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The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. While people were doing the GME to the moon, GameStop made more s

The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. While people were doing the GME to the moon, GameStop made more shares to sell, and paid off a bit of its debts, I think it made about a billion dollars in profit, they're still struggling, but it helped prolong their life. A friend of mine also pointed out and this made it click for me that it makes 100% sense, GameStop is setup as a legal pawnshop in every state. So a pawnshop buying out eBay makes insane sense. This merger in theory could be good for both eBay and GameStop if they don't mess it up. Imagine being able to list your eBay items locally without having to have people needing to come to your house, or better yet, getting a cut of what you wanted up front since they're basically a pawn shop, and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available. I could see this working out decently, assuming the CEO of GameStop doesn't mess it up completely.

dgellow 6mo ago
I thought the point of eBay was to get rid of that middleman. Wouldn’t that be something eBay would have done at some point if they wanted to own a pawnshop? Not saying that cannot work but that doesn’t sound like a genius idea
- metalliqaz 6mo ago
  Yes, exactly. In fact there were some ebay "helper" companies that made a go of it in the early 2000's. They went out of business because it doesn't add enough value. USPS created Media Mail and flat rate boxes, and UPS stores are found in nearly every community. They handle the hard part (shipping) well enough. The only thing I can think of is Gamestop positioning to become a clearing house for fan swag or gaming items the way Woot is for Amazon overstock.
  - happyopossum 6mo ago
    > USPS created Media Mail Umm, that’s been around since 1938, which is a few years before the era you’re talking about…
    - Scoundreller 6mo ago
      Amazon probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for USPS subsidizing media mail
  - coredog64 6mo ago
    There's one of these near me in a shopping center with terminally low rents. I think the additional value add for these places is that a) they can help you price the item to move and b) they can wade through eBay support if things go wrong.
    - coffeebeqn 6mo ago
      That sounds like a very low value add. So you’ll have some teenagers clicking on the eBay portal for me like I’ve never used a computer before?
      - TheGRS 6mo ago
        I think the value is in not having to mess with scammers and people who make eBay difficult to interact with (i.e. those who game the system).
  - radlad 6mo ago
    I remember one of these shops all the way back in the late 2000s. At the time I was confused about whether it was operated by eBay or a third party. It did not last long.
    - Barbing 6mo ago
      iSOLD It on eBay apparently still has listings out of Pasadena, California https://www.i-soldit.com/listings/ https://www.i-soldit.com/listings/
    - Apocryphon 6mo ago
      Memorialized: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsFEhHLlHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsFEhHLlHA
  - iwontberude 6mo ago
    It disgusts me how eBay sellers abuse the US Post Office by stealing supplies. It’s one way to guarantee I never buy from someone again.
    - cj 6mo ago
      USPS is the only storefront I can think of that allows you to walk in, grab an unlimited amount of boxes/supplies, and walk out with no questions asked. They will even deliver boxes to your front door, for free, by simply submitting a form online. It's so easy, I'm not at all surprised that it's occasionally abused.
      - Scoundreller 6mo ago
        FedEx used to send anyone big boxes of free bubble mailers
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - Barbing 6mo ago
      Then have to waste time to politely educate the sellers… They wrap up the free priority mail flat rate boxes to obscure markings to send them with a cheaper service. So they know should they’re naughty but might not realize it’s reached the level of a crime, perhaps. Definitely didn’t realize they’d have customers who don’t like stealing from themselves (taxpayers)
      - trollbridge 6mo ago
        It’s a federal crime the the post office periodically investigates. You get offered to pay USPS’s estimate of the amount of postage you stole, or else face a criminal trial. FedEx and UPS will report priority Mail boxes to USPS as well.
  - CamperBob2 6mo ago
    Yes, exactly. In fact there were some ebay "helper" companies that made a go of it in the early 2000's. They went out of business because it doesn't add enough value It didn't add enough value back then, but IMHO it does now. Selling on eBay is a massive hassle these days for a variety of reasons, and much less profitable for onesy-twosy transactions than it used to be. If I could just drop off a bunch of stuff at my local GameStop and forget about it until the checks arrive in the mail... yeah, there's definitely a business model there.
    - bombcar 6mo ago
      They’re called consignment stores and some have an online component (which can involve eBay or other similar marketplaces).
      - CamperBob2 6mo ago
        Yes, consignment stores have existed for a long time, but they aren't generally functional interfaces to eBay. If you want your stuff to sit on a shelf for the next few years, a consignment store is OK, I suppose. When I sell something, I usually want the item gone ASAP in exchange for a modest amount of money.
        dawnerd 6mo ago
        There’s a ton of eBay sellers doing consignment, usually for friends that just want to sell things but I’ve seen some much larger operations selling pallets worth of goods from stores not large enough to wholesale or liquidate.
        bombcar 6mo ago
        Yep, watching the store/usernames of sellers can be instructive (many thrift stores, pawn shops, consignment stores, and others list things on eBay, especially for fixed price). One of the reasons to refund an order is “already sold in-person”.
- spaqin 6mo ago
  Over time, eBay has become the middleman - with international shipping centres, basically escrow service with buyer protection, and rather high fees for promotion and of course, the actual sale. No middleman is something like Craigslist or FB Marketplace.
  - BizarroLand 6mo ago
