GameStop Bails on Crypto Gaming, Killing NFT Marketplace

GameStop is getting out of the NFT business.

About a year and a half after launching its NFT marketplace, publicly-traded video game retailer GameStop is saying goodbye to its platform, which supports gaming NFTs and other collectibles across Immutable X and Loopring, both Ethereum scaling networks.

“GameStop has decided to wind down our NFT marketplace due to the continuing regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space,” a message on the marketplace’s website reads, adding that the platform will no longer be operating as of February 2 this year. Because the NFTs were minted on blockchains, however, they can be accessed elsewhere and bought and sold through other marketplaces.

Roughly four months ago, GameStop announced it was killing its NFT wallet for much the same reason. GameStop also told traders that news via the same method: a pop-up message on its marketplace’s site. It’s unclear why GameStop didn’t shut down both products at the same time, instead choosing to stagger its departure from crypto.

GameStop Is Killing Its NFT Wallet and Blames ‘Regulatory Uncertainty’

Video game retailer GameStop made a splashy entrance into the NFT space, launching its own marketplace with big plans to support crypto games. But as the NFT market has lost steam, GameStop has pulled back—and soon it’ll end support for its own crypto wallet. GameStop cited the “regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space” for the move—an increasingly familiar explanation for the drawdown or cancelation of a digital assets initiative. The news was revealed today via a pop-up message on its own NF...

GameStop first signaled plans to engage with NFTs in 2021, and then in January 2022, it hired a 20-person team to oversee the gaming NFT marketplace. The long-running retailer announced its collaboration with Immutable about a month later, stating that it would use Immutable X’s blockchain and established a $100 million fund in Immutable’s IMX token with the crypto firm. A day later, GameStop cashed out a large chunk of the IMX tokens it had just received, dumping $47 million worth onto the market. 

By July 2022, GameStop had laid off an undisclosed number of employees—but launched its NFT marketplace to the public. Months later, it finally added Immutable X gaming NFTs to its marketplace—but that came months after GameStop fired its CEO who oversaw the retailer’s crypto push.

A search for GameStop NFT marketplace data shows that analytics platform DappRadar has already removed it from its list. It was initially added in September 2022. Notably, the GameStop NFT Twitter account hasn’t tweeted about its shutdown—and hasn’t tweeted at all since September 2023. 

GameStop did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

Edited by Andrew Hayward