GameStop Announces Launch of NFT Marketplace for Q2 2022

Despite GameStop's mixed Q4 financial results, the video game retailer did offer up at least one highlight for crypto enthusiasts.

The firm's financial results included an announcement that its highly-anticipated NFT marketplace is expected to launch "by the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2022." This gives GameStop until late July to come good on its promise.

Hints and clues have surrounded the unveiling of GameStop's NFT push, with initial reports of a crypto-centric recruiting campaign emerging last spring. A teaser site from May also showed that the project would be built on Ethereum, but it was unclear what exactly that would look like at that time. 

The move into the space became much clearer last month after GameStop announced a partnership with ImmutableX, a layer-2 scaling solution for speedy transactions on Ethereum, to assist with its NFT launch. 

The tie-up with ImmutableX also came with a $100 million incentive fund to incentivize games' studios to build on GameStop's NFT platform. 

Despite confirmation of the marketplace's launch, GameStop's stock (GME) dropped 9.6% in after-hours trading last night. 

The bearish reaction is likely a response to the company's rather muted performance; GameStop reported a loss of $147.5 million in Q4 2021, a bleak figure given the firm earned $80.3 million in the same period the previous year. 

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.

This article has been updated to note that the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2022 for GameStop is in late July.