Game over

GameStop closes 10 more Dallas-Fort Worth stores amid nationwide cuts

Long lines for video game releases are a rarity these days.

For GameStop, it’s a blood bath right out of Mortal Kombat. The Grapevine-based video game chain is expected to shed 470 locations nationwide, including 10 in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and dozens more around Texas.

The closures were revealed in the company's newest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that said it would close "a significant number of additional stores in fiscal 2025" ending on January 31. In its last fiscal year, GameStop shuttered 590 locations.

In DFW, closures include stores in Dallas, Fort Worth, Allen, Arlington, Irving, Mesquite, Mansfield, and more.

In addition to braving the overall “retail apocalypse,” the retailer faces the same conditions that largely decimated CD and video stores. Video games are now available for digital download in seconds and no longer require a trip to a physical store.

“As a part of our profitability initiative, we are reducing our global store base, which includes closing stores that are not meeting performance standards or stores at the end of their lease terms with the intent of transferring sales to other nearby locations,” the company wrote in its annual report. “If we are unsuccessful in marketing to customers of the stores that we plan to close or in transferring sales to nearby stores, our results of operations could be negatively impacted.”

The current digital squeeze isn’t the first time GameStop has been thrown for a loop by contemporary internet culture. In 2021, the retailer famously became a meme stock, buoyed by users of Reddit's r/wallstreetbets. The skyrocketing increase in its stock price, followed by short selling, caused major financial consequences for hedge funds and other investors.

Since then, the stock price has been more stable but has decreased approximately 21 percent over the last year, and closures have been widespread. After CEO Ryan Cohen bought 500,000 shares in the company on January 21, the price has slightly rebounded.

GameStop has not issued a formal list of the closures, and a request for more information was not returned at press time. But Ohio’s WKYC Studios put together a list of all the U.S. stores that are on the chopping block, verified through GameStop’s online store locator. The Texas closings are as follows:

Allen – The Village at Allen, 170 E. Stacy Rd
Arlington – Little School Road Shops, 1245 N. Little School Rd
Austin – Ben White Payload Center, 500 E. Ben White Blvd
Balch Springs – Lake June Plaza, 12209 Lake June Rd
Boerne – Menger Crossing, 1375 S. Main St
Cedar Park – Lakeline Plaza, 11066 Pecan Park Blvd
Conroe – Conroe Center, 1231 N. Loop 336 W
Corpus Christi – Padre Island Drive, 1805 S. Padre Island Dr
Corsicana – Corsicana Marketplace, 3811 W. Highway 31
Dallas – Glen Oaks Crossing, 4787 Vista Wood Blvd
El Paso – Alameda Town Center, 9411 Alameda Ave
El Paso – Fountains at Farah, 8889 Gateway West Blvd
Fort Worth – Clifford Retail, 301 Clifford Center Dr
Garland – Ridgewood Village, 2930 S. First St
Houston – Beechnut Street Houston, 10100 Beechnut St
Houston – Bellaire Gessner Center, 8880 Bellaire Blvd
Houston – Market at Uvalde, 13706 East Fwy
Houston – Market Square, 13341 Westheimer Rd
Houston – Oxford Plaza, 10407 North Fwy
Houston – Royal Oaks, 11807 Westheimer Rd
Houston – Wayside Shopping Center, 900 S. Wayside Dr
Huntsville – Ravenwood Village, 245 Interstate 45 N
Irving – MacArthur Park, 7601 N. MacArthur Blvd
Lake Jackson – Lake Jackson Shopping Center, 121 Highway 332 W
La Marque – LaMarque Crossing, 6408 Interstate 45
Laredo – Laredo Crossing Shopping Center, 4415 S. Zapata Hwy
Leon Valley – 5601 Bandera Rd
Lubbock – 7th St Lubbock, 1803 Seventh St
Magnolia – Westwood Village, 33020 FM 2978 Rd
Mansfield – Mansfield Crossing, 1301 E. Debbie Ln
Marble Falls – Highland Lakes, 2400 US Highway 281
McKinney – Lake Forest Crossing, 4100 S. Lake Forest Dr
Mesquite – Town East Mall, 2050 Town East Mall
Mission – Shary Plaza, 808 S. Shary Rd
Palmhurst – Palmhurst Shopping Center, 4416 N. Conway Ave
Paris – Paris Corners, 3842 Lamar Ave
Saginaw – Cross Pointe Shopping Center, 1453 N. Saginaw Blvd
San Antonio – Alamo Quarry Market, E. 255 Basse Rd
San Antonio – Blanco Road, 7117 Blanco Rd
San Antonio – Huebner Oaks Center, 11745 W. I-10
San Antonio – Northwoods Phase III, 1742 N. Loop 1604 E
San Antonio – Walzem Plaza, 5366 Walzem Rd
Stephenville – Stephenville Shopping Center, 2811 W. Washington St
Sulphur Springs – Sulphur Springs Corners, 1707 S. Broadway St
Terrell – Terrell Corner, 1888 W. Moore Ave
Tyler – State Highway 64 Tyler, 3842 State Highway 64 W
Watauga – Watauga Town Crossing, 8004 Denton Hwy

video games retail closings gamestop

Shaq Sighting

Shaquille O'Neal cruises Dallas lake in custom '64 Chevy Impala boat

Courtesy of Effortless Motors/Youtube

A still from the Effortless Motors video

“Oh, my God! My Impala boat has arrived!” The shout comes from NBA Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal, as seen in a viral video from California-based Effortless Motors.

