GameStop is collapsing, and it’s not the sales’ fault

GameStop has come under fire again for firing a store manager after $5,000 worth of PlayStation 5s were stolen from his store. The exact reason for the dismissal was not disclosed, but it is believed that the trigger for the theft was a lack of personnel, which would have incentivized the bad guys to take action.

The employee present in the shop was in fact alone when the robbers pointed a gun at him, and this was mostly due to the continuous waves of layoffs throughout the American territory (and beyond) and to the cuts in shifts, which thus leave the points sale increasingly vulnerable to the eyes of offenders.

After firing the manager, several branch employees called a strike. Bottom line, the shop was closed with a note for customers left at the entrance. “GameStop overworks and underpays!” she recited. “They don’t give a damn about the employees! I’m leaving! Power to the Players,” he concluded, quoting the company’s slogan. This ex-employee’s anger is the same as many others who used to work there, complaining of similar issues.

GameStop Metrics —

On the GameStop subreddit it is full of similar tales. There are people who were promised promotions and had their hours cut. A nineteen-year-old new recruit has been left alone to run a shop without proper training. And someone who was told there were no more hours left for him was denied unemployment because the company claims he resigned.

The subreddit is clearly a sounding board for angry employees. Some ask others for recommendations, others complain about customers, but most complaints are reserved for executives. They all revolve around the focus on the company’s numbers, the fact that the only thing that really matters are sales and not the well-being of the people who work there. Employees try to build trust with customers in hopes that they will come back, but GameStop pushes them to bully them into placing some product they don’t really want.

One of these metrics is the conversion rate, the number of people who enter a store compared to the number of people who make a purchase. Employees obviously have no power over this parameter and it is not uncommon for groups of people to enter a store to make a single purchase. There are also those who browse the shelves and come back later to buy something. But these people hurt the salespeople, since GameStop only wants people to enter its stores if they want to make a purchase.

The testimonials —

GameStop offers below average hourly wages in the US and is notorious for cutting hours at short notice, yet it still manages to attract gamers who want to work in gaming every day and interact with people who want to buy them. Apparently, however, this is no longer enough, as many are celebrating their “promotion to customer”, i.e. they are leaving. The other employees, former and current, of GameStop congratulate those who make this decision on social media.

But it’s not just stuffy metrics, low pay, and bare-bones hours that are forcing employees to leave. There are some who genuinely fear for their lives in an effort to protect the shop they work at or else they will suffer the wrath of GameStop. In comments on Reddit, a former employee recounts how he was pulled at a gun during a robbery in 2013. When his superiors arrived, instead of asking how he was doing, they gave him a form to sign stating that he could be held responsible for the theft. Speaking of the incident, he says that “I hate them more than the guy who put a gun to my back.”

Another talks about how he was left alone in a store while someone pointed a gun at him and stole most of the cash from a cash register. He didn’t make the morning deposit because there was only $4 left, instead including it in the end of day deposit. At which a loss prevention manager arrived and lectured him for not depositing the company’s money. Apparently, he was more concerned about the $4 than the safety of his employees.

A matter of survival —

The last example we want to highlight is that of a female employee who was being harassed by a customer. The man sent her disgusting messages on her social networks and went to the shop just to look at her. The employee reached her breaking point when her car was broken into to steal the personal items inside her. After this incident, she reported the person to the police and obtained a restraining order. Since then, her work hours have been cut and her supervisors refuse to talk to her, with the exception of a disturbing meeting to discuss “big changes.”

GameStop’s profits plummeted, so much so that even investors began short selling against the company. Many have jumped on the meme about stock prices skyrocketing to levels not seen in recent years, but that joke is long gone. Working with video games is something exciting, but there are those who are exploiting that enthusiasm and, at the same time, are sucking it completely. High employee turnover is the death knell of a dying business, but treating employees like humans rather than robots programmed to make money would be the first step to (however difficult) survival.

Written by Georgina Young for GLHF

February 12, 2023 – 11:58

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