About Gamestop
Gamestop is an American retailer specializing in selling consumer electronics, video games, and related merchandise. The company, which has its headquarters in Grapevine, Texas, was founded in 1984 and quickly became the largest video game retailer in the US.
Initially named Babbage’s, the company changed its name to Gamestop in 1999 and 5 years later started expanding outside the US into Canada, Australia, Europe, and Africa.
Between 2005 and 2016, Gamestop had its most successful years. During this period, the company’s earnings grew, reaching almost 3.6 billion Q4 of 2015. Gamestop also acquired other companies to expand, both nationally and internationally.
In 2016, the company started seeing a decline in sales due to increased online video game sales. The company also suffered terribly during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when it had to close all of its stores between March and May 2020.
Currently, the company still operates over 4,800 stores worldwide.
In May 2021, the company announced that it was working on an NFT platform on the Ethereum blockchain technology. Through this, Gamestop plans to reinvent itself as a company.
Gamestop stock
Gamestop trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker GME. Gamestop became a publicly-traded company in 2002, and since then, its stock price has had a lot of ups and downs.
In 2002, GME stock price was a little under $10, and it constantly grew, reaching an all-time high of around $60 in early 2008, during the company’s incredible growth period. In just 4 years, the stock devalued by more than 300%, to $17.4. One year later, GME stock price peaked again, at around $52, before beginning a slow but steady decline.
January 2021 short-squeeze
In early January 2021, GME was trading at around $10 before surging by more than 1,500% because of a short squeeze. In just two weeks, GME reached an all-time intraday high of $483. The surge was attributed to the coordinated efforts of a Reddit community called WallStreetBets.