He announced this in June last year and is now preparing to translate these intentions into reality: GameStop open the own market for NFTs by the end of the year and, to that end, has begun setting up an “up to $100 million” fund for game developers who decide to use it.
GameStop’s NFT Marketplace relies on X immutable, a platform based on the Ethereum blockchain that aims to overcome its current drawbacks, namely energy consumption and the cost of “gas” (commissions) associated with transactions. The protocol combines hundreds of thousands of sales records into a single transaction written to the blockchain, and Immutable promises to cover environmental costs by paying carbon offsets.
The collaboration between GameStop and Immutable will allow companies that already use Immutable X to be able to offer their NFTs on the Gamestop market. Immutable X is currently already used by non-gaming companies, such as TikTok, but Gamestop’s future NFT Marketplace is explicitly designed as a place of exchange for in-game items, such as skins. , weapons, digital properties, etc. , in the form of a token on the blockchain (in other words: the right of ownership of a game object is regulated via the blockchain).
GameStop’s NFT Marketplace development is just the latest example of how the world of gaming and that of collectible tokens intertwine, not always in an idyllic way. Team17 recently announced the launch of MetaWorms NFT, per poi quickly retrace your steps due to player complaints. Previously, and for the same reasons, also GSC Game World had abandoned the NFT project related to STALKER 2.
The last few weeks have also resurfaced a Game Developers’ Conference poll who pointed out how most game developers have a particularly negative view of NFTs, seeing them only as a speculative tool and part of a pyramid scheme.
Ubisoft, which also runs an NFT project, recently said that the public would not yet have fully understood the potential of tokens. The publisher opts for a “soft” approach and simply limits itself to offering a platform (Quartz, with number tokens) without forcing its use for gamers or its use for game developers.