Life is stranger than fiction.
A store. A meme. Now an outrageous offer.
Remember when you could actually trade games at a fair price.
You couldn’t. That’s the thing. You never could. GameStop gave you $5 for a game you paid $70 for three months earlier. They charged $55 for a used copy of something that retailed new for $60. They had a loyalty card that technically saved you money if you bought enough things to justify having the loyalty card. The whole business model was built on the gap between what games were worth and what they would give you for them.
And you went anyway. Because it was there. Because it was the only place on the high street that had what you needed. Because sometimes you just needed a game and GameStop was where games were.
That store just tried to buy eBay for $56 billion.
To understand how we got here you have to go back to 2021.
GameStop’s stock price went from $17.25 to over $500 per share in two weeks. Not because the company did anything remarkable. Not because they invented a new product or cracked a new market. Because traders on Reddit’s WallStreetBets noticed that hedge funds had bet heavily against the stock and decided to squeeze them.
It worked. Briefly and spectacularly. People made life changing money. People lost life changing money. Congress held hearings. A movie got made. And GameStop the company just watched all of it happen from Grapevine, Texas.
Ryan Cohen had joined the board that January. The Chewy founder who had sold his pet supply company to PetSmart for $3.35 billion. He saw something in GameStop that everyone else had written off. He became CEO. He closed hundreds of stores. He pivoted to trading cards and collectibles. He cut costs until the company was profitable.
And then he just sat on the money.
GameStop had approximately $9.4 billion in cash and liquid investments as of January 2026. A video game store with the GDP of a small nation and nothing obvious to spend it on.
So Cohen looked around for something to buy.
He found eBay.
The offer was $125 per share. Half cash, half GameStop stock. A 46% premium to eBay’s price when GameStop started quietly buying in February. Total deal value roughly $56 billion. GameStop’s own market cap at the time was about $11 billion. They were proposing to buy a company four times their size.
Cohen lined up a $20 billion financing commitment from TD Securities. Added GameStop’s cash. Said he would take no salary, no bonuses, nothing unless the combined company grew. Said he would turn eBay into something worth hundreds of billions. Said eBay was spending $5.5 billion to run an $11 billion revenue business that essentially holds no inventory. Said he could fix that.
“It’s gonna be really big,” he told CNBC. “Really big. Very, very, very big.”
eBay’s board took nine days to respond.
“We have concluded that your proposal is neither credible nor attractive,” wrote Paul Pressler, eBay’s chairman. Six words doing a lot of work. Not just a rejection. A verdict.
Moody’s called the proposed deal credit negative. Wall Street analysts questioned the synergies. The financing letter from TD had conditions attached that made the whole thing shakier than it looked on paper.
Cohen went on podcasts. He went on CNBC. He called eBay’s management perversely incentivized. He said the board was only rejecting it because they knew they would be replaced. He vowed to go directly to shareholders.
He had started listing GameStop store signs and old carpets on the platform to fund the bid.
Here is what you are actually watching.
Two companies from different eras of American commerce trying to figure out what they are in 2026.
eBay was founded in 1995. One of the original internet companies. The garage sale that became a global marketplace. In 2025 it enabled nearly $80 billion in gross merchandise volume. Still enormous. Still relevant in the specific way that old things stay relevant. The place you go when you need something you cannot find anywhere else.
GameStop was founded as Babbage’s in 1984. Renamed in 1999. Built on the idea that games needed a physical home. The idea was correct until it wasn’t. Digital downloads made the disc optional. Then made it irrelevant. Then GameStop became a meme. Then a cash pile. Now a would-be acquirer.
Neither company knows exactly what it is anymore. One has identity without momentum. The other has momentum without identity. Cohen’s pitch is that together they become something neither can be alone.
eBay’s board says no.
The strangest detail in all of this is the listing.
Ryan Cohen, chairman and CEO of a company with $9.4 billion in cash, went on eBay and started listing GameStop store fixtures. Old signage. Used carpet. The physical remnants of a retail era that ended before he took over.
He was making a point. Or making a joke. Or both.
That’s the thing about this story. You cannot quite tell where the performance ends and the strategy begins. Which is exactly what made GameStop a meme in the first place. The line between sincere and absurd was always blurry.
eBay banned the account anyway.
Life is stranger than fiction.
A store that gave you $5 for your games tried to buy one of the original internet companies for $56 billion.
The internet company said no.
The store is still there.
So is the money.
Colt Avery is a contributing writer at Aktiego. The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not represent the editorial position of Aktiego.com.
Sources
GameStop Proposes to Acquire eBay at $125.00 Per Share | SEC Filing
eBay Rejects GameStop’s $56 Billion Takeover Bid | CNBC
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen Wants eBay | Yahoo Finance
GameStop Makes $56 Billion Offer for eBay | Fortune
GameStop Stock Price and History | Google Finance
GameStop Offer Letter | SEC Filing
GameStop Corp. | Yahoo Finance
Editorial Disclosure
This article was prompted by eBay’s rejection of GameStop’s unsolicited acquisition proposal and expanded into a broader cultural argument about two internet-era companies searching for identity in 2026. No financial relationships exist with GameStop, eBay, or any related party. Market data is drawn from SEC filings, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Fortune, and eBay investor relations. Commentary reflects the author’s own assessment. The information provided on this website is for informational and educational purposes only. Our content is derived strictly from verified online sources to ensure accuracy and objectivity. This analysis does not constitute financial, investment, or professional advice. Readers are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals before making decisions based on this information. For more information, please see our full DISCLAIMER.
