Oh No, GameStop Is Closing Its NFT Marketplace

GameStop had an NFT marketplace?

Well, now where am I going to go to trade in the lightly used NFTs I don't want anymore for a slight percentage of its full market value?

I want to imagine a man has invested his entire life saving in GameStop NFTs and is on the streets now

Tune in next month when GameStop announces their jump into AI, somehow.

Because, surely, a company desperate to stay relevant but mostly predicates itself on in-person exchanges and online orders will find a way to shove that square peg into a circle hole...

I had no idea they tried to get in on this. I had a feeling NFTs were going to be a fad. And now digital content that has been up for years without any problems (such as the viral video "Charlie Bit My Finger," back from the early days of YouTube) could now be withheld from the masses due to copyright.

And that's not even taking into account artists who have had their work stolen and sold as NFTs. I distinctly remember seeing fanart from Japanese artist Uotapo (known for making fanart of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, especially its spinoff series, Equestria Girls) on an NFT marketplace.

Being a follower of them on DeviantArt, I messaged them and told them about it, and they sent a takedown request of their art on the NFT site. But I can't help but wonder how many of their works were already sold to bad actors or unsuspecting users under false pretenses.

Basically, they were a bad idea all around, if you ask me. And now all those people who spent goodness knows how many dollars/pounds/euros/rubles/yen/etc. are left with something that is now basically worthless.

It would be so lovely to go back in time a few years and tell everyone who invested in NFTs to not even bother, that they'd be out tons of money for a piece of code that would not be worth anything in a couple of years.

Due to the power of blockchain technology, people will still own the NFTs and could still sell them via other platforms to anyone stupid enough to buy them.

I read that as "Oh no, GameStop is closing its money laundering service."

I've yet to see an explanation of NFTs that proves they're of any benefit to anyone aside from criminals. I'm amazed they've been permitted for this long.

GameStop wouldn’t be trying so hard to survive in this modern gaming climate if everyone hadn’t pushed so hard for digital games. A tangible store can’t be profitable in an intangible business. It’s finally starting to be realized, however, that many gamers are being left in the cold as they find out they never actually bought their digital games and instead bought a ticket to play them temporarily (aka rental). Gamers, please purchase physical games, let’s help the industry survive all around, including our game stores!

I was waiting to see that “Oh no! Anyways,” gif in the comments and am a bit sad I didn’t.

I can’t think of any comment. NFT’s were and are a complete mystery to me. But apparently that’s ok because they are over. One day my grandchildren will ask me (they won’t) “what were those NFTs” and I will say “It’s a thing that caused mass headaches for 2 years, but it didn’t actually exist”.

GameStop is dipping out of its get rich quick scheme??

@KoiTenchi Gotchu, fam

Lol, that droll headline.

Fungi win again

Stay strong my mushroom friends

No. Funging. Way.

@AstroTheGamosian I feel like a LOT of people tried to warn about the dangers during the whole NFT explosion. But they were ignored/laughed at. Even if a person from the future tried getting through to the thick skulled types they’d suffer the same reaction. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

@Kiyata I’ve literally never been left in the cold by buying digital. No game license has ever been taken from me. I’m not saying this is impossible but it is so far a mostly hypothetical problem and thanks to digital adoption forcing console makers to move to full backwards compatibility the odds of it happening in any meaningful way are very low.

There was someone a few years ago in the comments on this site saying how we didn't understand NFTs and how we'd be able to use them to buy and sell stuff in games and transfer between games and all this wild stuff...I wish I could remember their username!

GameSTOP it already. How are you still in business xD

@MarioBrickLayer i wonder where s/he is now.
Makes you wish you had bookmarked that page.

Good riddance

Not like we lost anything of value here.

@AlexOlney hello Alex from nintendo life

The stupidest thing I ever heard of. Destined to fail

@AG_Awesome Most likely. People were going on and on about NFTs being the best thing since sliced bread. A few years prior to that, it was cryptocurrency, which also had its bubble burst.

Now the new tech craze is AI. But that being said, I am somewhat in support of AI, provided that we can make it so that it works with us and for us instead of against us.

@Bobb And the thing is, too, you could just right-click and save the image to your computer, getting around whoever owns the NFT of an image. Heck, that's what everybody did before NFTs were a thing.

If anything, I bet you that's how the artwork got sold as an NFT in the first place: the seller right-clicked, saved it to their computer, then sold it as an NFT. I just hope that the artist I mentioned (who is frankly very talented, by the way), was able to keep their copyright for their stolen work.

@MarioBrickLayer My favorite thing was when asked about the possibility of releasing more rare/unreleased songs, the lead singer of a band that used to be good said something like "the nft space opens up more possibilities like that". I later joked about it with the ex drummer of that band on twitter, and still have no idea what the statement meant.