    eBay has also started doing strongarm middleman things as well. If you list an item, it strongly "suggests" a price. Sounds innocuous, right? However, when every seller knows they would be stupid to list a product for less than the suggested price, that means that eBay is enacting a collusion process on their sellers to regulate prices for products sold on their platform. I don't think this is illegal in any way, but it is bad for the buyers as it decreases the chance that they will get lucky with a purchase and ensures that all purchasers on the platform spend as much as they can afford to spend. Next, as a seller, eBay presents you with an option to "promote" your product, for a fairly significant percentage of eBay's suggested sell price. (Last time I tried to sell something, they wanted $9.99 to promote an item expected to sell for ~$150, for instance). If you do not "promote" your item, then it is thrown to the bottom of the listing and may be filtered out when purchasers sort by "price low to high" as they often do. I chose not to promote my item as I was just getting rid of it, (brand new OEM toner for a printer that normally sells for $200) and it got almost no views and ended up selling for $40, of which ebay took $7.50 for their cut. I checked the other solds for the same product and mine was the lowest sold by almost $100 all seemingly because I didn't pay the racketeer price upfront. I didn't care about the money, I was just getting rid of it, and ebay punished me for not playing ball their way while also losing out on their profits just to make a point with me. If you don't eBay the ebay way you will suffer for it. Speaking of which, eBay has started changing the number of results based on your search filtering, preventing purchasers from finding the specific thing they are looking for in exchange for something that is often more expensive and not quite right. Try it yourself. Search for something very specific and then change your filters and see the number of available items increases and decreases based on how you search. I honestly would not be surprised if they were hiding the unpromoted less expensive more accurate item you are searching for from you in the expectation of inducing you to buy the more expensive item in the process. Why would eBay do this? They make more money. It's pure enshittification. They charge the sellers to promote. They set the prices. They charge an insane percentage, something like 15-20% of the final sell price to the sellers, and they have made the platform hostile to its original purpose of being a bazaar for ordinary people to sell their old stuff to people that might want them. Of course, they are still seller hostile, they protect fraudsters who buy expensive items and claim they are fakes or broken and return bricks, and they have strongarmed their customers into arbitration agreements in an attempt to prevent anyone from suing them to stop their anti-consumer practices.
- antasvara 6mo ago
  I think the difference is that GameStop already has this network of pawn shops, and those stores are doing enough business to justify their existence (at least somewhat; GameStop wasn't doing great before all the craziness). I could see something like the UPS kiosk in my local Walmart working; if you offered eBay returns at GameStop stores, you would be adding revenue without needing to justify an entire store to it like eBay would have needed to. There's also the synergy that GameStop now has access to more used gaming inventory, a category that I'm led to believe is high margin for the stores.
  - turtlesdown11 6mo ago
    > GameStop already has this network of pawn shops, and those stores are doing enough business to justify their existence Gamestop closed 2,400 stores from 2020 to present, and operates just 2,200 stores currently. They'll continue to close stores as their revenue continues to shrink (down 60% in the last decade). >used gaming inventory physical used game inventory is a fraction of what it was a decade ago, and continues to shrink as a category, digital sales continue to climb and exclude Gamestop
    - iinnPP 6mo ago
      It's reasonable to predict that as physical media is phased out by the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, that the value of offline capable inventory will shift to an investment instead of a liability. Increasing their percent cut as a result.
      - turtlesdown11 6mo ago
        Their margin was highest on used physical media, which continues to plummet. Physical sales are down from $13b in 2015 to $1.5b in 2025, while total sales of physical + digital went from $23.5b in 2015 to $60b in 2025. Physical media is a tiny fraction of current game sales, even if their margin skyrockets, they're stuck in a tiny kid pool of potential sales.
        6mo ago
dangus 6mo ago
The part you’re almost touching on but not directly mentioning is the trading card and collectible marketplace. GameStop would probably be gone by now despite the meme stock if it wasn’t for trading card games and other similar collectibles, and eBay is very involved in that market.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  [dead]
pjc50 6mo ago
> and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available Sort of wondering why nobody did this already. I know that the better charity shops do this with rare and unusual books/records. The UK equivalent CeX has an online offering through webuy.com, which appears to be a Chinese owned multinational.
- knowaveragejoe 6mo ago
  This is called consignment and is an industry unto itself, usually for antiques since you need a lot of space. You give them your goods and they sell them. You get a cut if they actually sell. I'm surprised nobody has really mentioned this in the thread. Does anybody remember the "trade in anything" day GameStop just had? https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/12/08/gamestop-trade-anything-day-bobcat-goose-trade/87669769007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/12/08/gamestop-tra... Obviously they're going to need to liquidate a lot of this stuff. It can be quite lucrative if done right. You're basically getting inventory for free.
  - ryandrake 6mo ago
    Consignment doesn't offer the seller a very good monetary deal, though. They're essentially a junk hauler that might pay you a few bucks. We all have that pile of old computer components that we could probably sell piece by piece for $400 on eBay, $200 on Craigslist/FB Marketplace, $100 at a yard sale, and maybe if you're lucky a consignment place will give you a $40 for it all.
    - cruffle_duffle 6mo ago
      I mean $40 if you are lucky or goodwill. You could get more selling it “proper” but the transaction cost of it is super not worth it (for me). When I want something out of my house, I want it out of my fucking house. Listing it on Craigslist means I have to babysit it, handle questions, but worse… the fucking thing is still in my house!. And I was over that, whatever the fuck it was, like… a week ago. Now it’s just sitting there in my life cluttering it up. Better take to the garbage or goodwill. Then it’s gone! At least with a consignment shop I will hopefully get something out of the deal.
shmatt 6mo ago
eBay is dying, new competitors are being created constantly, and the big ones like Poshmark are getting more North American buyers and sellers. eBay has barely grown since their post covid slump Maybe eBay survives as an international site but even at that point, with $20B in debt this will just follow the regular PE playbook of shutting down after many layoffs and pivots The entire concept of, "I have $1,000 in the bank, im going to buy a $10,000 company, but the debt will be on the companies name, not mine" needs to pass. Can you imagine if the mortgage was owned by our home, not ourselves. And we could stop paying it without any personal consequences If you want to buy a $50B company, you should pay $50B (loans are fine, but not putting the new company in debt)
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- cjbgkagh 6mo ago
  As a side effect of bailing out banks they have a lower risk profile than entities that don’t get bailouts. It’s essentially an additional subsidy on top of the already generous ‘money creation’ they’re allowed to do. It’s impossible to compete against this. The riskier the bets the stronger the subsidy so of course they’ll crank risk up to 11. Since the fate of banks and pensions are tied you can’t punish the banks without also punishing pensioners and pensioners are a strong voting block. It’s a distorted economic system that can only either crash or become more distorted. Since becoming more distorted enriches the already wealthy then that’s the only option that will be taken. The only thing that can stop it is to run out of resources to spend trying to save it. Importing a large number of foreigners is a rather creative (desperate) solution. I don’t know how long this will last but I’m confident I will see a major economic calamity in my lifetime.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- dingaling 6mo ago
