Embattled North American video game retailer GameStop plans to build an NFT marketplace where players can buy, sell and trade NFTs and virtual in-game items, it is being reported.
According to The Wall Street Journal, GameStop is building an internal crypto division and has already hired 20 staff for this purpose. The marketplace is expected to launch later this year, and game companies are already being asked to offer their NFTs through it.
The report adds that GameStop is preparing agreements with two cryptocurrency companies, and these deals would help the retailer invest in games with crypto features to further strengthen its position. Sources add that in 2022 alone, GameStop could enter 'about a dozen or more' partnerships, with investments in this area reaching tens of millions of dollars.
A GameStop NFT site already exists, with the retailer appealing to 'content creators' to populate it with NFTs. It would seem that this new marketplace will be a bolder extension of this concept.
It's easy to see why GameStop is going big on NFTs and crypto; OpenSea, one of the world's leading NFT marketplaces, is now valued at $13.3 billion. Add to this the fact that the retailer is having to close physical stores due to the rise of digital downloads and it's easy to see why the stock market has reacted so positively to the report. According to Reuters, GameStop shares jumped 27 percent in the wake of the news.
NFTs continue to be a divisive concept. While the likes of Ubisoft, EA and Square Enix seem very keen on them, other companies – such as Sega – have taken steps to distance themselves from the idea after initially making positive comments, with the latter even going as far as to say it would reverse its plans for NFTs if public outcry was strong enough. NFTs and games with crypto features are currently banned on Valve's digital storefront Steam.
Meanwhile, Japanese veteran Konami has just jumped on board the NFT train with a selection of digital items which are intended to celebrate the 35th birthday of the iconic Castlevania series.
[source kotaku.com]
Comments 74
I already dislike Gamestop. Now I hate the company. I will not give them my money for any reason while they sell this BS
If I recall correctly, I think one of the goals was to be able to sell/trade digital games, which is the first legitimate use I've heard of NFTs not being an art scam. I'm curious, but will wait and see.
As long as there are idiots to buy this crap there will be idiots to provide it.
Just like scalpers.
If you do not buy from them and wait they will disappear.
But I do not see that happening.
More buzzwords. I hate the digital age.
Can we just go back to more free-to-play shenanigans, lootboxes and xp boosters as micro-transactions please?
I will bet the farm it fails.
Gamestop is doing nothing wrong as a company trying to stay alive and relevant. We might not like it but they should get in as soon as possible. These bigger companies will push it through no matter what we say.
I will continue to play my games for fun period!
this is such a bad development
@Spoony_Tech NFTs are not relevant, useful, or necessary. This is just jumping on a fad and hoping to cash in quickly. It will fail.
"GameStop Is Betting The Farm On NFTs, And Investors Are All For It"
"Farm"?
@d-slice This already exists, it doesn't require NFTs or blockchain. As with everything NFT and blockchain suggested for games and art.
@Mario500
Farmville
I don't like NFT's, but this really makes me wish I kept my shares in Gamestop. Large investors are such suckers, I'd have made even more cash on this.
@Mario500 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bet-the-farm-ranch
@IronMan30 I have a few left and I am watching like a hawk.
This is a smart move on GameStop's part. They are the only organization I know of that is trying to implement NFT's to better empower gamers. I hope that's what happens.
@Ryu_Niiyama I honestly hope you make some money.
@Mando44646 gamestop BDS - who’s with us?
@kal_el_07241 lmao what
If GS is putting NFTs to use for the one and only ACTUAL practical application of assigning physical ownership rights to digital content, GameStop may be my new best friend.
While the publishers (and platform owners) want to double down on NFT for cosmetics and whales, and conveniently ignore the real function of blockchain to assign material trading of digital ownership, GameStop is presenting the idea of ACTUALLY using it to make digital licenses owned property. Which makes perfect sense, their entire business model is built on buying and selling used content. Digital guaranteed they had no future. NFT emerged, became a buzz word, and presented the chance to make digital tradable in their traditional business model and it benefits the consumer.
