GameStop, in an earning conference call, has announced that the company is facing a loss of $381 million for the fiscal year 2021. With the rise of digital gaming and the Covid pandemic, the retailer blames the impact on GameStop sales on a multitude of factors. To counter this, GameStop is forging ahead toward a future with NFTs and cryptocurrency instead.
How GameStop sales lead to NFTs
GameStop CEO Matt Furling reveals in the briefing that the retailer has plans to recover:
“The combination of supply chain issues and the omicron variant had a sizable impact on this past year’s holiday season. We made a conscious decision to lean in and absorb higher costs in order to meet customer demand. We felt, and continue to feel, that investing in our customers and rebuilding our brand loyalty right now is in the company’s best interest over the long term.”
To cut down on losses, Furling has said that GameStop has chosen to remove numerous external consultants and believes that GameStop should become a “customer-obsessed technology company.” In particular, he wants the company to invest in the lucrative market for NFTs:
“We see significant long-term potential in the more than $40 billion market for NFTs. We are going to continue taking steps to create new offerings and make targeted bets in blockchain gaming and cryptocurrency. We have learned from the mistakes of the past decade when GameStop failed to adapt to the future of gaming.”
GameStop has already announced a partnership with Immutable X, a crypto company based in Australia which is built on the Ethereum blockchain. They plan on establishing a $100 million fund that will bestow grants to companies that wish to create NFT content and technology. Immutable X is the developer of Gods Unchained, a digital card game which uses the “play-to-earn” model.
In other news, Gran Turismo 7 has been review-bombed on Metacritic, and Hogwarts Legacy will not have microtransactions.
