GameStop is getting quite a bit of attention today, and for good reason. The company was the center of a report from The Wall Street Journal, suggesting that the company has built a team of over 20 people that are charged with working on an online marketplace for virtual items.
Here’s what’s happening:
GameStop Works Into NFTs
As mentioned above, according to The Wall Street Journal, GameStop has put together a team that will be charged with building an online marketplace for virtual items. It is suggested that these items will include cosmetic skins as well as other in-game items.
As it works to build the marketplace, the company is working with game developers and publishers to get them to list NFTs on the GameStop marketplace. Ultimately, the company hopes to also ink deals with crypto companies to develop the underlying tech and help invest in games featuring NFT and blockchain technology.
WSJ expects that GameStop’s foray into Web3 could result in investments of tens of millions of dollars and agreements made with over a dozen other companies.
A Turnaround Plan?
GameStop has been struggling in recent years, there’s no questioning that. The fact is that as consumers begin to prefer buying digital releases of games online over purchasing physical copies in stores, GameStop’s business model has come under fire.
As a result of the pain the company has been feeling, it has been pushing to jump into new tech that could turn it around. In fact, the first snippet of information suggesting that GameStop would be jumping into Web3 was a series of job listings for experts in the industry that emerged in October. By December, the company’s CEO, Matt Furlong, pointed to the fact that the company is exploring emerging technologies.
GameStop might be in the perfect position to turn things around too.
At the end of the day, gamers are essentially the low-hanging fruit when it comes to the audience for NFTs. Many gamers are already comfortable with buying virtual goods like in-game items and skins, and the goods they’re purchasing have no real ownership value. By bringing NFTs into the gaming space, skins and other in-game purchases will essentially become something of value, things that can be sold or traded in the future when the gamer is done with them.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line here is simple. If GameStop plans on surviving, it must move forward with the times and learn how to attract an increasingly digital audience. The move to NFTs is a smart one. After all, gamers are prime candidates to become NFT customers. All told, GameStop may be on the right track here.
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