  > Maybe eBay survives as an international site I don't really know what alternative there is to eBay as an 'everything shop'. I can get specific screws there, or diff fluid, or a customised motorhome name sticker, or an old baseball cap for an airshow I attended in 2008. And if I bought the wrong diff fluid I can sell it. The main value over Amazon, though, is that the search works.
rahimnathwani 6mo ago
"I think it made about a billion dollars in profit" It raised over a billion dollars of capital (i.e. issued shares in return for cash). It did not make a billion dollars in profit (and has never had a year when it did).
- whamlastxmas 6mo ago
  The TLDR for people who don't intuitively understand why: existing shareholders are diluting their stake in the company by issuing new shares and getting money for those new shares. It's simply selling part of the company. Not profit.
  - intuitionist 6mo ago
    Worth also pointing out though that if you can sell new shares above intrinsic value that is accretive to existing shareholders. Dilution isn’t always a bad word. (It’s bad for the people buying new shares.)
    - skrbjc 6mo ago
      Basically a ponzi at that point
      - gruez 6mo ago
        Bubble? Yes. Ponzi? No. The latter requires some element of deception/fraud. Strategy Inc. (formerly MicroStrategy) was basically something similar. They had $x worth of bitcoin in a vault, but were selling themselves for $2x.
        arcticbull 6mo ago
        Well they are raising capital to hand out in dividends on their preferred stock. So that's much closer.
    - CobrastanJorji 6mo ago
jnellis 6mo ago
Was this not lampooned directly in "40 Year Old Virgin" where a young Jonah Hill tries to buy some disco boots at an ebay store but can't because you have to go through the website.
- radlad 6mo ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGxRg5I7r5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGxRg5I7r5s
kingleopold 6mo ago
GME moon and all that in 2021 was financial engineering and mass media coordinated BS btw. they were all reporting it in same week with never seen details, with creating BS narratives. but you all consume and believe the details of it? good work by the engineers, nothing more. Same for FAANG BS, ZIRP BS writing made by millions of bots online. Even before llms
- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6mo ago
  People want to believe a 'cool' story, not that they got duped.
jeffwask 6mo ago
It creates the "Ebay Store" from the 40-year-old virgin makes sense if you look at it that way.
turtlesdown11 6mo ago
> I could see this working out decently, assuming the CEO of GameStop doesn't mess it up completely. So far he's failed to improve Gamestop's core business, which is still in decline, even with the memestock cash gusher. No one goes into Gamestop anymore, and they won't start because of eBay.
- Hilliard_Ohiooo 6mo ago
  Just bought a used switch there yesterday, 2 guys are selling or trading some kind of game card, kid and his dad getting a PS4... Like you say, no one goes to game stop anymore, it's too crowded ;)
  - turtlesdown11 6mo ago
    >Like you say, no one goes to game stop anymore, it's too crowded Must be why it's revenue is declining to it's historic 2006 level, because it's just too busy. net sales 2016 $8.6b, 2025 $3.5b and still in decline
    - Scoundreller 6mo ago
      eBay isn’t doing much better. Revenue Peaked in 2014. Basically treading water. Last real growth was late 2000s.
crazygringo 6mo ago
> GameStop is setup as a legal pawnshop in every state. So a pawnshop buying out eBay makes insane sense. It doesn't though. eBay could easily set itself up as a legal pawnshop in every state if it wanted to. It doesn't because there's no advantage to doing so. There are already third-party sellers in many areas who will take your physical merchandise and sell it on eBay in exchange for a cut. eBay doesn't need to enter that market, it's simply not profitable enough.
- hnav 6mo ago
  There's friction though, if the process is under one roof end-to-end, ebay can take 30-40% (15-20% today) of every transaction by just letting you dump your old stuff. Might even eat FB marketplace and CL.
  - delfinom 6mo ago
    People trying to sell their used junk aren't going to accept a 30-40% cut. It's why they aren't using eBay these days in the first place.
    - hnav 6mo ago
      Not exactly, the biggest annoyance with eBay (in my experience) is dealing with shipping, disputes and returns. If I could recover even 50% of the value of unused items without dealing with the ridiculousness of p2p transactions (flakes, tire-kickers, scammers) I'd do it in a heartbeat.
      - digitaltrees 6mo ago
        Exactly this
      - noprocrasted 6mo ago
        Don't pawn shops already solve this problem? Make your way there, dump your stuff, get peanuts for it in exchange (but might still be worth it if you truly don't need said stuff).
chirau 6mo ago
The picture that comes to mind when i picture a GameStop/Ebay merger is that woman's store in 'The 40 Year Old Virgin'.
jancsika 6mo ago
> The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. IIRC, the short (borrowing stock, selling high, waiting for a downtrend, then buying low to pay back the borrowed stock buy an agreed date) was accelerating the fall of GameStop's stock price. Then some Reddit knuckleheads noticed the hedge fund shorting GameStop was over-leveraged. They also found the deadline the hedge fund had to repay those shares to the bank. The knuckleheads pumped the stock. Technical term: I like the stonk. The knuckleheads then bought and held GameStop stonks. Institutional investors joined in. The hedge fund was legally obligated to pay any price to buy back the shares necessary to pay back the loan by the deadline. So the longer everyone else held on to the stonk, the more the hedge fund would be forced to pay. Squeezing the hedge fund in this way caused the stonks' price to temporarily skyrocket. Technical terms: hodl and rocket emoji The original Reddit knuckleheads eventually stopped hodl'ing and sold high. IIRC the hedge fund eventually went under. Unfortunately, like all things, the knuckliest of Reddit heads would keep hodl'ing all the way back to the ground[1], hoping to cargo cult another squeeze by building wooden towers and dirt tarmacs to entice the sky rockets back. I'm not a stonk hodl'er, but I'd guess they are predominantly the ones who provided capital for Gamestop to buy Ebay. It's probably the most expensive and baroque way to fund a new consignment shop in your home town. 1: is there an emoji for a rocket crashing toward the ground? If not, there should be.
- 59percentmore 6mo ago
