GameStop announced that it is closing over 300 stores this year. These closures are part of their continued efforts to "de-densify" and was announced during the latest earnings call for the dying gaming focused retailer. Last fiscal year, the company revealed that they closed 321 stores. This brought their total number of locations to 5,500 storefronts. This year, GameStop's CEO George Sherman says that they have plans to match or possibly exceed last year's total number of permanent store closures.
This was an expected result when GameStop fought tooth and nail to remain open as an "essential" retailer during this coronavirus pandemic. The company kept their doors open for the release day launches of both DOOM Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, forced the closure of GameStop locations despite their claims to be an essential retailer. One day later on March 22, which happened to come after the launch events for Doom and Animal Crossing were finished, GameStop went ahead and closed all of their locations.
The decision to permanently close over 300 stores was almost certainly not made overnight. The earnings call says that store sales increased 2% for March 2020 compared to March 2019. However, for the entire fiscal year, revenues were down 22% to $6.47 billion. This all culminated in a net loss of $470.9 million for the year. This really seems to suggest that corporate knew these permanent closures were going to happen regardless of the launch events they forced their stores to remain open for.
In addition to permanently shutting down locations in 2020, GameStop plans to boost their GameInformer asset by adding "interactive digital media." It was not made clear what this actually means. They are also continuing to look at new revenue opportunities. The company also says that they have already "began testing digital revenue sharing with key partners."
