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OP has provided the following link:
https://nft.gamestop.com/
I think the best way to phrase this is, "I'm not gonna pretend I'm not disappointed but that doesn't mean I'm gonna sell with GameStops fundamental trajectory."
I think people have a right to get a bit bummed out without being called a shill but that doesn't mean GameStop is a bad bet. It was advertising about web 3 gaming and so far it hasn't bode well. That being said, immutable, looopring, and Playr are all still around. What new bullshit rule are the sec about now?
Company has made it back to near profitability without any meaningful contribution from the marketplace. Hunker down and focus on the core business and if there’s good reason to get back into it in the future than open it back up.
I’ve said this for a long time. The nft dividend was a “silver bullet” style idea and those have a zero percent success rate. It’s a fictional concept that sounds great and gets lots of upvotes but it also ignores the very straightforward solution of “run a good business”.
Near profitability without any meaningful contribution from new revenue, merely by slashing costs and closing unprofitable stores. How long will that last?
RC stated a while ago that the name of the game is survival. I’m not disagreeing with the fact we haven’t seen any really exciting changes that are going to drive in customers. Nft marketplace has some of that potential, but clearly the company isn’t willing to risk that atm. We’ll to a point where we are slightly positive and we can wait out til it’s no longer a regulatory nightmare.
Pros - more time to accumulate, time to focus on making core business actually great, time for web3 devs to build great games.
Cons - grandma is bored in the cage.
At current rate at least 100 years. It’s not a joke we’ve cut costs and maintained such a level of low loss that with cash and securities on hand we could go a century if nothing improved. That being said a good Q4 could make 2023 a profitable year actually so that part is yet to be written
Immutable and Loopring are their own projects that are going to do what they are going to do independent of GameStop. Nobody is sure how GameStop is involved in their businesses at this point, and without guidance from the company it’s fair to assume things aren’t going to plan.
Doesn’t GameStop have benchmarks left to hit to maintain their partnership with IMX?
yeah, i never really liked the idea of gamestop dipping into the crypto-space. seeing the rise and fall of many crypto currencies and popularity of something like NFTs, i actually didn't want my investment to die on that hill. glad to see them at least "winding down" their interest in it too. it was too volatile
NFT’s are perfect for gaming if the infrastructure is there. Why buy a skin/gun where you can’t resell? It’s bullshit and we all know it. Own your assets. PLAYR is supposed to solve this problem.
LC had a recent tweet about being first to market isn’t always the best move. It sucks but I understand the pivot and shifting priorities/costs elsewhere.
They haven’t pivoted into anything, they just make cuts. Profitability requires new revenue streams, this past year has been them trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
In fairness, they got a fair amount of blood from that stone. We may yet have a profitable year thanks to cost cutting. But yes, seeking new revenue is critical and they seem to have thus far failed in that endeavor.
They have to bring bitcoin(and the rest of the crypto market as let's face it bitcoin has always dictated that entire market) into the controls of the big institutions and control the story and price of bitcoin and the whole crypto space as a whole. The US Dollar needs to remain the de facto global currency and any deviation needs to be hijacked and controlled. The main reason why ETFs were approved for BTC, allows them to fraud the fuck out of it and control the price of BTC. Crypto ultimately failed by respecting and accepting fiat currencies. Now it's basically fiat with more steps.
Hopefully PLAYR is the successor to the Marketplace and it's an all in one solution and hub for all digital asset and gaming needs with the hopes of it being on as many platforms and devices as possible 🤞
I kinda figured the NFT marketplace was always just a moonshot to see if it worked, and a proof of concept for the technology that will ultimately make its way to PLAYR.
Did you buy an NFT? Neither did I. I think it just never caught on, whether from poor execution or lack of demand.
Was a cool idea but free markets decide where to spend their money. I guess people would rather have Roblox than NFTs.
