A printed sign taped to a storefront. A QR code promising a 20% trade‑in bonus. And inside, employees learning their location is closing with only days' notice.
That unglamorous scene kicked off 2026 in many towns — even as GameStop’s board unveiled a compensation package for CEO Ryan Cohen that could be worth as much as $35 billion if wildly ambitious targets are met. The juxtaposition is striking: mass layoffs and shuttered shops at ground level, a gargantuan, performance‑based payday on paper.
What the company announced
In an SEC filing, GameStop laid out a grant of roughly 171.5 million stock options with an exercise price of $20.66. The award will vest only if two headline goals are reached: GameStop’s market capitalization must climb to $100 billion, and the company must generate $10 billion in cumulative performance EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). Shareholders must still approve the package at a special meeting expected in March or April.
GameStop emphasized there is “no guaranteed pay—no salary, no cash bonuses, and no stock that vests simply over time.” In other words, Cohen’s compensation is entirely “at‑risk,” intended to align his payout with dramatic growth in both market value and operating results. The structure invites immediate comparisons to the performance award Elon Musk received from Tesla — enormous potential upside tied to stretching targets.
Law firm White & Case advised GameStop on the arrangement, according to a company press notice, underscoring the legal and capital‑markets machinery behind the grant.
The current picture — and the odds
Right now the numbers are small compared with the targets. GameStop’s market capitalization sits in the low single‑digit billions (roughly $9.3–9.5 billion across filings and market snapshots), meaning the company would need to grow about tenfold to trigger the market‑cap metric. Getting to $10 billion in cumulative EBITDA is no less daunting given the retailer’s struggles to adapt to digital game distribution and shifting consumer habits.
GameStop’s path to growth has been uneven. The company became synonymous with the 2021 meme‑stock frenzy and saw renewed retail interest in 2024 when investor Keith Gill, “RoaringKitty,” reappeared online. At the same time, GameStop has closed hundreds of stores in recent years and this month moved to shutter as many as 296 locations, according to employee accounts and social posts. Some workers say closures arrived with minimal warning; many stores were handed coupons and QR codes to send regular customers online.
GameStop has also shifted how it uses capital, including placing a bigger portion of cash into cryptocurrencies — a choice that observers say complicates the story of whether the company is investing in long‑term retail transformation or chasing volatile asset plays.
What it means for shoppers, employees and investors
For frontline employees and local customers, the corporate headlines are cold comfort. Reddit threads and social posts from affected staff describe surprise, frustration and, in some cases, transfers to other stores. Customers in less densely populated areas say the closures force drives of 30 minutes or more to reach the nearest GameStop — a material change for people who rely on in‑person trade‑ins or prefer physical purchases.
For investors, the compensation package sends a clear signal: the board wants radical growth, and it’s banking on incentivizing the CEO to deliver it. The market responded briefly — shares ticked higher on the news — but turning billions into tens of billions of market value will require products, partnerships or profitability gains well beyond meme‑driven rallies.
The broader industry context matters here. Hardware sales and new console cycles influence where gamers shop and how often. Nintendo recently adjusted forecasts around strong Switch 2 momentum, which reshapes demand for physical retail channels and trade‑in business models in ways GameStop will have to navigate (see more on Nintendo’s forecast shifts) [link provided below]. Streaming and cloud features that let players access libraries without physical ownership are another long‑term headwind for brick‑and‑mortar sellers; recent advances in remote streaming add another wrinkle to that transition.
A gamble, but not unprecedented
Performance‑heavy packages like this are rare in scale but familiar in structure. They reward executives only if they hit stretching, measurable milestones. For Cohen, the absence of guaranteed pay removes the safety net — and hands the board a narrative that any reward is earned, not given.
Still, critics will note the human cost of rapid downsizing and question whether rewarding a 10x market‑cap surge is the right lever while hundreds of stores close. Supporters will argue that aligning executive pay with shareholder returns is prudent, especially for a company that has reinvented itself repeatedly since the memestock days.
GameStop still moves consoles and games in the real world, and those products matter to customers. For now that includes hardware like the PlayStation 5 Pro (PlayStation 5 Pro) [available on Amazon]. Whether GameStop’s new incentives will translate into a retail renaissance, another meme‑driven market pop, or something in between remains very much an open question.
Internal links: Recent shifts in console demand and digital delivery are part of this story — see Nintendo’s raised Switch 2 forecast to understand platform momentum (/news/nintendo-switch-2-sales-surge) and how streaming updates change where players buy and play games (/news/playstation-portal-cloud-streaming-update).