If they pull that off, they may change the nature of digital ownership in the marketplace, not just for games, but for music and video, for everyone, where legislators failed to do so for decades. If it works, it will also compel the platform holders to lower the price of games and accelerate the pacing of digital discounts to match physical.
With this particular approach, don't think of NFTs as "a new trap for whales" and think of "NFT" as a merging of physical and digital, or assigning video games as a form of cryptocurrency with actual value.
@Zuljaras a sucker is born every minute and all that
It's GameStop the company that tried to declare itself an essential business in 2020. Of course they're trying to peddle NFTs.
@CharlieGirl Different ownership.
@kal_el_07241 Same rotten corporation.
Their desperation to stay alive and relevant is endearing.
Still feel the company is one bad decision away from going up in flames, though.
2022 kinda sucks
@Dethmunk Optical disc/cartridges are basically DRM but on a personal level.
"DRM" itself isn't really a source of problems. Ownership of authentication is. Physical media contains otherwise copyable digital data, and the physical media contains the encrypted license validation. Same as a digital copy. The difference to how is you possessed ownership of the authentication token on the disc/cart, while for digital meda it's possessed by the platform holder, in the cloud, attached to your account. You have no access to it, and no way to transfer ownership. Instead of obtaining a product/license, you basically get "enabled access" on your account.
Used appropriately, blockchains can rewrite that history and apply the same rights to digital licenses as physical licenses. It's an object (physical or digital) in your possession, that has material value and can be transferred. Blockchain is designed for exactly that functionality, and is, to date, the only means of making digital licenses transferrable in the marketplace without a central, proprietary database managing traditional DRM.
BUT, up to now, nobody has suggested using blockchain in the digital marketplace in that way. It kills a cash cow publishers have. GameStop, built on trading licenses, has a vested interest in dragging tangible license ownership from physical to digital now that a mainstream tech exists to do it, which makes this interesting. In the current digital future, they have nothing to sell. In a blockchain license future, their business effectively continues unchanged from its heyday.
Actual cryptocurrency has a shaky future because almost all it's value is speculation in the valueless non-existent "mining" of non-existent money. The whole thing is just speculation and fake money now being assigned a real money value that could drop out at any minute. But the actual authentication tech of blockchain doesn't go down with shady currency. The authentication tech itself, used simply as a decentralized, open DRM platform, is just a distributed math platform that can guarantee unique keys.
That's separate from "game preservation" which of course, still relies on a central platform server to approve a digital token and license it, while physical doesn't. But it does solve a massive problem with what has been digital sales so far, in that even while current, they are non-transferable and hold no value, unlike their physical forebears.
"Investors are all for it" translates to "you're being robbed if you buy into it". You give them validation, you get nothing, you lose. You're literally a loser and they're laughing at you.
Call it taxes, "fair trade", whatever. If it's on the market, whether mandated or voluntarily purchased under other manipulative tactics, it's making profit, at someone's loss. If investors, people that only see numbers and have no passion for the product, art,... are happy, many are losing, much, rapidly.
Always.
In the end it's mostly up to you what you consider worthy, a good deal, whatever, of course. As long as the market is free (in the true meaning, free to decide what trade you make and what trade you don't. Not free to force you, lie to you, take from you,... or free as in forced to just give to you, unless they want to of course.)
And then we wait to see the stock peak for maybe a few hours and then drop back again...
@kal_el_07241 No, this is a stupid move. NFTs are useless and do not "empower" games in any way. Everything that NFTs are claimed to do for games can already be done without them. They're just a scam.
@NEStalgia Except everything you described doesn't require crypto to work... Not to mention that video game companies (i.e. Ubisoft Quartz) are making their NFT programs centralized, so they'll still be able to randomly revoke ownership, ban sales, shut down old versions of games or charge on every transaction, rather than the properly decentralized system crypto was supposed to provide.
I was hoping they wanted to use their locations as physical NFT showrooms where you can look at, pick up, and feel the NFTs before you buy them.
