GameStop has made a non-binding $56 billion offer for the online marketplace eBay. Thanks to some deeply questionable journalistic eavesdropping, Mainstream Outside can reveal the real story behind the attempted takeover: the global trade in second-hand companies.

No joke: retail chain GameStop—market value: around $12 billion—is apparently planning to take over eBay, a company worth far more at roughly $46 billion. A move against Amazon’s online retail monopoly? Experts say yes. But as it turns out, the video game retailer is thinking much bigger.

One of our reporters on the ground managed to infiltrate GameStop’s headquarters in Grapevine, Texas. Hidden inside a cardboard box for pre-owned games, she pressed a drinking glass against the outside wall of the conference room and listened in. Inside, senior management was discussing the eBay acquisition and a partial overhaul of GameStop’s business.

GameStop: eBay Becomes corpBay

According to our reporter’s transcript, GameStop plans to rename the platform corpBay once the eBay takeover goes through. The new name will also bring a new focus for the marketplace: instead of cars, game consoles, or knitted socks, it will list used companies—including GameStop’s own.

The transcript suggests that the eBay acquisition is only the start of a massive GameStop shopping spree. Plans reportedly include buying up every major economic heavyweight, including Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and Meta. The company intends to stick to its tried-and-tested business model: buy firms cheap, slap a red "Pre-Owned" sticker on them, and resell them at just under 48 percent gross margin.

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen also said he sees corpBay as the foundation of a more democratic, "better" world. With the "Buy It Now" button, he explained, Microsoft would no longer be something only multi-billionaires could buy. Ordinary citizens could get in on the action too—all they’d need is the necessary pocket change. Cohen added that shipping costs would only apply to shell companies.

Secret Gold Rush and Gamepad Tokenization

Asked how a company with a market value of roughly $12 billion planned to casually buy eBay, Apple, and Microsoft, Cohen reportedly pointed to a "chest full of gold" in the basement of company headquarters. Our initially skeptical reporter got to see it for herself:

The GameStop boss also outlined new monetization strategies. His main idea: tokenizing used controllers and gamepads, known internally as the "input tax." Cohen put it this way:

"We’ll charge buyers, say, $0.01 for nudging the left stick upward. Pressing the X button, on the other hand, will cost $0.03 including a confirmation fee. Screenshots will be billed at $0.99 because of a new content creator levy—and remapping the buttons will count as attempted fraud, carrying a $20 penalty. Just imagine the revenue potential of a used controller with stick drift."

corpCredit for Late Capitalism

GameStop’s future plans do come with a B-side. Ryan Cohen sees crates of used FIFA discs as the company’s financial cushion. Copies of FIFA 17 for PS4 in particular are said to be "more volatile than gold," especially with the football game’s 10th anniversary coming up next year. Besides, this "FIFA gold" stacks better than Bitcoin.

Still, the GameStop CEO has no doubt that corpBay will work. The whole thing will be powered by the tried-and-tested loop of store credits, or corpCredits. "Anyone trading in a used publisher on corpBay can choose between $2.3 billion in cash or $2.7 billion in store credit, redeemable against all participating global corporations. Nintendo, AppleCare, and countries currently in civil war are excluded," Cohen said.

Of course, GameStop is the one that benefits from the loop. Cohen himself laid out a sample case: GameStop buys EA, sells EA pre-owned to Microsoft, buys Microsoft back using EA leftovers, then lists the bundle on corpBay as "Publisher Collection—no returns for live-service damage." Sounds expensive? At least corpBay is expected to run regular sales. The first "Buy two global corporations, get Ubisoft free" deal is also expected in time for Black Friday.