GameStop terminates CEO

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GameStop ousts CEO, names Ryan Cohen as executive chair​

"Billionaire investor Cohen, who made his name selling online pet products retailer Chewy for $3.5 billion in 2017, has been serving as GameStop chair since 2021. He is also a majority shareholder of the Texas-based company.

Cohen, according to people close to him, is very hands on with GameStop's operations and is a demanding boss. At first, Cohen pushed to transform GameStop into an e-commerce giant, but switched gears when online sales dropped and bet on their brick-and-mortar stores again.

He has shaken up GameStop's top management, hiring former Amazon employees such as former chief operating officer Jenna Owens and former financial chief Michael Recupero.

Owens left the company in October 2021, just seven months after joining while Recupero was terminated last year.

"It reflects the utter lack of strategy. They wanted to 'be like Amazon' and hired ... from Amazon in 2021," said Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities.

GameStop did not say why Furlong was terminated and did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment seeking details. Cohen and representatives also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cohen has been an investor in other retail-oriented companies including Bed Bath & Beyond, Alibaba and Nordstrom.

Pachter said Cohen "is incapable of running a retail operation...It's sort of like Elon Musk running Twitter".

At Bed Bath, he reached a settlement with the company last year for board seats, following which the home goods retailer's CEO Mark Tritton left the company. Cohen sold his Bed Bath shares in August, sending its stock price tumbling.

"While the 'meme traders' love Ryan Cohen, this is not plan 'A'. This (GameStop) is a business in decline and a Hail Mary pass for investors to count on Cohen to turn it around," said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital LLC.

GameStop on Wednesday posted its fourth consecutive fall in quarterly revenue and missed Wall Street estimates. It also posted a bigger-than-expected loss.

(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)"

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Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gamestop-terminates-matt-furlong-ceo-201435213.html
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
In other news, GameStop still exists. :p

Last I heard of them was 2 years ago during the WallStreeetBets short.

I would have thought they would have gone the way of Blockbuster by now.
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It was more like a WallStreetBets rally, as that is what screwed the short sellers by driving the price sky high..
 
I worked there 20 years ago, and it was by far a terrible place to work even back then. I was never more happy than the day i quit. All sorts of shady things went on there, I am suprised they have even lasted this long.
 
Lol I get the hate but they are under new management now. GameStop in the past was definitely going the way of blockbuster. Shorting criminals like ken griffin with citadel and Boston consulting group tried to kill the company. It didn't work and now there is a massive bill they are on the hook for shorting that they are trying to get out of by any means.

The CEO wasn't fired. His contract was up and he is most likely moving to a different position.

Ryan Cohen is the new sheriff in town. He is the largest individual investor in Apple. Made his fortune by building up chewy and selling. Dude knows what he is doing. They have no debt and $1.4 billion in cash now. It's a good buy even without the shorting drama. They are going big into web3.
 
westrock2000 said:
Why buy physical copies when you can pay the same amount for soft copy. Screw those local jobs, give all that money to data centers.
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It's usually the other way around:
  • Physical copies are often cheaper.
  • Can sell, trade-in, or borrow a physical copy of a game. Basically it's easily transferrable.
  • Generally can play physical copies offline.

Personally prefer physical over digital games when it comes to console gaming.
 
spaceman said:
Lol I get the hate but they are under new management now. GameStop in the past was definitely going the way of blockbuster. Shorting criminals like ken griffin with citadel and Boston consulting group tried to kill the company. It didn't work and now there is a massive bill they are on the hook for shorting that they are trying to get out of by any means.

The CEO wasn't fired. His contract was up and he is most likely moving to a different position.

Ryan Cohen is the new sheriff in town. He is the largest individual investor in Apple. Made his fortune by building up chewy and selling. Dude knows what he is doing. They have no debt and $1.4 billion in cash now. It's a good buy even without the shorting drama. They are going big into web3.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/gme_meltdown/
 
SPARTAN VI said:
  • Generally can play physical copies offline.
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Is there a digital download game on an xbox or ps5 that his not playable offline ? Quick google seem to indicate that both Xbox-Ps5 support offline gaming for downloaded games.

I would have imagined that with modern game and patch that physical copy are mostly a key to download the game.
 
By the time i end up selling a physical copy i only get 3-4bucks for it so really isn't worth it for me personally.
 
LukeTbk said:
Is there a digital download game on an xbox or ps5 that his not playable offline ? Quick google seem to indicate that both Xbox-Ps5 support offline gaming for downloaded games.

