GameStop plans to launch its own irreplaceable token (or NFT) market and is jointly creating a fund of “up to $ 100 million” for game developers who use it. The market will mark the expansion of GameStop from a popular meme to a company that specializes in cryptocurrency and Web3 technologies – although it may also provoke the anger of gamers who are strongly against NFT.
The new GameStop NFT market should launch later this year. It is built on Immutable X, a platform based on the popular blockchain for cryptocurrency Ethereum. Designed by Immutable, the company behind the NFT trading card game Gods freed, Immutable X aims to mitigate Ethereum’s biggest drawbacks: its huge energy consumption and high associated ‘gas charges’, which can add excessive processing costs to any transaction. The protocol combines hundreds of thousands of sales records in one transaction, which is stored in the Ethereum blockchain; Unchanging promises will offset the cost of the environment right borne by paying carbon offsets.
Immutable’s existing partnerships should boost the new GameStop initiative, as companies already using Immutable X will be able to bring their NFT to market. Immutable and GameStop have also partnered to create the developer fund. While Immutable X is used by some non-gaming partners, such as TikTok, the GameStop market is presented as a place to buy and sell in-game assets presented as blockchain tokens – GameStop offers examples of digital real estate, weapons and skins of characters.
Earlier, GameStop expressed interest in blockchain technology last year, advertising as a “Web3 game manager” as well as various NFT-based jobs. NFTs are often described as a way to prove ownership of in-game items and can allow players to trade items outside of an approved market, such as an in-game auction house. Some “play to win” games like Axie Infinity also use cryptocurrency and NFT to manage an in-game economy that turns into real money for players. But their benefits are sometimes oversold – especially claims that they will allow players to move items from one game to another, an opportunity that is difficult and often undesirable for many other reasons.
While some companies, especially Ubisoft, have continued with NFT games despite criticism, others have canceled plans for NFT-related games such as STALKER 2 and Worms. This happened partly due to criticism from players, but also a lack of enthusiasm from the developers – who responded extremely negatively to the phenomenon in a recent study. But launching a blockchain-based game buy-in could help GameStop avoid the backlash that has been followed by publishers and studios delving into NFT.