For 10 months, GameStop was a depressing emblem of the Covid-era economy—many of its stores sat closed or empty, dust gathering on out-of-date game discs that had been supplanted by digital alternatives. It has closed about 1,000 outlets since the start of 2019.
Then, for the past three weeks, it became the center of a much larger world, the $36 trillion U.S. stock market. The stock rose more than 1,600%, caused a short squeeze that throttled hedge funds, and became such a topic of fascination that the White House and the…