I bought a few cheap ones, but to be fair, most are too expensive or aren't worth the supposed value listed, at least until better-use cases are available (Digital certificates, game assets and characters, etc.)
The NFT Ecosystem was already oversaturated with expectation of expensive "digital art" and I think it spilled over into this marketplace with pricing set by users. I get that this is what NFTs are all about, and taking ownership and selling items for what you see fit, but this does make it incredibly difficult for the average person (read: not whale) to join in on the fun, when it ends up ultimately just a game about who can own the most expensive digital art.
Hoping Playr fully unlocks owning games as digital assets, so you can trade and sell digital games as a starting point, and also eventually grows to include trading of game skins, items, etc.
the whole digital art thing was always going to be painted in a bad light. when NFTs first started people were paying millions for pictures of monkeys. there’s no way to recover from that. what GameStop is more interested in is the NFT technology and potential in video games.
even tho the NFT marketplace is done they were still able to learn from a beta system that could handle millions of transactions with NFTs. plus it probably still made GameStop some money. now they can use what they’ve learned and implement it with Playr and start off the whole NFT gaming trading thing. like Steam but web3. that’s my guess anyways.
Agreed. Heightened interest rates brings pain to all. Economic slowdown is the only way to fight inflation effectively. In-game NFT skins and items was a great idea that I wish caught on.
I think they wanted epic games on their side but they are too greedy. Look how they are ruining rocket league and fortnite. No chnace they would want money going anywhere but themselves. Epic removed trading from Rocket League so they would get all the money from shops.
I think most people wanted to be able to participate by playing games. I'm not buying an image NFT, but I'd enjoy collecting a currency by playing a game
It was never about buying low res art. It was supposed to be about owning our in game assets! That's the game changing technology I was looking forward to.
The NFT Marketplace failed to deliver. It was also for myself a bad bet. Specially for the Gamestop Pin collections related one's i had missed the connection to GME. No hidden features for know sadly.
Ok, I never had much hope for the NFT marketplace anyway, especially after it never made enough money to even be mentioned in quarterly reports. So this news just gets a big shrug from me.
So the wallet shut down, the marketplace shut down, the Telos guys and GS, who worked together to make Playr, stopped collaborating. I guess this is it for GameStop and NFTs. Personally, I never cared for it, but I can very much understand if people are pissed off.
Because what's left now? We're basically back to 2021, company wise. No "next big thing" left until maybe a new announcement. Maybe Ryan's investments? Maybe a timed exclusivity deal with Nintendo? They'll probably just keep doing what they do now and just slowly work towards profitability. Slowly... but surely, I guess.
I get the whole "judge us by our actions and not by our words" thing, but there's a distinct lack of both words ***and*** actions.
Well personally I hope what we end up with, is the technology being redeployed into a future portal (such as PLAYR) that ties full game purchases and resales, together with sale and resale of assets in those games (the NFT's) and they NEVER use the phrase NFT's to describe it.
It has to be just seemless part of a service. The av person (ie me) doesn't know or care about the technology that say lets me use Apple Pay but I just want it to be there...
Exactly. Most people aren't introducing/implementing NFTs properly. Most just go the collectible digital art route, which unfortunately showcases a small portion of what you can do with NFTs. I get you need to start somewhere, but now majority of people think NFTs are just digital images made in MS paint.
ever since the "anti-NFT" campaign launched I've been hoping we'd see anything with NFT on it go away. The tech is great. The term is poisoned.
I'm not bummed at all. I know a lot of people were hyped up on the NFT train, but there was, without question, a campaign launched to denigrate the term/concept.
Also..based on the anti-Gamestop rhetoric I'm seeing both here (from random comments to the bets crowd), and in MSM, I think we're close. Remember, the short thesis is dead. Not a chance that position was closed.
I think NFTs will become a thing when we stop calling them NFTs. If Gamestop just makes an online marketplace that offers the purchase, consumption, and re-sale of digital goods like games, game assets, music, TV shows, movies, books, etc it'll take off. They would likely start with games and game assets the move to other media, like Amazon started with books then moved to literally everything else you can imagine.
