GameStop chief executive officer Ryan Cohen has the chance at a major, major payday if he can make good on a goal set for him by GameStop's board of directors. Amidst discovering that GameStop would be shutting down hundreds of stores in the United States, we also learned that if Cohen successfully turned the company that's worth a staggering $100 billion, then he would earn a $35 billion bonus. And now, it seems that Cohen has a plan on how to make that happen.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the plan is essentially to buy his way to that growth by expanding beyond more than just being a video games retailer. Cohen plans to acquire a publicly traded company in a "big" deal, with the Journal identifying he'll be looking "likely in the consumer or retail industry."
On his plan, Cohen added, "It's ultimately either going to be genius or totally, totally foolish."
Currently, GameStop is worth about $11 billion. To earn the full $35 billion bonus, Cohen would have to turn GameStop into a $100 billion market-cap company and reach a $10 billion EBITDA measure. Even when GameStop had its meteoric meme-stock rise back in 2021, the company's market cap peaked at $33.7 billion, which falls more than a few billion short of Cohen's goal.
That said, the Journal's report adds that Cohen could still earn a partial bonus by increasing the company's market cap beyond $20 billion and reaching a $2 billion EBITDA measure. It won't be the full $35 billion, but if Cohen can manage to recreate some of the success that the company lucked into in 2021, he'll be able to take some sort of bonus home.
"There are a lot of diamonds in the rough…that have sleepy management teams," Cohen said about his plan and the layoffs GameStop has already been through. "I didn’t fix GameStop to stop there." The jury is still out as to whether Cohen did actually fix GameStop, which seems more interested in making meme and troll-centred comments online and closing stores than selling video games, but since Cohen did this interview with the Wall Street Journal, the company's stock was up 3.5% this morning.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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