Over 120 GameStop Corporate Employees Laid Off to "Reduce Costs"

GameStop has laid off a number of its employees in an ongoing initiative to change up its business model. This includes both corporate staff, as well as employees of the gaming magazine Game Informer, which GameStop publishes.

News started to break as Game Informer employees started taking to Twitter to announce being laid off. Staffers including managing editor Matt Bertz, senior editor Imran Khan, senior associate editor Kyle Hilliard, and a number of others all received notice today. In replies to each other, some employees didn't seem to know whether others were being laid off or not. Editor-in-chief Andy McNamara put a statement out to Twitter:

This was just one part of the larger whole, though. GameStop confirmed to IGN that it had laid off over 120 corporate employees, effectively 14% of its total workforce at the company headquarters, as well as other offices. GameStop provided a statement:

"As part of the previously announced GameStop Reboot initiative to transform our business for the future and improve our financial performance, we can confirm a workforce reduction was implemented impacting more than 120 corporate staff positions, representing approximately 14% of our total associate base at our company headquarters as well as at some other offices.

"While these changes are difficult, they were necessary to reduce costs and better align the organization with our efforts to optimize the business to meet our future objectives and success factors. We recognize that this is a difficult day for our company and particularly for those associates impacted. We appreciate their dedication and service to GameStop and are committed to supporting them during this time of transition."

The physical retailer has fallen on hard times. It was looking for a buyer in June 2018, but later confirmed it had terminated efforts to find one due to a "lack of available financing terms that would be commercially acceptable to a prospective acquirer." The company has instead turned to retooling its retail presence, which would include retro and esports-themed locations.