If you're sick, stay home; if you're healthy, stay home. These are the guidelines being told to every citizen at every level in nearly every country due to COVID-19. If you don't have an essential reason to leave your home, simply don't. Despite this, GameStop is doing what it can to remain open and ask for your business in times like this because it considers itself to be essential retail.

　　Essential retail hasn't been mandated at the US government level, but typically includes the following categories of retail: grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores, gas stations, farm equipment and hardware stores, restaurants that abide by the social distancing rules, and others. Hobbyist retails such as Best Buy are questionably essential because of their ability to provide cellular phone service in times of need but even they are experimenting with reduced hours and curbside pickup.

　　GameStop, on the other hand, handles only a minimal amount of essential services. Cricket Wireless used to be an additional service that GameStop offered but that partnership ended in 2018 when GameStop sold off its Spring Mobile brand and stopped carrying Cricket Wireless in stores. The only grocery services that GameStop provides include Funko Pop-branded cereal and whatever snacks are available at the checkout counter.

　　In a memo obtained by Wccftech today, GameStop wants to remain open even as other non-essential stores surrounding them are closed by order of local governments.

　　Due to the products we carry that enable and enhance our customers' experience in working from home, we believe GameStop is classified as essential retail and therefore is able to remain open during this time.

　　We have received reports of local authorities visiting stores in an attempt to enforce closure despite our classification. Store Managers are approved to provide the document linked below to law enforcement as needed.

　　Contact your District Manager with questions.

　　Among the only categories of products that GameStop carries that can 'enhance our customers' experience in working from home' are pre-owned tablets and smartphones, gaming routers, and the aforementioned cereal. Despite this, GameStop wants to remain open in a time when employees at the store level complain about a lack of cleaning supplies and exposure to COVID-19. GameStop's solution? Mark locations on the floor where customers can stand to spread out and engage in social distancing.

　　The document that GameStop is instructing its employees to offer to law enforcement does little to ensure that their level of retail should be considered essential.

　　Thank you for what you are doing to keep us all safe. If you have questions about our store's hours, operations or policies could I ask you to please call our corporate office:

　　GameStop Corporate Office

　　[Phone Number Redacted]

　　Thank you for your understanding.

　　Do you think GameStop is in the right for trying to remain open through the launches of Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!