In seriousness, I understand why GameStop is doing this. There's a gold-rush mentality going on here, which already exposes one of the problems with pretend collectibles since there won't be a resale market for much of this "stuff" when there's no limit to the creation of NFTs.
@Browny It's ironic because their loss of relevancy is likely due to trying too hard to please investors first, and gamers second.
Had they leaned into improving customer experiences, eased up on trying to hit quotas, and dipped their toes into more honest endeavors, they might be in a better position right now.
Probably not making all the money, but losing them would be like losing Toys R Us; there's so few dedicated stores like that these days (in North America, at least).
@DTFaux Gamestop has never been a company centered around pleasing the customers. Back in the day they got big by eliminating all the competition just to lower the standards for video game stores. Now nobody goes to game stores anymore because of the way they ruined them.
The (secondary) headline indicates "Stock value rises in wake of report", but according to Google their stock price has actually dropped 7% this week. The article also doesn't indicate anything about stock price, leaving this concept hanging out there in the secondary headline only.
Gamestop's stock price overall isn't a reflection of value and stands as a market outlier at present. A year ago Gamestop's stock price shot up 1600% after online users collaborated to do a short squeeze on it, I think led by wallstreetbets on Reddit. The stock price has remained artificially high and doesn't meaningfully align with Gamestop's financial metrics. There's merit in the concept that "something is worth what people are willing to pay for it," but from a value perspective Gamestop is overpriced and movements in its stock price can't be reliably connected to actions the company makes.
The biggest and most existential problem facing videogames as a hobby is the fact that all too often the desires of gamers and stockholders are at diametric odds. It's been a growing issue with regard to developers playing it "safe" and regurgitating the same tired "AAA" IPs every single year, with 90 percent of games at shows like E3 looking, sounding, and playing alike (FPSes, zombies, post-apocalypse, ultra-violence, etc.) for years already. Likewise online was always a Trojan horse for (especially larger) publishers to create ways to further monetize, control, and gate players' experiences after the original point-of-sale. Now it's pushing its way into business models that are in no way, shape, or form about benefiting gamers or the hobby anymore, but pushing the envelope to see how much they can be exploited and convinced to pay more for less at the point-of-sale (now we're getting glorified betas and unfinished games...hello 343 and Halo Infinite...with increasing regularity). NFTs are just the latest "fad" that these corporations are swooning over that (even by their own admission, per the letter by Square Enix's President) those of us who love the hobby and play games to have fun have ZERO interest in.
A word of warning to the videogame industry: no corporation or industry is ever too big and powerful to end up destroying itself if it alienates its consumer base enough. Stray too far from the mission statements and passion that drove your company initially and drew the fan bases that grew it to where it is now, and you will see those consumers...and the creators whose passion and creativity no longer line up with your priorities...leave you behind just as you're apparently willing to do to us.
God, I am so sick of this NFT news. Everyone is trying to get in on it, no one has done it yet and it's not going anywhere.
@JayJ I'd argue the time when they still allowed EB Games to be its own brand was the last time it generally felt alright to shop there. But I definitely agree that the eventual monopoly has done serious harm to the brick and motar gaming market.
I'm fortunate to have a couple of "mom 'n pop" gaming stores in my area, but not everyone's so lucky. And because the market is so unlikely to expand, it's why I hope GS stops screwing around and does better before it's too late.
Good on Gamespot for seeing ahead and adapting to where the gaming industry is heading. Brace your little heads for the day Nintendo uses NFTs; these companies go where the money is.
NINJA APPROVED
@Yorumi Oh, I don't disagree, I've said in other threads (maybe on Push) that it's not like the Federal Reserve isn't must fake money printed out of thin air, either.
THEORETICALLY, the US dollar is based on some computation of the total GDP of the US or some such. Cynicism tells me it's probably as made up a number as the "inflation" and "cost of living" values that are based on weird and Orwellian factors, the price of luxury cars, and the cost of corn (not joking.) But on paper, at least, the USD is based on the theoretical total financial output of the US, while Bitcoin is based on how many teraflops a hundred SLI'd GTX Titans can process.
