Key Takeaways
GameStop revealed its plan to launch its NFT marketplace by the end of Q2 this year.
The company noted that it had hired dozens of employees working on Web3 gaming.
The company has had plans for its own NFT marketplace for nearly a year now.
GameStop has published its Q4 and fiscal year 2021 results. In the report, the game company notified the public of its intention to launch its NFT marketplace by the end of Q2.
GME NFTs
GameStop has announced its intention to launch its long-teased NFT marketplace sometime in the second quarter of this year.
In its fourth-quarter overview, the company highlighted the fact that it “hired dozens of additional individuals with experience in areas such as blockchain gaming, ecommerce and technology, product refurbishment and operations.”
Moreover, the firm emphasized its partnership with the Ethereum-based NFT scaling solution Immutable X, which would involve Immutable X facilitating the development of the NFT marketplace GameStop had in the works. As part of this deal, GameStop would receive as much as $150 million worth of IMX tokens. As of the following day, GameStop had sold nearly 15 million of the IMX tokens it had received as part of the partnership.
GameStop ended last year with $1.271 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
As far back as May of last year, GameStop had been taking steps towards its own non-fungible token marketplace. As was highlighted in its report, the company made many hires related to its marketplace for NFTs, including eight more job listings just last October. As of Dec. 28, GameStop was attempting to find NFT content creators.
At press time, shares of GME had rallied on the day, up over 7%.
GameStop's journey to NFTs
The video game retailer's stock made headlines in 2020 as one of the primary assets fueling the meme stock frenzy in financial markets.
Other equities including Blackberry, AMC Theaters, Nokia and Bed Bath & Beyond surged as rookie investors poured money into these stocks. Some of these firms also used this momentum to push into the wild west of crypto.
GameStop's upcoming NFT launch is one example, but the AMC Theater chain also began accepting crypto payments, including meme coin Dogecoin, for ticket sales. They even offered shareholders free NFTs.
However, it remains to be seen if other members of the meme stock caste will also pivot to crypto.
