GameStop is closing hundreds of stores across the country in early 2026 as the gaming retailer continues its retreat from brick-and-mortar retail. Meanwhile, CEO Ryan Cohen could receive a pay package worth $35 billion in stock options.
The closures mark another major wave in GameStop’s multi-year contraction. The company has been steadily shuttering locations as physical game sales crater and more gamers download titles directly to their consoles instead of buying discs.
The store closures are happening while CEO Ryan Cohen operates under an unusual compensation structure. He takes no salary and gets no cash bonuses. Instead, his entire pay package is tied to GameStop’s stock price hitting massive targets.
If Cohen can grow GameStop’s market capitalization to roughly $100bn, he stands to collect up to $35bn in equity awards. That’s a roughly 10x increase from the company’s current valuation of around $9.5bn. The performance-based package ranks among the largest ever proposed for a U.S. public company CEO.
What’s left of GameStop
GameStop has been bleeding locations for years. The chain once operated thousands of stores when disc-based gaming dominated the market. But Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all pushed hard into digital storefronts on their consoles, while PC gaming went almost entirely digital through platforms like Steam.
The shift crushed specialty game retailers. Fewer people need to visit a store when they can download the latest release at midnight from their couch. GameStop has tried to adapt by emphasizing collectibles and trading cards, but those categories haven’t replaced the revenue lost from game sales.
What’s left of GameStop stores increasingly looks like a collectibles shop. Walk into most locations today and you’ll find more Funko Pop figures and Pokemon trading cards than actual video games. The used game trade-in business that once defined GameStop has become an afterthought in the age of digital downloads.