In practice the USD is based on whatever number of monopoly money the (privately owned) fed wants to print, and when you get deeper into it you realize just how corrupt the fiat currency system is and just why everyone is encouraged into becoming debt slaves (hint: Loans are not actually loaned money with interest....it's a writ to print new money, and the bank's money is merely held as escrow, not an underwrite. Every time someone takes a loan, new money is printed to underwrite the loan, and thus all other money is devalued. It makes me want to go all in on crypto, until I remember that's actually even worse.) I'd be very happy with bartering at this point. Very, very, very happy. Maybe we can barter on the blockchain....
@link3710 We're not talking about the publishers' corrupted NFT MTX systems, here though, we're talking about GameStop's attempt at using blockchain to attempt to re-establish their existing business model of buy & sell gaming content. I don't think anyone can look at what Ubi & Sega are trying to do and say there's any positive value in that. But I've said in many threads that the ONLY good thing "NFT" can be used for in gaming is the one thing none of the companies will do - apply physical ownership rights to digital content. And that's the one thing GameStop has a vested interest in doing here that makes it different.
It just happens that what's in GameStop's best interest in protecting the status quo business model their company has been based on (buy & sell game content at extortionate prices) until digital threatened it into extinction (forcing them to become an apparel chain that sells consoles) happens to align with consumer interest in securing physical ownership rights to digital licenses, and what legislators have failed to do (and should have done) for a long time in terms of digital commerce legislation.
They could pervert it. It's GameStop, they probably will pervert it. But it does present a singularly interesting disruption in the market possibly that I didn't see coming and would like to see happen.
More companies embracing the digital pet rock. How expected.
@BloodNinja That's ridiculous. Nintendo would never adopt predatory, morally bankrupt monetization practices like NFT.
I'm surprised it took GameStop this long to get in on the NFT news. Lame!
@NEStalgia I’ll believe it when I see it, but I also know that Nintendo doesn’t want to go bankrupt so even they will have to adapt to where the industry is heading so enjoy it while you can. GameStop just got there first to lay groundwork so that others may follow.
If there are a few good places like this for all those people interested in NFTs to gather and practice their Ponzi schemes, then hopefully they can be kept away from EVERYWHERE ELSE.
@NEStalgia In defense of Nintendo Badge Arcade, a lot of the fun of crane games is the thrill to potentially win a prize. At the very least the prizes could be used, even if simply cosmetically. And if you didnt spend a dime, it was kind of a generous F2P game.
The bigger problem was how stingy it all was on the money front. $2 for 10 plays for digital prizes was undeniably greedy. If they bring it back, they need to seriously rebalance that.
@BloodNinja You totally missed the image attached to that post, didn't you?
@NEStalgia I don't recognize it, so I just figured it was like a face
I stopped buying stuff at gamestop when they became a funko pop store and sold "old games" that were just trade ins of fake cartridges. Glad I did, f NFT's and everyone who is involved with them
@BloodNinja LOL, if it's a post by me, you KNOW it's sarcastic
That's Arcade Bunny, from the 3DS title Nintendo Badge Arcade. Arguably the most predatory video game outside of mobile that pushed some very questionable boundaries before mtx was even standard in the industry. The cute fluffy Nintendo bunny that really really encourages kids to plug that credit card in. Often......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Badge_Arcade
If predatory NFT can make money, Nintendo will be there on day 5 and retroactively charge for day -3.
@DTFaux True, to a point, though I suspect next time it'll be $5 for 10 plays. Look at what Halo is doing at $20 for cat ears for Master Chief Ariana.
We're arguing over $70 prices on games on the Sony side of the world, and meanwhile there's a market willing to pay $80 for a total puppy outfit for their space marine.
@NEStalgia lmfao!!! Okay, sorry for misreading. I had no idea.
NINJA APPROVED
@PBandSmelly I can spot a fake cart a mile away, and the GameStops I used ONLY ever sold authentic merch. If I was ever unsure, they even let me inspect the cart and open it with a tri-wing/security bit screwdriver. To this day, not once did I spot a counterfeit, even with the easily fakeable GBA carts. Maybe you just encountered employees who were not diligent.
