GameStop was originally known as being a clean, well lit retailer that sold new and used games together as well as consoles, accessories, and general merch. Th

GameStop was originally known as being a clean, well lit retailer that sold new and used games together as well as consoles, accessories, and general merch. Their staff was young, friendly, and knew about their products. This recipe lead to them expanding quickly, often nudging out other regional/local game stores. Unfortunately, during this time period they also began some pretty annoying practices. They started pushing magazine subscriptions and club memberships with every sale. Same with extended warranties. The checkout process was awful. At the same time, complaints about how management was treating the staff started coming in. What really hit the nail on the GameStop coffin was digital downloads. Since PS4/Xbox One generation the consoles have had large enough hard drives and fast enough network connections to buy and download games from the internet. This began to cut into physical game sales. With the latest generation you have to pay extra money to have a disk drive, and the consoles have low cost subscriptions that include a access to a healthy library of games. These all hurt sales, and GameStop isn't in a position to replace those sales with anything else.