In the midst of restaurants and retailers cutting back occupancy, reducing hours, so sometimes even temporarily closing entirely like Nintendo New York, GameStop is also taking additional measures. While the company previously announced COVID-19 coronavirus initiatives that would allegedly have staff who are sick stay home and provide more hand sanitizer and cleaning products to staff, Kotaku gained an internal memo that also would stop GameStop midnight releases and demos entirely. (Previously, the site had a report from some of the retailer’s employees that the initial coronavirus measures weren’t being followed up on by their employer.)
One part of the memo deals with GameStop midnight releases. None will be held effective immediately. This means any stores that would have had events for games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and DOOM Eternal, both of which will launch on March 20, 2020, won’t. (Please call ahead before attempting to attend any.) This is to keep people from congregating in crowds.
The other part has to do with the GameStop demo stations. Most stores have setups where you can test out Nintendo Switch or PlayStation 4 games. While the initial response seemed to suggest these would remain on, but cleaned more often than usual. Kotaku learned that these would now no longer be in operation. All of them will be turned off.
[Image Source: GameStop]
