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GameStop did not respond to requests for comment. It closed at $225 on Monday, down 31 percent for the day.Ī company worth $1.3 billion on the stock market on New Year’s Eve was worth about $21 billion at the end of last week, roughly the same as Kellogg’s, the cereal maker, which, unlike GameStop, is solidly profitable. Although the company’s sales are declining and it is losing money, its stock, which closed at $325 Friday, was up over 1,600 percent in January alone, bid higher by a horde of online traders. That history makes the recent frenzy in the shares of GameStop all the more strange. GameStop’s stock more than doubled in 2007 because investors believed the good times wouldn’t end.īut, as with so many retail stars, GameStop began to struggle a decade or so ago as gamers, like everybody else, made more of their purchases on the internet, opting for downloaded games or two-day delivery over a visit to the mall. In the 2000s, this winning formula propelled the company to open thousands of stores around the world and make money hand over fist. They were the place where millions of young people could trade in used games, debate the merits of different franchises and get advice from GameStop’s staff, often avid gamers themselves. For many years, it didn’t matter that GameStop’s stores were a little grungy.