  Eh. The capital was provided by various share offerings and, most recently, a bond sale, which retail probably and definitely did not buy, respectively. But here's the fun part. All of those issuances were made during periods of weirdly high prices. The biggest one was this time 2 years ago. The price jumped to $80. Doesn't seem like much, but there was a share split in 2022, 4:1. Between that and the offerings, buying the same proportion of Gamestop The Company as one share did in late January 2021 would have cost about... $350? The intraday high from 2021? Weird. Oh, but it happened in after-hours. When non-institutional traders usually aren't active... I don't think anyone truly knows exactly what's going on with Gamestop's stock price.
  - flyingcircus3 6mo ago
tech_jabroni 6mo ago
Ah, so Catherine Keener's "We Sell Your Stuff On eBay" store from The 40-Year-Old Virgin is back, and now it's worth $55B. Always knew she was a visionary.
- giancarlostoro 6mo ago
  After I wrote my comment I thought about that haha
thaumasiotes 6mo ago
> or better yet, getting a cut of what you wanted up front since they're basically a pawn shop, and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available. More than 10 years ago eBay tried to launch a program where they would buy your stuff and then list it themselves, but it didn't work out.
qaq 6mo ago
thinking back to 2021 it really shows we need some reform around brokers being able to land their customers stock to short sellers without any kind of consent. Also same shares should not be shortable multiple times ...
- brian-armstrong 6mo ago
  What? Most (all?) platforms let you opt out of this, and you receive payment when your shares are borrowed. And shares are fungible, how would it matter if one share is borrowed by 10 people or by none?
  - qaq 6mo ago
    “What? Most (all?) platforms let you opt out of this.” Genuinely didn’t know that appreciate you pointing it out. “Shares are fungible, how would it matter if one share is borrowed by 10 people or by none?” Lets hedge funds create disproportionate downward pressure
    - snapcaster 6mo ago
      Why mess with all this shit unless you're trying to retroactively justify a really heavy bag you're holding. If you invest in good companies making good profits you don't have to care about any of this stuff. Free yourself, you have nothing to lose but your bags
      - qaq 6mo ago
        I am not messing with these just looked really fkd up how Citadel was able to abuse it's position
        snapcaster 6mo ago
        It wasn't, and the fact that you think market makers are "abusing positions" is so fundamentally wrong it's hard to even argue with you I'm sorry but your brain has been fried by ape memes and you need a full reset on your understanding of finance
Melatonic 6mo ago
Or they screwup eBay and saddle it with tons of debt and raise the selling fees massively
archon810 6mo ago
>assuming the CEO of GameStop doesn't mess it up completely. This guy? https://x.com/i/status/2051303211668021478 https://x.com/i/status/2051303211668021478 Surely, he's a safe bet, no chance he will mess up this deal! /s
- cj 6mo ago
  I watched that interview live this AM and was so confused. The CEO looked annoyed and pissed the entire interview. Kept answering questions with “it’s on our website [awkward silence]” It almost seemed like he was incredibly hung over and didn’t sleep last night. But I got the feeling he was being a jerk on purpose. Still don’t understand why though.
  - archon810 6mo ago
    The only guess I have, other than him being drunk, hungover, or high, is that he didn't want to admit or talk about GME dilution to fund the deal.
    - cj 6mo ago
      But then why do the interview at all? Bizarre.
thefounder 6mo ago
But eBay is just bad company with a bad reputation. Why would they buy it instead something like Etsy or make their own thing? If you would ask me what are the worst companies from the “old guard” I would name eBay and PayPal as prime suspects.
- avemg 6mo ago
  Because Etsy is not a general second-hand marketplace. Its niche is artisans making small batch items. And making your own thing at the scale of ebay is not exactly a small feat.
  - trollbridge 6mo ago
    If by “artisans” you mean “people ordering stuff off Alibaba”.
  - Scoundreller 6mo ago
    I’ve def bought some CD keys off Etsy. They’ll list anything.
    - magnetowasright 6mo ago
      Etsy used to have strict limitations on what was allowed to be sold. I'm not sure how effective it was, but since that restriction has been removed, you're right, they'll list anything. Etsy has become a graveyard for dropshipped garbage, and the odd CD key, apparently! CD keys I can get behind.
  - coffeebeqn 6mo ago
    Sadly that was Etsy 10 years ago but today is a dropshipping front
dawnerd 6mo ago
They would lose sellers in a heartbeat, myself included. The eBay fees are bad enough as it is, throw in whatever insane amount GameStop would take and it would squeeze everyone out. eBay isn’t the same individuals selling one off things like it used to be. Sellers are established businesses.
trollbridge 6mo ago
And by “paid off a bit of its debts” you mean paid off its debts entirely, most of which were at 10% junk bond yields. They later raised new special types of debt instruments tied to crypto much like Micro Focus did that are at 0% interest rates. The company also went from years of consistent net losses to consecutive years of consistent profits.
crowcroft 6mo ago
Mergers between public companies are almost entirely negative outcomes for shareholders and positive outcomes for the executive team. Any possible 'synergy' is wiped out by. - Having to pay a premium on the public market. - Organisational complexities/moving slowly. - Culture clashes and bad vibes between teams.
pragma_x 6mo ago
> Imagine being able to list your eBay items locally without having to have people needing to come to your house, or better yet, getting a cut of what you wanted up front since they're basically a pawn shop, and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available. I kind of assumed there were already local businesses that already did this? Seems like a decent side-line for any drop-shippers out there. In any event, moving that activity into a local strip-mall would be super convenient for everyone.
- CSMastermind 6mo ago
  There used to be back during the original eBay boom but I haven't seen any in a while.
greggsy 6mo ago
EBay also has some very accurate data about market pricing for second hand goods and what categories are at greater risk of being returned, which reduces the risk of holding riskier items. EDIT: regarding the CEO, you should find the interview where he’s challenged about funding.
- topspin 6mo ago
  The interview is here: https://youtu.be/Bmj2PaxX24E https://youtu.be/Bmj2PaxX24E Instant classic.
PierceJoy 6mo ago
I think this is the opinion of someone who thinks about personal security (like many on this site) and would prefer not to use Facebook marketplace. From observing many of those around me, this is an uncommon concern. Facebook marketplace is insanely dominant, and nobody cares about inviting people to their house. They would rather invite someone to their house than have to drive to GameStop and drop off their stuff in exchange for losing money on gas, losing time, and losing a cut of the sale price.
- jamesfinlayson 6mo ago
  I've never used it myself but I've helped out a family members with Marketplace sales before - go and be their nominal "back-up" when they meet the buyer in a local car-park.
PearlRiver 6mo ago
Yep this is exactly it. So many people with their childhood nostalgia not understanding that GameStop are and always have been a pawnshop. Deadbeat dad selling their kids videogames to buy meth. The pawnshop industry is incredibly depressing but it has been around for millennia and they will always be around.