I would have imagined that with modern game and patch that physical copy are mostly a key to download the game.
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It's a bit nuanced, but I find some digital games like on my Switch and Steam Deck will try to phone home and refuse to launch in offline mode. There are work arounds in some cases, like setting up a WiFi hotspot on my phone to get going, but not always an option (e.g. when on a flight).

When it comes to home consoles (Xbox, Playstation) I don't really care about offline mode because I'm at home with a reliable Internet connection. In those cases, it's about the convenience and savings of buying/selling used copies or trading/borrowing games from friends.
 
I don't know anything about Mr Cohen or his qualifications for the job, but OTOH, at least they didn't hire Ron Johnson, so he could run them into the ground like he did at JC Penny, so there's that :)

I had a friend that worked for GameSlop years ago, and the shady stuff he used to tell me about their operations would make most people cry if they knew....

Examples:

A) Paying $2-5 for trade in games that weren't that old & maybe $40-60 for most hardware, then reselling it for 5-20x what they paid for it...
B) On a regular basis, they pulled hardware that wasn't selling quickly out of inventory, damaged it on purpose, claimed that the person who sold it to them had done something stupid, getting a full credit for it from the mfgr, and then reselling it as a "refurb" with a no return/no refund stipulation for yep, you guessed it, 5-20x what they paid for it...

And right before he quit, they started that crap about "you can't leave until/unless we search your bags/purses etc" but you MUST clock out as soon as your shift ends & just wait around until the mgr gets time to search you.... the same shit apple pulled a few years ago & got slapped by the NRLB & EEOC for :D
 
Honestly they should be B and M only.

Like Microcenter. Microcenter makes GOBS of cash because people want to have the experience of walking out the door that night with 3 grand in New hardware.
 
tangoseal said:
Honestly they should be B and M only.

Like Microcenter. Microcenter makes GOBS of cash because people want to have the experience of walking out the door that night with 3 grand in New hardware.
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No microcenter is successful by limiting the reach and footprint of their b and m stores as well as stocking a variety of products rairly carried in store and providing good prices. In addition to being a cool place to go and shop. A goliath like gamestop cant really alter itself and be like microcenter. Their only chance to maintain sucsess was to embrace and thrive in the online space. Which they failed to do. Que the death spiral and stock shenanigans.
 
dogDAbone said:
I don't know anything about Mr Cohen or his qualifications for the job, but OTOH, at least they didn't hire Ron Johnson, so he could run them into the ground like he did at JC Penny, so there's that :)
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The only thing you should know about him is that he has been pumping that hog to make it nice and fat for months now. And there's no reason to pump a hog nice and fat other than leading it to the slaughter.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
In other news, GameStop still exists. :p

Last I heard of them was 2 years ago during the WallStreeetBets short.

I would have thought they would have gone the way of Blockbuster by now.
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Nah, they will hang on for awhile longer. They have a decent bit of cash and not much debt, and the physical games market is still a thing even though it is shrinking, so they aren't in a "Oh shit we need to change or we are out of business in a month!" situation. They are likely to be a slow bleed and may end with a whimper rather than a bang. It is amazing how long some companies can cling to a failing business model before they truly die.

spaceman said:
Ryan Cohen is the new sheriff in town. He is the largest individual investor in Apple. Made his fortune by building up chewy and selling. Dude knows what he is doing. They have no debt and $1.4 billion in cash now. It's a good buy even without the shorting drama. They are going big into web3.
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GME kids needs to stop worshiping the ground he walks on. The guy is in it for himself and doesn't have some record as being some kind of amazing angel investor who saves all the shareholders who are fans. Ask the BBBY kids how all that worked out. I watched the tortured logic of how his buying and selling was some masterful stroke, how he didn't make a profit it all went to the company because of the rules on percentage of the trade and so on. Blah, blah, blah, hype, hype, hype and here we are, they are a dead company.

That aside if the selling point of why something will do good is that it will be "web3" that is a REAL bad sign. That's a buzzword that doesn't mean anything, hasn't gone anywhere, and is a good indication that whoever is behind something doesn't have a real concrete idea.

dogDAbone said:
A) Paying $2-5 for trade in games that weren't that old & maybe $40-60 for most hardware, then reselling it for 5-20x what they paid for it...
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That's why they are in trouble these days is because digital games are killing that. The real money they made was in the used market, not the new market (same as car dealers). Their margins on reselling used games was extremely high, which was great. Digital takes away not only their new sales, but their reselling as well.
 
