GameStop launches NFT Marketplace after laying off employees
GameStop celebrated the launch of its NFT marketplace on Monday. Its Ethereum-based repository for virtually autographed JPEGs arrived just days after the meme stock giant ruthlessly laid off more employees, and based on my brief tour of the site, it also still a bit broken in places.
No one can seem to understand GameStops current business strategy, least of all its pivot to crypto. Pea earlier this year, the ailing gaming retailer released a GameStop Wallet in May that users could download to swap cryptocurrencies and “store NFTs securely.” Since then, cryptocurrencies have gained momentum and the NFT market has almost collapsed.
A senior former employee, who wished to remain anonymous while searching for a new job, said Kotaku they were skeptical that the company’s crypto team was large enough to launch anything that would have a meaningful impact on GameStop’s bottom line. They also thought that it was mostly just aimed at exciting investors and people on Reddit.
“As mentioned last week, our management team is committed to profitably growing our trading business and launching new products, including those developed by our blockchain team,” reports CEO Matt Furlong. last week’s redundancy noticetold staff in an email today (a copy that was reviewed by Kotaku). “The GameStop of the future has a unique opportunity to anticipate and meet a growing range of customer requirements and merge interest across our stores, online properties and the virtual world.”
Furlong continued:
With that context in mind, I am pleased to announce the launch of our NFT marketplace: Today’s launch reflects months of hard work from our blockchain group and many individuals across the organization. It is also a result of our ability to form new partnerships with artists and creators, as well as technology partners including Loopring and Immutable. Although we have a lot of work ahead of us, this launch shows the extent to which GameStop changes as we embrace change and pursue new opportunities.
The launch and accompanying praise come just four days after the final round of layoffs at GameStop’s corporate offices. Around 160 employees were cut, according to a current and a former employee. Three employees at the gaming magazine Game Informer, which is owned by GameStop, was also affected. GameStop’s corporate offices faced a similar round of layoffs in May, while Game Informer has effectively halved its staff over the past year, Axios reports.
Employees of GameStop stores also feel the pain when they try to keep things going while being understaffed and underpaid. Meanwhile, GameStop earned one $ 1 billion unexpected last year a sale of its inflated meme stockand its revolving door of executives has continued to amass millions in total compensation.
Maybe that’s what Dankclops # 69 NFT is for. At $ 7890, the marketplace’s most expensive NFT is certainly not for store managers who earn barely $ 15 an hour, or the recently laid off staff at corporate offices, some of whom received only a month’s salary. It told a former employee Kotaku they did not even get two weeks. But sometimes it’s just the way NFT crumbles.
