GameStop launches NFT Marketplace after layoffs

GameStop celebrated the launch of the NFT Marketplace on Monday. Its Ethereum-based repository of signed JPEGs actually arrived a few days after the meme-stock giant ruthlessly laid off more staff, and based on my brief tour through its website, it too It’s still a little broken in some places.

Nobody can make sense from GameStop’s current business strategy, at least from all its pivot to cryptocurrency. Introduced earlier this year, with the struggling game retailer releasing a GameStop wallet in May that users can download to exchange cryptocurrency and “securely store NFTs.” Since then, the cryptocurrency and the NFT market have plummeted almost collapsed.

Said a former high-ranking employee, who wished to remain anonymous while looking for a new job Kotaku They were skeptical that the company’s coding team was large enough to release anything that would significantly affect GameStop’s bottom line. They also believed that it was mostly aimed only at investors and hot people on Reddit.

“As noted last week, our leadership team is committed to profitably growing our business and launching new products, including those developed by our blockchain team,” CEO Matt Furlong, referring to Layoff announcement last weekhe told employees in an email today (a revised copy of Kotaku). “GameStop of the Future has a unique opportunity to anticipate and meet a growing range of customer demands and integrate interests across our stores, properties, on the web and in the virtual world.”

Follow Furlong:

With this context in mind, I am pleased to announce the launch of our NFT Marketplace: https://nft.gamestop.com. Today’s launch reflects months of hard work on the part of our blockchain group and many individuals across the organization. It’s also a result of our ability to form new partnerships with artists and creators, as well as technology partners including Loopring and Immutable. Although we have a lot of work ahead, this launch demonstrates the degree to which GameStop is transforming as we embrace change and seek new areas of opportunity.

The launch and its accompanying praise come just four days after the latest round of layoffs at GameStop’s offices. About 160 employees have been laid off, according to a current employee and a former employee. Three employees of gaming magazine detective gameGameStop, owned by GameStop, was also affected. GameStop offices faced a similar round of layoffs in May, while detective game It has effectively halved its number of employees over the past year, Axios Reports.

Employees at GameStop stores also feel pain trying to keep things running during understaffing and low wages. Meanwhile, GameStop got 1 billion dollars windfall profit in the last year Meme’s oversized stock saleAnd his revolving door for executives continued to earn millions in total compensation.

Maybe this is who Dankclops #69 NFT is. At $7,890, the most expensive NFT on the market certainly isn’t for store managers who earn barely $15 an hour, or recently laid-off employees of corporate offices, some of whom only get a month of severance. ex-employee said Kotaku They didn’t even get two weeks. But sometimes that’s how NFT breaks down.