The video game industry is massive. Having been valued at $201 billion US dollars back in 2021, and expected to grow up to $435 by 2028, you can’t but marvel at the achievement.
Those who partake in it as patrons and receivers of video game services are generally thankful for the great experiences that it has and continues to provide.
Hence, it’s always painful to hear stories of employee mistreatment in the industry. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the developers of a well-known brand or company, or a game store employee.
This is the story of the latter. A certain GameStop store has recently been temporarily closed down due to an employee walkout after they got fed up with the direct manager and store conditions. All that was left was an “open letter” to store patrons.
More Info: Reddit
It's always painful to hear stories of employee mistreatment in the game industry, and it's even worse when it doubles with retail
Image credits: Will Buckner
Several days ago, a photo of a detailed notice on a GameStop store door has started to circulate around Reddit. According to the details provided in the post, this particular GameStop is located in the Gateway Mall, Lincoln, Nebraska.
The notice was addressed to GameStop patrons, explaining why the store doors were unexpectedly shut and locked (and the key was probably also thrown away, but also probably not).
As it turns out, the employees of this establishment have decided to all walk out and never return due to the district manager’s utter disrespect for them as humans.
Employees of a GameStop in Lincoln, Nebraska have recently walked out from work, leaving this open letter to the patrons
Image credits: ponycorn69
The now-former employees claimed that they were given impossible goals to achieve. In particular, these were specific sales quotas that were supposed to be achieved 6 months ago, while nearly the whole staff was hired just 3 months ago. Did we mention this was the second or technically the third walkout this year?
Anywho, the store was closed and the notice suggested patrons take their business elsewhere, like the EntertainMart at the same mall, Gamers and GameRoom in different locations around town.
The note concludes with “spend your money at an establishment that respects its employees.”
Apparently, the district manager expected folks to achieve impossible goals, leading to multiple walkouts to date
Kotaku contacted the store’s now-former manager Frank Maurer, who explained that he left for his health. The work conditions at the store brought about a lot of stress and anxiety for him, which inevitably led to sleep issues and affected his love for games.
You see, the business had loads of problems. The insane management quotas paired up with lack of resources to live up to said quotas made it impossible to work. This is on top of not being properly trained for the job, as Frank was appointed manager just recently.
Also, once he also had to work two weeks straight with zero days off to keep the store open and running. When he asked for support, he got none—just silence.
The district manager wasn’t really helping the issue either, as he was said to routinely threaten, verbally abuse, and reprimand folks for their “inability” to meet already impossible goals. All the manager seemed to care for was the numbers—everything and everyone else was just an asset, easily replaced.
The former store manager explained that there weren't enough resources to live up to the huge quotas, and this was besides the lack of training, verbal abuse and other problems
Image credits: Michel Ngilen (not the actual photo)
Bored Panda got in touch with a former employee of the GameStop at SouthPointe Pavilions shopping mall, which has the same district manager as the Gateway Mall shop, and where there was also a walkout. This person was actually the one who wrote up the sign saying they all quit at Southpointe.
Their account of the district manager seemed to match Frank's: "[The district manager] had set unreasonable goals for daily power up rewards sales and would harass us multiple times a day by email about why we're weren't meeting numbers."
"It came to a head when he came in person one night at Southpointe while I was working and gave me a dressing down for two hours. The big thing was he told me that he could replace us all with freshly graduated high school students and pay them less and get better results. He gave the same speech to my store lead and fellow employee the next morning when we decided that we would all be walking out in protest."
"I think that it really stems from the company's culture. There have been previous walk outs and walk outs since and I've seen other people come out on social media with this same story. I would consider it an epidemic of poor company culture," elaborated the former employee from the Southpointe store.
They also explained that while they are not in the loop with the issue any more, there are speculations that nothing has really changed and quite likely nothing will because there is a certain degree of nepotism within the management structure at GameStop.
The notice, in its digital form, found its way onto multiple subreddits, including r/Antiwork, r/WallStreetBets (remember all that GameStop investing?), r/Lincoln, and even r/GameStop. And folks there had a lot to say about it.
Overall, folks were cheering on the multiple teams to have left and stuck it to the man. One user pointed out that all of this will be on the regional manager now, leading to some fine karma, depending on who you are in this situation. Oh, and you gotta give props to that one commenter who said “Congratulations! The boss has been defeated and the dungeon has been cleared! +10,000 points!”