In this photo essay, the photos presented to us seem to represent how our economy has dropped from its former glory.  Throughout the essay we can see someone wanting to trade in a game at GameStop and only receiving two cents for this game.  The captions underneath each image also hints to this fact that the creator had intended to present.  Each image has its own environment and story to tell that all piece together one conclusion on the economy.

The first image shows the box art of what seems to be a video game which is titled Metroid: Other M.  From the box art, it can be inferred that the game is rated T for Teen and plays on the Nintendo Wii system as show in the top right corner.  On the box shows three different people, one man, one woman, and one mechanized person.  The intriguing part of the entire picture is that the person is holding it while standing next to the door.  This shows that the person plans to take this with them when they leave.  The caption beneath infers that the person dislikes the game and hopes that they can trade it in for some currency.

The next image shows a GameStop full of attention grabbing posters and prices plastered all over the glass.  Despite all of the advertisement that usually catches the eye, the store seems so devoid of customers.  The store is not closed either as the lights are on and from what can be seen seems to be a GameStop employee in the very back of the store reorganizing the shelves.  The store could be empty based off of the time of day, whether or not that certain day is slow, or just overall bad service.  At the moment it seems that all that can be gathered is that the store is empty.

The next images takes the viewers to a different GameStop which can be inferred by the change of color in the carpet.  In this GameStop, there in one employee and one customer here.  It seems that they are doing some sort of transaction in the store as the customer is standing in front of the cashier behind the counter.  The vacancy of the GameStop is still what seems to catch the eye here.  Variety of stock does not seem to be a problem as there are many games laid out for people to select from.  Considering the light that is shining in from the window, it can be deduced that the time of day is around mid-afternoon which is when most people would want to shop at GameStop as they would be getting off work around this time or in the area.  That leaves the vacancy due to either poor service or the day being the contributor to why there is almost no one in the GameStop.

In the following image, there is a picture of two hands exchanging signs with each other.  One has a dollar sign, most likely signifying money currency and the other is similar to the dollar sign just with a B instead of the S.  This can show that one person is trading money for what B stands for, which would be a good that was produced.  The two can also be interpreted as Buyer and Seller to show the two different people trading based off of what they were planning to do, whether to buy or to sell.  Seeing as how there is no calendar or holiday being depicted, it can now be concluded that most likely the reason why the GameStop is so vacant is due to the service given by the employees or the store itself.

The last image shows the same person with the video game in their hand now replaced with two pennies.  It seems as if the person traded in the game for two cents to GameStop, based off of the photos that were displayed.  This shows that the vacancy is mainly due to the service by the store, as that would be the store’s policy on buying games from their customers.  Instead of a door a desk is now in view, signifying that the trade has been completed over the counter.

The entire photo essay attempts to relate GameStop as a poor company to do trade-ins with and possibly even relate to the overall economy.  Each photo gives information on what the person in the photo planned to do, starting with a game and then ending with currency.  In between are the information of stores as well as the workers inside of the store.  Ultimately, each photo is a strong way of story telling the important information that needs to be given to the viewer.
