GameStop announces layoffs and fires CFO

American video game retailer GameStop has fired its Chief Financial Officer and is laying off "a number of" its employees.

The layoffs: The company's decision was initially reported by Axios' Stephen Totilo.

• The news broke when Totilo got his hands on a memo that was sent throughout GameStop and was corroborated by Kotaku's Ethan Gach.
• The memo states that the company is "eliminating excess costs and operating with an intense owner's mentality." Those who remain have to "become even more hands-on" and take on a "heightened level of accountability for results."
• The amount of affected employees is yet to be disclosed publicly by the company, though it's known that Mike Recupero, its Chief Financial Officer, is on the chopping block. He joined GameStop just a year ago.

The future: GameStop remains in a precarious position.

• Recupero joined the company at a time when it needed to revive itself during the global health situation where gamers further embraced digital downloads over buying physical copies. It's aiming to shift its focus here accordingly.
• Of course, GameStop became culturally relevant during that period as a meme stock where retail traders bid up the share price of the company based on social media movements.
• Moving forward, Diana Jajeh will be repositioned from Chief Accounting Officer to Chief Financial Officer as the company addresses its workforce (it hired over 600 people in 2021 and the first half of 2022), including at its Game Informer publication.