dgellow 6mo ago

I thought the point of eBay was to get rid of that middleman. Wouldn’t that be something eBay would have done at some point if they wanted to own a pawnshop? Not saying that cannot work but that doesn’t sound like a genius idea

metalliqaz 6mo ago
Yes, exactly. In fact there were some ebay "helper" companies that made a go of it in the early 2000's. They went out of business because it doesn't add enough value. USPS created Media Mail and flat rate boxes, and UPS stores are found in nearly every community. They handle the hard part (shipping) well enough. The only thing I can think of is Gamestop positioning to become a clearing house for fan swag or gaming items the way Woot is for Amazon overstock.
- happyopossum 6mo ago
  > USPS created Media Mail Umm, that’s been around since 1938, which is a few years before the era you’re talking about…
  - Scoundreller 6mo ago
    Amazon probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for USPS subsidizing media mail
- coredog64 6mo ago
  There's one of these near me in a shopping center with terminally low rents. I think the additional value add for these places is that a) they can help you price the item to move and b) they can wade through eBay support if things go wrong.
  - coffeebeqn 6mo ago
    That sounds like a very low value add. So you’ll have some teenagers clicking on the eBay portal for me like I’ve never used a computer before?
    - TheGRS 6mo ago
      I think the value is in not having to mess with scammers and people who make eBay difficult to interact with (i.e. those who game the system).
- radlad 6mo ago
  I remember one of these shops all the way back in the late 2000s. At the time I was confused about whether it was operated by eBay or a third party. It did not last long.
  - Barbing 6mo ago
    iSOLD It on eBay apparently still has listings out of Pasadena, California https://www.i-soldit.com/listings/ https://www.i-soldit.com/listings/
  - Apocryphon 6mo ago
    Memorialized: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsFEhHLlHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsFEhHLlHA
- iwontberude 6mo ago
  It disgusts me how eBay sellers abuse the US Post Office by stealing supplies. It’s one way to guarantee I never buy from someone again.
  - cj 6mo ago
    USPS is the only storefront I can think of that allows you to walk in, grab an unlimited amount of boxes/supplies, and walk out with no questions asked. They will even deliver boxes to your front door, for free, by simply submitting a form online. It's so easy, I'm not at all surprised that it's occasionally abused.
    - Scoundreller 6mo ago
      FedEx used to send anyone big boxes of free bubble mailers
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Barbing 6mo ago
    Then have to waste time to politely educate the sellers… They wrap up the free priority mail flat rate boxes to obscure markings to send them with a cheaper service. So they know should they’re naughty but might not realize it’s reached the level of a crime, perhaps. Definitely didn’t realize they’d have customers who don’t like stealing from themselves (taxpayers)
    - trollbridge 6mo ago
      It’s a federal crime the the post office periodically investigates. You get offered to pay USPS’s estimate of the amount of postage you stole, or else face a criminal trial. FedEx and UPS will report priority Mail boxes to USPS as well.
- CamperBob2 6mo ago
  Yes, exactly. In fact there were some ebay "helper" companies that made a go of it in the early 2000's. They went out of business because it doesn't add enough value It didn't add enough value back then, but IMHO it does now. Selling on eBay is a massive hassle these days for a variety of reasons, and much less profitable for onesy-twosy transactions than it used to be. If I could just drop off a bunch of stuff at my local GameStop and forget about it until the checks arrive in the mail... yeah, there's definitely a business model there.
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    They’re called consignment stores and some have an online component (which can involve eBay or other similar marketplaces).
    - CamperBob2 6mo ago
      Yes, consignment stores have existed for a long time, but they aren't generally functional interfaces to eBay. If you want your stuff to sit on a shelf for the next few years, a consignment store is OK, I suppose. When I sell something, I usually want the item gone ASAP in exchange for a modest amount of money.
      - dawnerd 6mo ago
        There’s a ton of eBay sellers doing consignment, usually for friends that just want to sell things but I’ve seen some much larger operations selling pallets worth of goods from stores not large enough to wholesale or liquidate.
        bombcar 6mo ago
        Yep, watching the store/usernames of sellers can be instructive (many thrift stores, pawn shops, consignment stores, and others list things on eBay, especially for fixed price). One of the reasons to refund an order is “already sold in-person”.
spaqin 6mo ago
Over time, eBay has become the middleman - with international shipping centres, basically escrow service with buyer protection, and rather high fees for promotion and of course, the actual sale. No middleman is something like Craigslist or FB Marketplace.
- BizarroLand 6mo ago
  eBay has also started doing strongarm middleman things as well. If you list an item, it strongly "suggests" a price. Sounds innocuous, right? However, when every seller knows they would be stupid to list a product for less than the suggested price, that means that eBay is enacting a collusion process on their sellers to regulate prices for products sold on their platform. I don't think this is illegal in any way, but it is bad for the buyers as it decreases the chance that they will get lucky with a purchase and ensures that all purchasers on the platform spend as much as they can afford to spend. Next, as a seller, eBay presents you with an option to "promote" your product, for a fairly significant percentage of eBay's suggested sell price. (Last time I tried to sell something, they wanted $9.99 to promote an item expected to sell for ~$150, for instance). If you do not "promote" your item, then it is thrown to the bottom of the listing and may be filtered out when purchasers sort by "price low to high" as they often do. I chose not to promote my item as I was just getting rid of it, (brand new OEM toner for a printer that normally sells for $200) and it got almost no views and ended up selling for $40, of which ebay took $7.50 for their cut. I checked the other solds for the same product and mine was the lowest sold by almost $100 all seemingly because I didn't pay the racketeer price upfront. I didn't care about the money, I was just getting rid of it, and ebay punished me for not playing ball their way while also losing out on their profits just to make a point with me. If you don't eBay the ebay way you will suffer for it. Speaking of which, eBay has started changing the number of results based on your search filtering, preventing purchasers from finding the specific thing they are looking for in exchange for something that is often more expensive and not quite right. Try it yourself. Search for something very specific and then change your filters and see the number of available items increases and decreases based on how you search. I honestly would not be surprised if they were hiding the unpromoted less expensive more accurate item you are searching for from you in the expectation of inducing you to buy the more expensive item in the process. Why would eBay do this? They make more money. It's pure enshittification. They charge the sellers to promote. They set the prices. They charge an insane percentage, something like 15-20% of the final sell price to the sellers, and they have made the platform hostile to its original purpose of being a bazaar for ordinary people to sell their old stuff to people that might want them. Of course, they are still seller hostile, they protect fraudsters who buy expensive items and claim they are fakes or broken and return bricks, and they have strongarmed their customers into arbitration agreements in an attempt to prevent anyone from suing them to stop their anti-consumer practices.
antasvara 6mo ago
I think the difference is that GameStop already has this network of pawn shops, and those stores are doing enough business to justify their existence (at least somewhat; GameStop wasn't doing great before all the craziness). I could see something like the UPS kiosk in my local Walmart working; if you offered eBay returns at GameStop stores, you would be adding revenue without needing to justify an entire store to it like eBay would have needed to. There's also the synergy that GameStop now has access to more used gaming inventory, a category that I'm led to believe is high margin for the stores.
- turtlesdown11 6mo ago
  > GameStop already has this network of pawn shops, and those stores are doing enough business to justify their existence Gamestop closed 2,400 stores from 2020 to present, and operates just 2,200 stores currently. They'll continue to close stores as their revenue continues to shrink (down 60% in the last decade). >used gaming inventory physical used game inventory is a fraction of what it was a decade ago, and continues to shrink as a category, digital sales continue to climb and exclude Gamestop
  - iinnPP 6mo ago
    It's reasonable to predict that as physical media is phased out by the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, that the value of offline capable inventory will shift to an investment instead of a liability. Increasing their percent cut as a result.
    - turtlesdown11 6mo ago
      Their margin was highest on used physical media, which continues to plummet. Physical sales are down from $13b in 2015 to $1.5b in 2025, while total sales of physical + digital went from $23.5b in 2015 to $60b in 2025. Physical media is a tiny fraction of current game sales, even if their margin skyrockets, they're stuck in a tiny kid pool of potential sales.
      - 6mo ago

