The disgraced video game store famous last year for being part of the disputes between Reddit users and Wall Street “short” sellers, is betting on NFTs and cryptocurrencies to save itself from demise.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the company has created a special team of more than 20 people that works almost secretly in the development of this kind of commercial strategies as a way of recovering the brand.
You’ll make it? It seems complicated.
The US media says that the company is negotiating with game developers and publishers to include NFT in their market.
In addition, he hopes to sign deals with crypto companies to develop underlying technologies and help invest in games with technology. non-expendable tocken and blockchain.
In total, according to The Wall Street Journal, GameStop’s investments in the crypto ecosystem would amount to tens of millions of dollars and would involve deals with more than a dozen other companies.
GameStop’s marketing strategy is part of a larger plan to restructure its entire business as its old source of income, the sale and rental of “physical” video games, is almost non-existent.
In December 2020, the CEO of the company, Matt Furlong (who arrived from Amazon in 2021) said that GameStop was looking at new technologies and mentioned work related to Web3 and NFTs.
For the WSJ, video game users are the first potential users to adopt NFTs en masse as they have long been comfortable spending money on virtual goods.
Square Enix and EA Sport have publicly expressed interest in exploring the technology, and Ubisoft launched an NFT platform in late 2021.
GameStop and the NFT plan
At the beginning of 2021, GameStop was in the spotlight of the world when a group of Reddit users with knowledge of the world of investments and the stock market fictitiously raised the price of their shares to affect “short” sellers, funds that bet on the misfortune of companies.
But despite this, after months, GameStop continues to have a bad financial situation.
In December 2021 it reported that its losses are increasing despite slight revenue growth.
The value of GameStop shares rose by more than 22 percent after the WSJ’s report on its strategy with NFT was released on Friday, January 7.