Those on Lake Ray Hubbard one day in early July witnessed the 7-foot-1-inch basketball superstar, known worldwide as Shaq, cruising the North Texas waters in a convertible 1964 Chevrolet Impala. A surreal sight, onlookers say.

“I had to do a double take, rub my eyes, and hope no one had spiked my coffee,” says Rockwall resident Steve Johns via phone. Johns was doing maintenance on his berthed boat when he saw the celebrity steering the craft through the waves with two other men aboard.

The passengers were Ahmad Abdelrahman and Daniel Ubario, classic car specialists who founded Effortless Motors, a full-service auto concierge in Riverside, California. They built and delivered the custom craft to O'Neal and filmed both its reveal and its maiden voyage.

O’Neal had semi-jokingly discussed the idea with the men last March, on his 54th birthday, while commissioning a Chevy Impala ‘64 restoration for his multimillion-dollar car collection.

“He wanted something crazy that no one in the world has ever seen,” Abdelrahman, Effortless CEO, tells CultureMap in an interview.

In early July, the team delivered O'Neal's consigned classic car to his home in the Ridge Lakes of Heath subdivision, on the lake’s east side. The video shows O’Neal treating family members to low, rumbling rides around his otherwise quiet suburban enclave and appearing ecstatic as he hugs and heaps praise upon the car specialists.

“You did a great job. Oh, thank you! Everything is perfect,” O’Neal says about the $1.2 million street-ready Impala, whose price reflects the extensive modifications needed to accommodate Shaq’s XXL physique. “But you promised me the boat for my birthday,” O’Neal quips.

On cue, a second trailer arrives hauling the gold Impala boat, a nod to Doughboy (Ice Cube)’s 1993 ride in the movie Boyz n the Hood.

The logistics of delivering both a car and a surprise boat — and secretly setting up the latter’s trial run — were challenging, but O'Neal's reaction made everything worthwhile, Abdelrahman says.

“The best thing was knowing we built something that has never existed before," he says. "Seeing that Impala on the water, it’s like seeing a unicorn flying across the sky.”

In the video, Shaq is seen settling into the customized captain’s seat and navigating choppy waters as Abdelrahman exclaims, “First seven footer to drive a ‘64 Impala in the water.”

“Once again, Effortless Motors delivers,” O’Neal says into the camera.

The video then shows the famous TNT broadcaster stopping under storm clouds to sign autographs and snap photos with starstruck lakegoers. “We love your boat, Shaq,” a teenage boy is heard saying after snapping a selfie. “You’re the best, man. We love you!”

O’Neal has lived part-time in the Dallas area since 2022, when he bought a $1.2 million Carrollton mansion. He sold it for $1.7 million and moved into his current 5,100 square-foot, approximately $2 million Rockwall County estate in 2024.

Since then, sightings of the megastar abound around Dallas-Fort Worth. In Mesquite in 2024, he treated 20 students to $500 shopping sprees at JCPenney. On another occasion he gave a $500 gift card to a couple he met at Fort Worth’s JCPenney, which they paid forward to children in need. And earlier this year at the Rockwall Target, he distributed $100 bills to shoppers at random. He's also behind the Big Chicken restaurant franchise, whose Fort Worth location recently closed.

But Shaq isn't the only retired athlete taking high-end toys to Texas waters. While his Impala jetboat is one of a kind, other luxury autos afloat have been spotted nearby. Former Dallas Maverick Charlie Villanueva regularly is seen cruising his Rolls Royce amphi-boat near his Lake Ray Hubbard home, many Instagram commenters pointed out after Shaq’s maritime adventure went viral.

Automotive journalists at The Autopian noted that, based video footage, Shaq’s new toy is not amphibious but rather a fiberglass silhouette of the Impala attached to a jet boat hull.

“That doesn’t take away from the spectacle of the thing much, with the rather slab-sided Impala body cutting an unexpected shape through the water,” wrote The Autopian's Andrew Evans.

A still from the Effortless Motors video

Courtesy of Effortless Motors/Youtube

Shaq featured in the Effortless Motors video.

celebrities lake ray hubbard shaquille oneal impala boat cars rockwall shaquille o'neal