dangus 6mo ago

The part you’re almost touching on but not directly mentioning is the trading card and collectible marketplace. GameStop would probably be gone by now despite the meme stock if it wasn’t for trading card games and other similar collectibles, and eBay is very involved in that market.

JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
[dead]

pjc50 6mo ago

> and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available Sort of wondering why nobody did this already. I know that the better charity shops do this with rare and unusual books/records. The UK equivalent CeX has an online offering through webuy.com, which appears to be a Chinese owned multinational.

knowaveragejoe 6mo ago
This is called consignment and is an industry unto itself, usually for antiques since you need a lot of space. You give them your goods and they sell them. You get a cut if they actually sell. I'm surprised nobody has really mentioned this in the thread. Does anybody remember the "trade in anything" day GameStop just had? https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/12/08/gamestop-trade-anything-day-bobcat-goose-trade/87669769007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/12/08/gamestop-tra... Obviously they're going to need to liquidate a lot of this stuff. It can be quite lucrative if done right. You're basically getting inventory for free.
- ryandrake 6mo ago
  Consignment doesn't offer the seller a very good monetary deal, though. They're essentially a junk hauler that might pay you a few bucks. We all have that pile of old computer components that we could probably sell piece by piece for $400 on eBay, $200 on Craigslist/FB Marketplace, $100 at a yard sale, and maybe if you're lucky a consignment place will give you a $40 for it all.
  - cruffle_duffle 6mo ago
    I mean $40 if you are lucky or goodwill. You could get more selling it “proper” but the transaction cost of it is super not worth it (for me). When I want something out of my house, I want it out of my fucking house. Listing it on Craigslist means I have to babysit it, handle questions, but worse… the fucking thing is still in my house!. And I was over that, whatever the fuck it was, like… a week ago. Now it’s just sitting there in my life cluttering it up. Better take to the garbage or goodwill. Then it’s gone! At least with a consignment shop I will hopefully get something out of the deal.

shmatt 6mo ago

eBay is dying, new competitors are being created constantly, and the big ones like Poshmark are getting more North American buyers and sellers. eBay has barely grown since their post covid slump Maybe eBay survives as an international site but even at that point, with $20B in debt this will just follow the regular PE playbook of shutting down after many layoffs and pivots The entire concept of, "I have $1,000 in the bank, im going to buy a $10,000 company, but the debt will be on the companies name, not mine" needs to pass. Can you imagine if the mortgage was owned by our home, not ourselves. And we could stop paying it without any personal consequences If you want to buy a $50B company, you should pay $50B (loans are fine, but not putting the new company in debt)

deleted 6mo ago
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cjbgkagh 6mo ago
As a side effect of bailing out banks they have a lower risk profile than entities that don’t get bailouts. It’s essentially an additional subsidy on top of the already generous ‘money creation’ they’re allowed to do. It’s impossible to compete against this. The riskier the bets the stronger the subsidy so of course they’ll crank risk up to 11. Since the fate of banks and pensions are tied you can’t punish the banks without also punishing pensioners and pensioners are a strong voting block. It’s a distorted economic system that can only either crash or become more distorted. Since becoming more distorted enriches the already wealthy then that’s the only option that will be taken. The only thing that can stop it is to run out of resources to spend trying to save it. Importing a large number of foreigners is a rather creative (desperate) solution. I don’t know how long this will last but I’m confident I will see a major economic calamity in my lifetime.
deleted 6mo ago
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dingaling 6mo ago
> Maybe eBay survives as an international site I don't really know what alternative there is to eBay as an 'everything shop'. I can get specific screws there, or diff fluid, or a customised motorhome name sticker, or an old baseball cap for an airshow I attended in 2008. And if I bought the wrong diff fluid I can sell it. The main value over Amazon, though, is that the search works.

rahimnathwani 6mo ago

"I think it made about a billion dollars in profit" It raised over a billion dollars of capital (i.e. issued shares in return for cash). It did not make a billion dollars in profit (and has never had a year when it did).

