While it is common to hear stories of GameStop employees leaving the company for monetary or mental reasons, this case appears to be have not been a personal choice.
A now former GameStop employee who is known to the public as Mike claims to have been fired from his position at GameStop due to pressure from Nintendo themselves.
Back in March Mike uploaded a posted a picture to Reddit of a listing at his local GameStop for a “HW TBD Switch” mere hours before a Nintendo Direct event took place. This of course went on to be announced a limited edition Switch OLED console for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
As reported by Kotaku, the post was traced back to Mike’s personal Reddit account which had publicly identification details that could be used to verify it was indeed him. This resulted in Mike having a meeting with his manager which then resulted in suspension and two weeks later he was ultimately fired from the company.
Mike has stated this post was posted publicly to help both himself and everyone in the company to help drive traffic to the stores to pre-order these consoles as not only are these types of Limited Edition consoles very sought after, but GameStop employees can be let go if they do not meet pre-order and PowerUp Rewards subscription quotas. Mike also said that he was told by his boss “off the record” that Nintendo had specifically insisted Mike was fired for his post.
While gamers around the world seem to be on Mike’s side, GameStop does have a Code of Standards, Ethics, and Conduct which states:
“Any associate who engages in the unauthorized release of confidential company information or through negligence, causes the unauthorized release of such information will be subject to corrective action up to and including termination of employment and the exercise of other legal remedies that may be available to the Company.”
