GameStop is closing another 300+ stores this year • iGamesNews.com

US specialist retailer GameStop has confirmed that it will close at least 320 stores in the next 12 months.

The company has already closed 321 stores as part of the restructuring efforts for the fiscal year ending February 2020, and now the same number of its 5,500 stores is expected to close by the end of this financial year.

The closure comes despite the company reporting an estimated $ 21 million ($ 16.8 million) at the end of the previous financial year.

At the time of writing, it is unclear which locations will be affected, but the company has stores in 14 different countries, including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, and Sweden.

"We expect the closure of the store to be equivalent to more than 320 net net closures worldwide," GameStop deputy president and chief financial officer Jim Bell told investors on a phone led this week (thank you, Gamasutra).

"Importantly, we want to emphasize that the closure of this store is part and parcel of our real estate plan and is not related to recent business practices," Bell added, suggesting that the decision does not go against the coronavirus epidemic.

A number of special video game marketers have been criticized recently for choosing to keep their stores open despite the anti-social laws recommended by governments around the world. While GameStop finally bowed to pressure and closed last weekend, the UK retailer was not among the firms that had voluntarily stopped operations following the government's announcement that all bars and restaurants would be closed. Many game shops, including Argos, Currys, CEX, and Smyths, have been selected not to open in the rest of the UK.

The game eventually announced that it would be closing its Belong forums in light of government guidelines for social cracking, but initially stressed that it would keep its retail stores open – a prospect closely linked to many of its former employees.