you have a PREORDER AT GAMESTOP IN 2019, ya know, what did you expect. I havent pre order at a gamestop in probably a decade.

It never made sense even before digital was a big thing. I quickly figured out you could just walk in Wal mart electronics at 12 midnight and get the same game with no preorder or fuss (might not apply to niche titles, but I wasn't buying those). and wal mart would even usually throw in some preorder bonus trinkets i didn't care about, remember getting a beanie with halo, some posters etc.

I also remember a gamestop employee once telling me that if I didn't preorder, I might not be able to get a copy at launch. I knew it was the silliest thing, as again, I knew I could just walk into WM and get the game anytime. This again was not some niche title.
 
J_ToSaveTheDay

J_ToSaveTheDay

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
18,819
USA
I do feel like GameStop does eventually close up every store but I think if this is going down, it's not going to be big enough closures to erase GameStop from most people's maps (in the US). It'll just cut down on any redundancy they have. And that probably means down to just 1 or 2 GameStops in any given city.

I think GameStop will survive through the first couple of years of next gen, but some folks may have to drive further to get to one (and that will only help kill them off completely later).
 
CommodoreKong

CommodoreKong

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,710
shark97 said:
I mean, if you have a PREORDER AT GAMESTOP IN 2019, ya know, what did you expect. I havent pre order at a gamestop in probably a decade.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Most people who buy from Gamestop are probably very casual gamers at most and probably aren't aware of their financial issues like someone would be who posts on an enthusiast game forum.
 
Reader mode
You must log in or register to reply here.