GameStop NFT Marketplace is live: Here’s what people are saying
Video game retailer GameStop finally launched its NFT marketplace on July 11, the company announced. The platform, which is a non-alert Ethereum Layer-2, reportedly has recorded over $ 1 million in sales just hours after launch, surpassing Coinbase’s NFT marketplace’s sales volume of $ 74,000 on the first day.
GameStop ignores market turmoil, recording over $ 3 million in sales
GameStop NFTs have reached a point where the market is experiencing some severe crises. According to data from NFT aggregator CryptoSlamNFT sales have fallen above 65%, from $ 4.6 billion in May to $ 1.5 billion in June.
However, the platform does not perform poorly, as data shows that the platform currently has over 200 collections – a total of over 53,000 NFTs -, over $ 3.6 million in revenue and 45,000 transactions in 24 hours of debut. Currently, only authorized contributors can create NFTs on the platform, but according to Matt Finestone – Head of Blockchain at GameStop – the retailer will focus on expanding creator participation and funding from other platforms.
gm !alle!
GameStop NFT is live in beta! A non-custodian Ethereum-L2 marketplace where the community can truly own the digital assets they love 👾
Incredibly grateful to the GameStop team and community for making this a reality 😍 #PowerToThePlayers
– Matt FinΞstonΞ | 3body.eth (@finestonematt) July 12, 2022
The company announced a partnership with Ethereum scaling solution Loop ring to operate the GameStop NFT Marketplace. Loopring is a popular team-2 ZK (Zero-Knowledge) rollup that provides fast, secure and inexpensive ERC-20 transactions outside the chain.
Users can connect to the newly launched GameStop wallet to shop NFTs on the market or an Ethereum wallet such as MetaMask. Although the main focus right now is NFT art, GameStop said it intends to become a giant in GameFi industry by letting users trade NFTs in the game as those used in games to make moneythanks to a partnership with Immutable X, another layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum.
And what do people say about GameStop NFTs?
Most people and industry spectators were skeptical at first, considering that GameStop has had a hard time covering losses in recent years. In July, the video game retailer announced layoffs across departments, including CFO Mike Recupero.
But it seems that the majority of the GameStop community has welcomed the NFT market, and some compare the success with the debut of Coinbase NFT, which had a frightening first month with sales volume in mid-May with barely 5,446 transactions.
The community now expects to see a larger sales volume as soon as the company expands participation from contributors and support for NFTs outside the platform.
Will GameStop’s NFT marketplace surpass the success of other secondary marketplaces such as @LooksRare and @Coinbase_NFT??
– Hunter writes a daily Web3 newsletter✨ (@NFTpublisher) July 12, 2022
GameStop’s digital turnaround was already circulating on social media a year ago when a user found a Loopring code line that referred to GameStop on GitHub, which was later removed. The company later announced the hiring of new employees for a “new NFT project.”
GameStop first revealed its plans to launch an NFT marketplace in February. But as soon as NFT sales fell in early May and the general crypto market plummeted, most were reluctant to the idea that an NFT platform would have some sort of immediate success – even worse for a company that was considered dead. GameStop now has to compete with some of the big names in the NFT industry, such as OpenSea and LooksRare.
Not all players are excited about NFTs
While GameStop plans to dive deeper into the Web3 gaming industry, the traditional gaming community has responded with both enthusiasm and contempt for the idea of major publishers introducing NFTs to their existing franchisees. Such was the case with Ubisoft, a major game developer that partnered with blockchain protocol Tezos to introduce NFTs into the game on games like Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon.