@Bobb no it just means they’d need to transfer their nft to another marketplace to store or sell if that was their desire.

If there’s a good use of NFTs I’ve yet to see it. Stupid waste of money from the very start and I’m glad they’re imploding on all who invested in them. Fair play to those who got in early and managed to sell them to gullible people for ridiculous amounts, must be laughing all the way to the bank

@AstroTheGamosian That’s not the point! Somewhere lying in some code is the name of the person who bought it so it belongs to them! That makes the JPEG of the monkey in sunglasses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars don’t you get it?!

That's good to see.

NFTs are a scam, I feel bad for anyone caught in this.

And people accuse Wii U of failing to get its appeal across.

If only someone, anyone, could have foreseen this being a bad idea…

NFTs? Yeah. If you can’t do it when the power goes out . . . whatever my business professor said.

Anyway, on a related note, why are BitCoins and other phony digital currencies utterly worth less than the American penny?

Because I can fill a sock full of pennies and defend myself. How can I fill a sock with BitCoins?

Ergo, NFTs could be retooled for stoping fraud on digital documents. NFTs are worthless. I have a real painting by Monet, then I can sell it. (Actually, it was the Vermeer that EA allowed me to take when they shut down a studio I was working at for them.) I can’t sell sn NFT.

...And this is what happens when you fall for a get rich quick fad.

with physical games going to disappear at major retailers gamestop is a very good option that will still sell physical games..

Forgot Gamestop still exists in some countrys.

What a shame, couldn't have happened to a nicer company.

NFT = No F***ing Thanks

I can't believe NFTs were ever taken seriously. Who the hell DIDN'T see this coming?

I knew about it pretty much entirely because I'm quite familiar with the weird subsection of people that completely worship everything Ryan Cohen does for some reason.

CS:GO has had a functioning "NFT" market for a decade with their skins and somehow NO ONE used them as a baseline for their new "ecosystems." That was clue number one this whole NFT thing was cool only in idea but never would be properly used.

I just binged through Jauwn's ENTIRE series reviewing Crypto Games. TWICE.

Rest In Pieces GME NFTs, not even the drunken apes of the MOASS subreddit could save you.

"though a report in 2023 indicated that around 95% of NFTs had a market value of zero, rendering them effectively useless."

They were "useless" even when they had "value".

Oh no! Aaaanyway.

Delighted that we as a society have rejected this fad so vigorously that only a couple of years after it sprang up, it's almost dead.

@Kiyata I'm all for keeping physical game sales alive but does it really need to be from Gamestop? The shopping experience is so miserable because they try to get you to sign up for a million programs and pre-order other games and purchase a "warranty" that you'll never be able to use. Not to mention they have terrible selection because they fill half the store with funko pops and other useless crap nobody wants.

funny looking at all those promting nfts as next big thing loads turned out be conemen who could have guessed.

Good riddance to NFTs. Take cryptocurrency and AI art/writing with you while you're at it.

NFTs are still a thing?

NFTs dying off gives me a little bit of hope back for humanity.

~Let it die, let it die! Let it shrivel up and die...~

Good riddance to a garbage concept, and good on governments for cracking down on these kinds of scams (even if it's just for tax evasion). The only downside is that some NFT markets have tied physical items, most notably with Funko POPs.

Also, it bothers me that this article mentions that The Pokémon Company is still "interested" in NFTs despite the linked article saying that it's The Pokémon Company International that's looking into the viability of NFTs. When most Pokémon fans see TPC mentioned in a news article they think of of the Japanese company, not the international branch based in the US.

Gimme a minute to summon my tears...oh wait I have none

I'm sure they'll make the profits back by adding a 7th Funko Pop wall to their stores

@GarlicGuzzler The merch to video game ratio is partially why I stopped going there. The last few times I went in GameStop the store was 2/3 merch and there was hardly any game inventory.

Not to mention the whole “Can I help you?!” as soon as I walked in the door and pressuring me to preorder games got on my nerves too.

NFT I hardly knew ye, glad you are on your way out the door.

I'm shocked! Shocked!

And nothing of value was lost.

Bahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaa!!!

But but but but all the financial and business editorial outlets said the Chewy guy was a genius and would turn Gamestop around! How could this be?! /sarcasm 🙄🙄

Oh no what a horrible loss, however will we cope?

Well… bye!

NFT's had the same energy as Homer Simpson making and trying to sell that love tonic: "After years of disappointment with get-rich-quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme, and quick!"

This is sort of like some guy invented the padlock, then everyone starts selling notes which say you own some crap in a box locked with the padlock.
Then when everyone realises what they did, they start blaming padlocks. Padlocks, we don't need ya, you're dumb, etc.
Meanwhile, it still has it's uses, it just won't turn crap into gold.

@OstianOwl

Haha, thank you. All is right now.