whamlastxmas 6mo ago
The TLDR for people who don't intuitively understand why: existing shareholders are diluting their stake in the company by issuing new shares and getting money for those new shares. It's simply selling part of the company. Not profit.
- intuitionist 6mo ago
  Worth also pointing out though that if you can sell new shares above intrinsic value that is accretive to existing shareholders. Dilution isn’t always a bad word. (It’s bad for the people buying new shares.)
  - skrbjc 6mo ago
    Basically a ponzi at that point
    - gruez 6mo ago
      Bubble? Yes. Ponzi? No. The latter requires some element of deception/fraud. Strategy Inc. (formerly MicroStrategy) was basically something similar. They had $x worth of bitcoin in a vault, but were selling themselves for $2x.
      - arcticbull 6mo ago
        Well they are raising capital to hand out in dividends on their preferred stock. So that's much closer.
  - CobrastanJorji 6mo ago

jnellis 6mo ago

Was this not lampooned directly in "40 Year Old Virgin" where a young Jonah Hill tries to buy some disco boots at an ebay store but can't because you have to go through the website.

radlad 6mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGxRg5I7r5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGxRg5I7r5s

kingleopold 6mo ago

GME moon and all that in 2021 was financial engineering and mass media coordinated BS btw. they were all reporting it in same week with never seen details, with creating BS narratives. but you all consume and believe the details of it? good work by the engineers, nothing more. Same for FAANG BS, ZIRP BS writing made by millions of bots online. Even before llms

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6mo ago
People want to believe a 'cool' story, not that they got duped.

jeffwask 6mo ago

It creates the "Ebay Store" from the 40-year-old virgin makes sense if you look at it that way.

turtlesdown11 6mo ago

> I could see this working out decently, assuming the CEO of GameStop doesn't mess it up completely. So far he's failed to improve Gamestop's core business, which is still in decline, even with the memestock cash gusher. No one goes into Gamestop anymore, and they won't start because of eBay.

Hilliard_Ohiooo 6mo ago
Just bought a used switch there yesterday, 2 guys are selling or trading some kind of game card, kid and his dad getting a PS4... Like you say, no one goes to game stop anymore, it's too crowded ;)
- turtlesdown11 6mo ago
  >Like you say, no one goes to game stop anymore, it's too crowded Must be why it's revenue is declining to it's historic 2006 level, because it's just too busy. net sales 2016 $8.6b, 2025 $3.5b and still in decline
  - Scoundreller 6mo ago
    eBay isn’t doing much better. Revenue Peaked in 2014. Basically treading water. Last real growth was late 2000s.

crazygringo 6mo ago

> GameStop is setup as a legal pawnshop in every state. So a pawnshop buying out eBay makes insane sense. It doesn't though. eBay could easily set itself up as a legal pawnshop in every state if it wanted to. It doesn't because there's no advantage to doing so. There are already third-party sellers in many areas who will take your physical merchandise and sell it on eBay in exchange for a cut. eBay doesn't need to enter that market, it's simply not profitable enough.

hnav 6mo ago
There's friction though, if the process is under one roof end-to-end, ebay can take 30-40% (15-20% today) of every transaction by just letting you dump your old stuff. Might even eat FB marketplace and CL.
- delfinom 6mo ago
  People trying to sell their used junk aren't going to accept a 30-40% cut. It's why they aren't using eBay these days in the first place.
  - hnav 6mo ago
    Not exactly, the biggest annoyance with eBay (in my experience) is dealing with shipping, disputes and returns. If I could recover even 50% of the value of unused items without dealing with the ridiculousness of p2p transactions (flakes, tire-kickers, scammers) I'd do it in a heartbeat.
    - digitaltrees 6mo ago
      Exactly this
    - noprocrasted 6mo ago
      Don't pawn shops already solve this problem? Make your way there, dump your stuff, get peanuts for it in exchange (but might still be worth it if you truly don't need said stuff).

chirau 6mo ago

The picture that comes to mind when i picture a GameStop/Ebay merger is that woman's store in 'The 40 Year Old Virgin'.

jancsika 6mo ago

> The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. IIRC, the short (borrowing stock, selling high, waiting for a downtrend, then buying low to pay back the borrowed stock buy an agreed date) was accelerating the fall of GameStop's stock price. Then some Reddit knuckleheads noticed the hedge fund shorting GameStop was over-leveraged. They also found the deadline the hedge fund had to repay those shares to the bank. The knuckleheads pumped the stock. Technical term: I like the stonk. The knuckleheads then bought and held GameStop stonks. Institutional investors joined in. The hedge fund was legally obligated to pay any price to buy back the shares necessary to pay back the loan by the deadline. So the longer everyone else held on to the stonk, the more the hedge fund would be forced to pay. Squeezing the hedge fund in this way caused the stonks' price to temporarily skyrocket. Technical terms: hodl and rocket emoji The original Reddit knuckleheads eventually stopped hodl'ing and sold high. IIRC the hedge fund eventually went under. Unfortunately, like all things, the knuckliest of Reddit heads would keep hodl'ing all the way back to the ground[1], hoping to cargo cult another squeeze by building wooden towers and dirt tarmacs to entice the sky rockets back. I'm not a stonk hodl'er, but I'd guess they are predominantly the ones who provided capital for Gamestop to buy Ebay. It's probably the most expensive and baroque way to fund a new consignment shop in your home town. 1: is there an emoji for a rocket crashing toward the ground? If not, there should be.

