GameStop has been on a wild journey since it reached meme stock status, and the company has recently been venturing into Web3 technologies like NFT and crypto. More recently, he has also been firing employees without much explanation. On Thursday, GameStop internally announced an unspecified number of layoffs (including some from the popular Game Informer publication) and publicly revealed that it has fired its chief financial officer with a concise press release.
GameStop CEO Matt Furlong announced the round of layoffs to staff in a note obtained by CNBC and Kotaku. It is not entirely clear how many people are affected or in which divisions, although Furlong writes in the note that “we are making a series of reductions to help us keep things simple and operate nimbly with the right talent.” According to Kotaku, the layoffs “appear” to be centered at the company’s headquarters in Grapevine, Texas.
While the cryptocurrency isn’t so ready right now, it seems as if GameStop is betting part of its future on its blockchain group; is mentioned in the first line of Furlong’s note:
Change will be a constant as we evolve our business and launch new products through our blockchain group. Having invested heavily in personnel, technology, inventory and supply chain infrastructure over the past 18 months, our goal is to achieve sustained profitability. This means eliminating excess costs and operating with an intense homeowner mentality.
GameStop also says it’s making a “significant investment” in its store employees, indicating it still believes its retail stores are important, too. “These people are, in many ways, the heart of GameStop,” Furlong wrote. “We will share details about this investment in the coming weeks.”
The company publicly announced the “completion of the job” of CFO Michael Recupero. He will be replaced by Diana Saadeh-Jajeh, who was the company’s accounting director.
According to Axios, the layoffs have also affected Game Informer, which is owned by the video game retailer, although it is unclear how many people were affected. Some staff tweets are not positive.