Best Buy ending Gamers Club Unlocked program

Electronics retailer Best Buy is no longer selling Gamers Club Unlocked, a membership program that granted 20 percent discounts on new video games and pre-orders. The company apparently broadcast the news to stores via an internal memo last week, though Polygon could not confirm its existence from any of the employees it spoke to.

While an informational page describing GCU still exists, the option to purchase a new membership has been removed from the Best Buy website. Polygon reached out to several Best Buy locations nationally and found that the part number has been deactivated in their computer systems, meaning that expiring memberships cannot be renewed. Store operators told us that existing memberships will be honored until they expire.

GCU has been a long-running promotion at Best Buy. The two-year membership was originally priced at $99.99, but was dropped to $29.99 in March 2015. The move prompted online retailer Amazon to offer a similar benefit to Amazon Prime members in January 2016. Discounts are applied at checkout.

Store associates were unclear if the GCU program was being canceled outright, or if the program was being retooled or rebooted in some fashion. Polygon has reached out to Best Buy for more details.