Gme kids. Lol

I will respectfully say again to have a look at the situation. Especially the part about citadel and how much crime has been committed in regards to the market. This isn't just about GameStop. It's about market manipulation on an epic scale. The level of corruption is unprecedented. Damage done to the economy beyond your wildest imagination.

Doubts? Check the DD. Folks have been researching this situation for two years now and we have a lot of verified proof of criminal activity at all levels of business and government.

This isn't just a bunch of kids. It's a group including professionals of all types who believe that this is a good way to fight back against the corruption that is robbing us all of our future.
 
spaceman said:
Gme kids. Lol

I will respectfully say again to have a look at the situation. Especially the part about citadel and how much crime has been committed in regards to the market. This isn't just about GameStop. It's about market manipulation on an epic scale. The level of corruption is unprecedented. Damage done to the economy beyond your wildest imagination.

Doubts? Check the DD. Folks have been researching this situation for two years now and we have a lot of verified proof of criminal activity at all levels of business and government.

This isn't just a bunch of kids. It's a group including professionals of all types who believe that this is a good way to fight back against the corruption that is robbing us all of our future.
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I have and to me, it looks like, well, a bunch of chart barfs, conspiracy theories, and copium. It's gotten to near the point of a religion including dogma, evangelism, the philosophy that believers are fighting on the side of right against great evil, sacred rights (DRSing with a random Australian broker), a messiah (Cohen), and a promise of eternal salvation (the MOASS). In my opinion the squeeze already happened, some people made a lot of money on it, and those that missed it, or lost money getting in late, are now acting very cult-like and keep trying to convince themselves that no, this time it REALLY IS going to be the promised land, and then again when it doesn't happen.

The company itself has done nothing useful, they still have the same fundamental problem that they are in a dying market and unlike Target or Walmart, they aren't in other businesses that can just fill the games aisle as it shrinks. All their plans have been really stupid like getting in to the NFT market right as it collapsed, or partnering with FTX which looks to be not just a fraud, but an even bigger fraud than Enron.

As for all the Citadel shit, get over yourself. Let's take it as a given for the moment: That they have done damage on an epic scale, that there is criminals all through the business and government in on it, that it is some massive conspiracy: Fine, owning stock in Gamestop won't do shit about that. This is as silly, maybe even worse, than saying "I know this casino that is owned and run by the mob, they rig all the games so people never win big, and sometimes do even worse. But don't worry, I'm totally going to get rich gambling at their roulette table." If we accept your conspiracy as true, then owning a stock in a small company is going to do nothing to stop it, nor are you going to get rich from it.
 
Sycraft said:
I have and to me, it looks like, well, a bunch of chart barfs, conspiracy theories, and copium. It's gotten to near the point of a religion including dogma, evangelism, the philosophy that believers are fighting on the side of right against great evil, sacred rights (DRSing with a random Australian broker), a messiah (Cohen), and a promise of eternal salvation (the MOASS). In my opinion the squeeze already happened, some people made a lot of money on it, and those that missed it, or lost money getting in late, are now acting very cult-like and keep trying to convince themselves that no, this time it REALLY IS going to be the promised land, and then again when it doesn't happen.

The company itself has done nothing useful, they still have the same fundamental problem that they are in a dying market and unlike Target or Walmart, they aren't in other businesses that can just fill the games aisle as it shrinks. All their plans have been really stupid like getting in to the NFT market right as it collapsed, or partnering with FTX which looks to be not just a fraud, but an even bigger fraud than Enron.

As for all the Citadel shit, get over yourself. Let's take it as a given for the moment: That they have done damage on an epic scale, that there is criminals all through the business and government in on it, that it is some massive conspiracy: Fine, owning stock in Gamestop won't do shit about that. This is as silly, maybe even worse, than saying "I know this casino that is owned and run by the mob, they rig all the games so people never win big, and sometimes do even worse. But don't worry, I'm totally going to get rich gambling at their roulette table." If we accept your conspiracy as true, then owning a stock in a small company is going to do nothing to stop it, nor are you going to get rich from it.
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It seems you are the only one that has been paying attention. DeepFuckingValue got in, pumped the shit out of it, and got out. That was the end of the story, and everyone else has been breathing nothing but copium since. That man turned $53,000 into $34,473,000 in roughly 2 year and has not posted a single thing on all of Redditt since his last post in April 16th, 2021. Quite possibly the greatest pump and dump and get away with it in history.
 
