GameStop has a robbery problem and employees want change

At least 12 GameStop stores in the southern California area were targeted in armed robberies in early February, with thieves seeking out expensive gaming consoles that were in limited supply in previous years — specifically the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The same week, three GameStop stores were broken into or robbed in Memphis, Tennessee — an area that was hit around the holidays, too.

According to press reports, nearly 30 GameStop locations across America were robbed within the last three months. It’s a fraction of GameStop’s roughly 3,000 stores in the U.S., but some GameStop workers think it’s a trend — and that GameStop needs to step in.

The company is offering a $5,000 reward for information about the robberies in California, GameStop loss prevention boss Alan Fagergren told Los Angeles’ local Fox affiliate following the California robberies. Workers say that GameStop has one option to help protect employees: stop providing single coverage at night for stores.

Five GameStop employees across the nation were interviewed for this report. We heard that they shared concerns about safety. Polygon has been granted anonymity because the GameStop workers who spoke to us were not allowed to discuss their concerns with the media. These concerns were shared by more GameStop employees on the GameStop subreddit. Employees claim the robberies put GameStop workers at risk. Others blame policies that allow one employee to manage an entire store, a corporate cost-cutting move. Polygon interviewed workers to find out that not all stores employ one person at a given time.

GameStop’s profit has decreased over the past few years, but the company still reported a profit of $872.3 million in the first three quarters of the year. Despite that profit, GameStop’s falling numbers led to waves of layoffs, the closure of more than 1,000 stores, and the shuttering of its 630,000-square-foot Texas e-commerce facility. GameStop is also cutting hours for its staff, forcing managers into roles requiring them to oversee multiple locations, and getting rid of assistant managers, according to a Kotaku report and corroborated by Polygon’s sources. With less staff, stores sometimes have just one person working at a time, which some workers said is dangerous because it’s seen as an easy target for theft.

Employees at GameStop speculate that this is because the “console shortage” is gone. The new Xbox and PlayStation consoles are actually in stock at GameStop stores.

“It’s gotten to the point where I’m at least a little concerned whenever a customer [or] caller asks if we ‘really have PS5s in stock,’” one current GameStop employee told Polygon.

Consoles are often targeted due to how easy they are to resell at high prices — particularly Sony’s PlayStation 5, which had been in short supply until recently.

A former GameStop worker told Polygon that people on employee forums and elsewhere frequently talk about quitting: “Their life is not worth more than GameStop’s profits,” she said. She added that GameStop keyholders — people who literally hold the keys to the store, so they can open and close it — are trained with robberies in mind, and instructed to constantly switch up the timing of their bank visits, for instance. But that can only go so far, she said — it’s easy to tell when a single person is covering the whole store, and that negates any training that could prevent violent robberies.

GameStop did not respond to multiple inquiries for comment.

Some workers also want to see more staff and increased security in the stores. A former GameStop employee claimed that their store had been robbed many years ago. The security system was installed with CCTV cameras and an additional guard who stayed for several weeks. They said the cost of it was docked from their store’s profit and loss numbers — numbers reported to corporate to judge how a store’s doing. Another instance was when a GameStop Manager was fired following a Fifth Avenue, Pennsylvania, store robbery that took place last month. Workers were upset to hear that one of their employees was fired for doing something they did not control. Kotaku claimed that several workers quit as a protest.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration provides guidelines for retail worker safety for high risk establishments that are open at night; its risk factors include having a solo worker and isolated locations, as well as the “exchange of money” and other valuable items. It offers several suggestions to minimize risk to workers. This includes the use alarms and training all employees in advance. Polygon was asked by OSHA representatives about the hazards of single coverage.

In addition to their general dissatisfaction with GameStop, GameStop employees also feel anxious about the recent robberies. According to one worker, workers feel tired from corporate decisions.