Two years ago, Frank Christopher Olivera was scheduling media conference calls with GameStop executives.
He was also illegally pocketing a lot of money from the company.
Were this any other transition period for the video game industry, GameStop stock would be soaring these days.
Instead, the stock has been largely flat — climbing less than one point year to date, noticeably underperforming the market’s seven percent gains — as well as other companies in the gaming space.
In an industry where sales are increasingly going digital, GameStop is at a crossroads.
Traditional brick and mortar isn’t going away anytime soon – and used game sales are still a viable force. But day one digital purchase options are becoming more and more frequent on consoles and DLC is one of the fastest growing segments in the industry.
To adapt, the retailer has been in the process of pivoting for a while now. And Brad Schliesser, director of digital content for GameStop, says the efforts are paying off.
There’s been plenty of new chatter indicating that leading video game retailer GameStop is a prime buyout target. How likely is that scenario, and if it happened, what would it mean for publishers?
Video game consumers have something of a love-hate relationship with GameStop. So do publishers.
For that matter, so do investors. And over the past couple of days, Wall Street insiders (and the financial blogosphere) have been whispering furiously about the possibility that GameStop could find itself on the receiving end of a buyout offer at some point in the future.