ZeroBarrier said:
It seems you are the only one that has been paying attention. DeepFuckingValue got in, pumped the shit out of it, and got out. That was the end of the story, and everyone else has been breathing nothing but copium since. That man turned $53,000 into $34,473,000 in roughly 2 year and has not posted a single thing on all of Redditt since his last post in April 16th, 2021. Quite possibly the greatest pump and dump and get away with it in history.
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He wasn't the only one. He's the most visible as he was the guy evangelizing for the short squeeze but there are plenty of people, intuitional and retail, that made money on the short squeeze. However, for those to make money, people lost money. A fair bit of it was lost by big investors with short positions, but plenty was lost by retail too coming to the party late. The people who bought in, or bought more, at $300+ only to essentially fund others who decided to take profits and get out.
 
Starfalcon said:
I worked there 20 years ago, and it was by far a terrible place to work even back then. I was never more happy than the day i quit. All sorts of shady things went on there, I am suprised they have even lasted this long.
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Unsealing DVD/VHS, watch them at home, return them and sell them for new. The same for console games?
 
All right. You have your view and I understand your points. I could come to the same conclusions.

Not here to argue. Not my style.

My thought is that they sure do expend a lot off energy and money keeping the price level.....for whatever reason. Time will tell. Cheers.


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Jim Cramer


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@jimcramer


When asked about Gamestop i just say it is a controlled stock and not more than that. The haters know exactly what i mean


5:34 PM · Jul 6, 2022
 
The Mad Atheist said:
Unsealing DVD/VHS, watch them at home, return them and sell them for new. The same for console games?
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No way worse than that, although that happened too. The manager would steal a bunch of stuff, and every so often hire someone that he would blame and fire for said theft. They would also have people pay off games they reserved, then steal the $50 credit and tell them they never paid it off. On top of all that theft and other dishonest things there was having to work off the clock all the time. The store would run out of hours, so everyone there would have to punch out and keep working. Was told to do this by several district managers, was mainly due to the store manager only showing up for work 2 times a week although they were supposed to be there for 45+ hours.

Then there was all the return fraud, where they would keep peoples reciepts that paid cash then do a return after they left and pocketed the cash. Had one employee swapping peoples broken consoles for a new one for $100 cash, along with scratched up games for new ones for $20. There was plenty more going on, but thats what I remeber off the top of my head.
 
You need Hard copies I think it's why Walmart started selling LPs again and Record players.
I wouldn't even know how to turn GameStop around.
 
Comixbooks said:
You need Hard copies I think it's why Walmart started selling LPs again and Record players.
I wouldn't even know how to turn GameStop around.
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There's no turning it around at this point. The only logical path they could have taken was transition into an online digital game store front but they missed that boat long, long ago. Getting into that market is near impossible as evidenced by Epic pissing money into the wind by providing weekly free games just to keep users logging in.

GameStop is really no different than Blockbuster in this regard. They failed to see the writing on the wall and rested on their laurels while the industry marched on. Now they are for all intents and purposes, dead weight that isn't needed nor wanted in a post Steam, Microsoft Store and Playstation Store era. And that's not even mentioning other stores that you can purchase physical games at like BestBuy and even Amazon.
 
Gamestop could still exist by going all in on the gaming brand. Yeah, still be a game store for the major consoles, but also stock all those really amazing handheld PC mods and other, sketchier, emulation focused fan-made consoles. Obviously don't sell them with any roms, or act like they could have roms, but the profit margin on them is pretty high and I know that some of the makers would LOVE to be in physical stores. Same thing with a ton of the hardware mods for old consoles.
Also set up more demos, if you're gonna sell gamecube and wii games, show a gamecube hooked up through a retrotink on display next to one hooked up next to a less expensive option. Show, don't tell, what the difference is. Make Gamestop a better place to sell old hardware than ebay or swappa, etc. Hell, have a small book section for all those game novel spinoffs, Halo has like 30 books! Minecraft novels are always topping the kids most read lists!
Gamestop has the reach and the amount of storefronts to really make this happen. I loved it a few years ago when they bought ThinkGeek and the stores had more gaming merchandise, then that slowly faded away to nothing but a fuckton of funkopops no one cares about.

Stop treating your employees like crap!

Of course it'll never happen.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
As far as I am concerned, Gamestop are dicks, always have been dicks, and if they fail as a company, it couldn't happen to a more deserving company.
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1686621634264.png

pretty impressive 7+ Billion dollar company still
 
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and Ryan Cohen bought 440k shares on 6/9 for $22 and change cost average. Also, Roaring Kitty/DFV briefly mentioned a short squeeze but that really wasn't what his thesis was built on... Who knows if he sold. I don't think he did, likely lends shares for $$$$$
 
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