Following Ubisoft and Square Enix, GameStop is apparently the latest player in the video game industry that sees NFTs as a way to increase its profitability. According , the company hired nearly two dozen people as part of a newly formed cryptocurrency division. The unit is building an online marketplace to buy, sell and trade NFTs for in-game items such as cosmetics. The hub could be launched later this year. In addition, the division is close to partnering with two companies to co-invest in games that make use of blockchain and NFT technologies. GameStop is said to be planning to partner with a dozen companies in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Development news sent the value of GameStop , above US$ 131.01, in after-sales negotiation. According The newspaper, GameStop executives see NFTs as a way for the company to return to profitability, but it’s not clear whether the nascent technology has a place in video games.
Many of the recent attempts by some developers and publishers to include digital tokens in their titles have been met with outright hostility. Ubisoft, for example, became a when it announced its Quartz NFT platform. It also seems that the negative attention wasn’t worth it for Ubisoft, with a recent Eurogamer report claiming that the company had on December 21st. But despite all the backlash, Ubisoft and others seem unfazed. On a , Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot allegedly linked the NFTs’ initial reaction to earlier outrage over trends like microtransactions and cashboxes. It seems the implication here was that people would eventually accept the technology.
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