@BloodNinja
In my area, the employees don't care. They have an entire glass case filled with fake GBA carts. Literally 10 copies of pokemon emerald with the wrong sticker art
That's the word betting on the farm. Those doing so without a good second or initial plan to rely on always fall flat on their face.
@d-slice Imagine being able to sell your finished digital games to someone else or a retailer as a "used" NFT copy, but future NFT sales give a cut going back to the developers to keep funding their game development efforts! Now wouldn't that be nice instead of weird NFT bros trading monkey jpgs!
@NEStalgia Oh geez, I didnt even know things were that bad in Halo. But I think there is a limit to how much people are willing to spend on something.
There'll always be a market for games subsidized by whales (usually F2P), but games with a higher barrier of entry may struggle. It's partially why I think $70 games are gonna be a flash in the pan. We already pay for that via DLC.
NFTs are still a thing?
All a digital game previously owned to be sold on this marketplace at an actual fair price. I would then be more on their side.
As if selling used copies of Wii Sports for $50 USD was not bad enough...
So they want do be Epic / Steam / GOG but with NFT...
Like that's gonna work
Grasping at straws they are
I will not play or purchase any video games utilizing NFTs or cryptocurrency.
End of statement.
man, the human race just continues to astound and disappoint me
@DTFaux Ironically, if you look at the general sales habits on PS, in particular, I think used games sales (which was incorporated by GameStop, wrecking sales numbers, originally, and was named by the industry as the reason for going from $50-60 back in the PS360 era, and later the reason for day 1 DLC) takes a huge chunk of money from Sony in particular with their story driven one-and-done focus, and they're using the $70 pricing against the whales to make up for it (but it butchers digital pricing into absurdity), and to pad out the price decline across a longer duration with sales.
But I think what might be the nail in the coffin of the $70 model (even if they keep it 70 but just drop the prices faster) is how packed 2022 is going to be with releases. It's going to be major game after major game all competing at the same time, and they're all going to suffer in sales because of it. Not everyone can buy everything, and the pie is being split so many ways (For Sony, GT7, GoW2, HFW, plus who knows what else, along with the big games, from the annual series through Hogwarts, Elden Ring, and tons of other 3rd party heavy hitters that were delayed from prior years.) The market will cannibalize itself this year, and in that environment, I can't see high price tags holding long at all, unless Sony truly is going the Nintendo route of "The price is the price until 3045, buy it or don't."
NFT's... are they mad!? Well, it does seem that way...
@IronMan30 Yeah, the large investors are the suckers, not the guy who bought gamestop cos reddit told him to
Removed - inappropriate language
@Mario500 is there a legitimate reason you format your comments like this or is it some strange form of roleplay
@Yorumi True, but so far every single videogame NFT has been centralized, and I don't foresee the companies agreeing to let GameStop do a decentralized service.
@IronMan30 Wow you really believed all that reddit narrative didnt you! You were the one here wishing you'd held on to stock of the company supporting NFTs
@IronMan30 I was more pointing out your logic fail though, the big investors are rich and suckers? How did that happen?
This comment section confuses me.
@somebread
"is there a legitimate reason you format your comments like this or is it some strange form of roleplay"
?
@Folderoll I fell so hard I made money. I meant to say I wanted to make more cash. But large investors do often put their money into things without really knowing about what they invest in, in hopes of manipulating the market to make a quick buck. And that you don't find it hilarious the firm that tried to short GS lost money on that gamble says a lot about you. I even replied to you yesterday before looking at your comment history and you really do go to bat for rich people, further proving my point about you being a corporate bootlicker.
But I guess you're right, in the bigger picture it's not the people who control the economy who are suckers. It's everyone else, but not for the reasons you think.
Anyway, it doesn't matter what you say in response because I'm ignoring you. You seem especially pugnacious for a guy implying he's smart and "above the fray."
@IronMan30 Don't believe everything you read on the internet and you may get close to removing that massive chip from your shoulder...
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