It felt like we were writing the final chapter for video game stores over and over, with hundreds closing their doors. By 2023, most people were buying games online – digital sales made up over 75% of all revenue. Even new gaming consoles started coming out without the ability to use physical game discs. It seemed obvious: stores like GameStop were becoming outdated, a holdover from a different era that the internet had left behind.
Last Sunday, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen offered to buy eBay for $56 billion.
The Meme Stock That Wouldn’t Die
Before we look at the latest offer, let’s remember how this all started. In January 2021, a group of individual investors on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets noticed that GameStop stock, trading around $4 a share, was heavily bet against by professional traders. What happened next was unusual: GameStop’s stock price jumped over 1,000% in just two weeks, causing billions of dollars in losses for those who bet against it. Suddenly, a struggling video game retailer became a major topic of conversation, and it essentially became the face of the ‘meme stock’ phenomenon.
Ryan Cohen, the founder who turned Chewy into a hugely successful pet supply business, had been secretly buying GameStop stock throughout 2020. When he became CEO in 2023, he surprised many by focusing on the world of collectibles rather than trying to become a digital or streaming company. GameStop started selling items like Pokémon trading cards, other collectibles, and classic gaming hardware. At the same time, they closed hundreds of struggling stores and built up a significant amount of cash. Cohen was clearly planning for the long term, with a strategy no one fully understood at the time.
The $56 Billion Question
This leads to GameStop’s recent eBay bid, revealed on Sunday, which Cohen presented as a way to challenge Amazon’s dominance. The plan is ambitious: GameStop, valued at around $11 billion, is attempting to acquire a company four times its size. While Cohen had $9 billion available and a $20 billion line of credit from TD Bank, a funding shortfall remained. When questioned about the financing on CNBC, Cohen responded evasively. Wall Street isn’t convinced, and eBay’s board stated they hadn’t had any prior talks with GameStop before receiving the offer.
If you look past the complex financial details, you’ll find something really noteworthy: this $56 billion deal suggests that buying and selling used and collectible items in person isn’t fading away—it’s actually the direction commerce is heading.
GameStop’s proposal to eBay makes sense because eBay is the leading online marketplace for items GameStop has been focusing on for the past three years – things like older video games, trading cards, collectibles, and used gaming equipment. Ryan Cohen, GameStop’s chairman, believes their remaining 1,600 stores can serve as places to verify items, receive goods from sellers, and create live shopping experiences for eBay customers. This connection isn’t just a theory; it’s already happening within gaming communities.
The Blind Spot
Obituaries for physical games were written too soon. While big companies focused on digital sales, the market for buying and collecting physical games has actually been steadily growing. In 2025, retro gaming alone was a $3.8 billion industry, and it’s expected to reach $4.18 billion this year – growing at a rate of 10% annually, which is twice as fast as the overall console market. Sales of older consoles jumped 32% in the first half of 2025 compared to the entire previous year, and even with predictions of a fully digital future, physical cartridges for the new Switch 2 are selling well. Pokémon trading cards continue to be incredibly popular, and some predict that physical copies of GTA 6 could sell for around $80 when they launch. This collector-driven market isn’t a small side interest anymore; it’s a multi-billion-dollar part of the gaming industry that most discussions about the shift to digital have overlooked.
GameStop experienced the initial surge. Ryan Cohen recognized the potential, and now he’s attempting to acquire the primary platform where that online trading community thrives.
It almost doesn’t matter if the eBay deal actually goes through. Even if Cohen backed out tomorrow, the attempt itself would still send a powerful message. The company, which many thought was failing, saw potential in one of the original online marketplaces, believed it was worth more than its current value, and made a surprisingly large offer to buy it. This isn’t what a company would do if it thought physical media was dead. It’s what a company would do if it believed it had a better vision for the future than everyone else.
GameStop has consistently managed to stay afloat against the odds, and this latest situation feels perfectly in line with its history of unexpected resilience.
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2026-05-07 01:40