59percentmore 6mo ago
Eh. The capital was provided by various share offerings and, most recently, a bond sale, which retail probably and definitely did not buy, respectively. But here's the fun part. All of those issuances were made during periods of weirdly high prices. The biggest one was this time 2 years ago. The price jumped to $80. Doesn't seem like much, but there was a share split in 2022, 4:1. Between that and the offerings, buying the same proportion of Gamestop The Company as one share did in late January 2021 would have cost about... $350? The intraday high from 2021? Weird. Oh, but it happened in after-hours. When non-institutional traders usually aren't active... I don't think anyone truly knows exactly what's going on with Gamestop's stock price.
- flyingcircus3 6mo ago

tech_jabroni 6mo ago

Ah, so Catherine Keener's "We Sell Your Stuff On eBay" store from The 40-Year-Old Virgin is back, and now it's worth $55B. Always knew she was a visionary.

giancarlostoro 6mo ago
After I wrote my comment I thought about that haha

thaumasiotes 6mo ago

> or better yet, getting a cut of what you wanted up front since they're basically a pawn shop, and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available. More than 10 years ago eBay tried to launch a program where they would buy your stuff and then list it themselves, but it didn't work out.

qaq 6mo ago

thinking back to 2021 it really shows we need some reform around brokers being able to land their customers stock to short sellers without any kind of consent. Also same shares should not be shortable multiple times ...

brian-armstrong 6mo ago
What? Most (all?) platforms let you opt out of this, and you receive payment when your shares are borrowed. And shares are fungible, how would it matter if one share is borrowed by 10 people or by none?
- qaq 6mo ago
  “What? Most (all?) platforms let you opt out of this.” Genuinely didn’t know that appreciate you pointing it out. “Shares are fungible, how would it matter if one share is borrowed by 10 people or by none?” Lets hedge funds create disproportionate downward pressure
  - snapcaster 6mo ago
    Why mess with all this shit unless you're trying to retroactively justify a really heavy bag you're holding. If you invest in good companies making good profits you don't have to care about any of this stuff. Free yourself, you have nothing to lose but your bags
    - qaq 6mo ago
      I am not messing with these just looked really fkd up how Citadel was able to abuse it's position
      - snapcaster 6mo ago
        It wasn't, and the fact that you think market makers are "abusing positions" is so fundamentally wrong it's hard to even argue with you I'm sorry but your brain has been fried by ape memes and you need a full reset on your understanding of finance

Melatonic 6mo ago

Or they screwup eBay and saddle it with tons of debt and raise the selling fees massively

archon810 6mo ago

>assuming the CEO of GameStop doesn't mess it up completely. This guy? https://x.com/i/status/2051303211668021478 https://x.com/i/status/2051303211668021478 Surely, he's a safe bet, no chance he will mess up this deal! /s

cj 6mo ago
I watched that interview live this AM and was so confused. The CEO looked annoyed and pissed the entire interview. Kept answering questions with “it’s on our website [awkward silence]” It almost seemed like he was incredibly hung over and didn’t sleep last night. But I got the feeling he was being a jerk on purpose. Still don’t understand why though.
- archon810 6mo ago
  The only guess I have, other than him being drunk, hungover, or high, is that he didn't want to admit or talk about GME dilution to fund the deal.
  - cj 6mo ago
    But then why do the interview at all? Bizarre.

thefounder 6mo ago

But eBay is just bad company with a bad reputation. Why would they buy it instead something like Etsy or make their own thing? If you would ask me what are the worst companies from the “old guard” I would name eBay and PayPal as prime suspects.

avemg 6mo ago
Because Etsy is not a general second-hand marketplace. Its niche is artisans making small batch items. And making your own thing at the scale of ebay is not exactly a small feat.
- trollbridge 6mo ago
  If by “artisans” you mean “people ordering stuff off Alibaba”.
- Scoundreller 6mo ago
  I’ve def bought some CD keys off Etsy. They’ll list anything.
  - magnetowasright 6mo ago
    Etsy used to have strict limitations on what was allowed to be sold. I'm not sure how effective it was, but since that restriction has been removed, you're right, they'll list anything. Etsy has become a graveyard for dropshipped garbage, and the odd CD key, apparently! CD keys I can get behind.
- coffeebeqn 6mo ago
  Sadly that was Etsy 10 years ago but today is a dropshipping front

dawnerd 6mo ago

They would lose sellers in a heartbeat, myself included. The eBay fees are bad enough as it is, throw in whatever insane amount GameStop would take and it would squeeze everyone out. eBay isn’t the same individuals selling one off things like it used to be. Sellers are established businesses.

trollbridge 6mo ago

And by “paid off a bit of its debts” you mean paid off its debts entirely, most of which were at 10% junk bond yields. They later raised new special types of debt instruments tied to crypto much like Micro Focus did that are at 0% interest rates. The company also went from years of consistent net losses to consecutive years of consistent profits.

crowcroft 6mo ago

Mergers between public companies are almost entirely negative outcomes for shareholders and positive outcomes for the executive team. Any possible 'synergy' is wiped out by. - Having to pay a premium on the public market. - Organisational complexities/moving slowly. - Culture clashes and bad vibes between teams.

pragma_x 6mo ago

> Imagine being able to list your eBay items locally without having to have people needing to come to your house, or better yet, getting a cut of what you wanted up front since they're basically a pawn shop, and then they list it on eBay and turn a bit of a profit with a local pickup option available. I kind of assumed there were already local businesses that already did this? Seems like a decent side-line for any drop-shippers out there. In any event, moving that activity into a local strip-mall would be super convenient for everyone.

CSMastermind 6mo ago
There used to be back during the original eBay boom but I haven't seen any in a while.

greggsy 6mo ago

EBay also has some very accurate data about market pricing for second hand goods and what categories are at greater risk of being returned, which reduces the risk of holding riskier items. EDIT: regarding the CEO, you should find the interview where he’s challenged about funding.

topspin 6mo ago
The interview is here: https://youtu.be/Bmj2PaxX24E https://youtu.be/Bmj2PaxX24E Instant classic.

PierceJoy 6mo ago

I think this is the opinion of someone who thinks about personal security (like many on this site) and would prefer not to use Facebook marketplace. From observing many of those around me, this is an uncommon concern. Facebook marketplace is insanely dominant, and nobody cares about inviting people to their house. They would rather invite someone to their house than have to drive to GameStop and drop off their stuff in exchange for losing money on gas, losing time, and losing a cut of the sale price.

jamesfinlayson 6mo ago
I've never used it myself but I've helped out a family members with Marketplace sales before - go and be their nominal "back-up" when they meet the buyer in a local car-park.

PearlRiver 6mo ago

Yep this is exactly it. So many people with their childhood nostalgia not understanding that GameStop are and always have been a pawnshop. Deadbeat dad selling their kids videogames to buy meth. The pawnshop industry is incredibly depressing but it has been around for millennia and they will always be around.