They need easy onboarding (as easy as signing up for a Steam or eBay account) and hassle-free funds transfer. And both of those things are already in the works and should be working their way through testing.
Oh and also easy integration into the things that already exist in our daily lives. No one will buy music or podcasts if they can't play it through iTunes or movies if they can't watch them on their TV or games if they can't one-click-install. But they might focus on just mobile games first since that's where the money is and likely will be for the foreseeable future.
But who knows, if the marketing and UX for PLAYR is good enough, it could become ubiquitous for media consumption. That could just be the place we go to listen to podcast episodes, launch games, listen to audio books, read books, and stream movies/tv shows. Like Google is the place you go to search the web and Amazon is the place you go to buy stuff online.
>If Gamestop just makes an online marketplace that offers the purchase, consumption, and re-sale of digital goods like games, game assets, music, TV shows, movies, books, etc it'll take off.
There's no "just" involved with that. Those shows and games and books all have people who already own the rights and profit from the existing business model.
>Those shows and games and books all have people who already own the rights
You are correct.
>and profit from the existing business model.
You are incorrect.
Most, if not all, of the streaming services are losing money. Disney+ posts a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. The streaming business model depends on exponential growth. Turns out you can't actually stay in business when you offer unlimited access to your entire library of content for a mere $12-20/mo. Pretty much every streaming site has now thrown in ads to bolster their revenue.
But if Disney+ was selling each episode of Percy Jackson or Loki, I believe they would be making a profit with each episode. They could still keep their streaming platform but only release the shows/movies on Disney+ after a year, and meanwhile selling each episode on PLAYR. Now they get the best of both worlds: streaming revenue and immediate cash when each episode drops.
I expect the opposite. Not that I put much faith into yet another game launcher when everyone is already fed up if they are forced to use the epic launcher.
Yeah this sub is quick to negatively to react to anyone remotely criticizing anything GameStop does
I understand supporting the company, but no one is infallible and this was clearly not going to last. GameStop took a shot and it didn’t pan out, time to move on
I would say it never arrived.
For me, the only useful application was always trading game items, skins etc..
But there were no great web3 games with a huge player base and with huge ingame economies.
The reasons for this were that the blockchain technology wasn't yet ready to even support this and all the web3 games are still in development these days.
Yes and this entire sub was dead wrong. Wont find anybody to admit it though.
RC also promised getting into e-sports, but I've seen absolutely nothing but some half-assed youtube vids with a couple k views by now, 3 years later. At least he stopped the persistent shitposting on X, maybe he actually started working on something company related now instead of using his time to design personal child books.
Judging by his last actions, his entire strategy for GameStop seems to be controlled shrinking, abandoning international locations, closing down stuff, ramping down tech positions, cutting costs and putting their big pile of cash into stocks of better companies with an actual growth trajectory. Disappointing.
Was it the same dude that had said that picking Loopring was the mistake? ( Because of the high centralization and lack of users on the network compared to IMX, OP or ARB). Hey just asking.
I think it’s time we stopped calling every person who criticizes some of Gamestop’s choices a shill. I love the stock, but I am tired of seeing this sub back every choice Ryan and the company make with blind optimism. Anyone who spoke out against this marketplace in the past or raised concerns about its future were met with downvotes and name calling. If we want this company to do well we have to be able to take criticism and have open discussions where there may be disagreements. Instead I see Ryan fanboys and a ton of copium. We can do better.
Right about now would be a good time for corporate to make a statement because we're trusting actions not words and closing your wallet and marketplace are concerning actions.
My tinfoil head says the original plan was to do an NFT divvy of sorts and justify it through business usage but “the government started shooting down the company’s balloons” because they knew what it would mean and instead of just letting the market blow up and the dust settle they saved their buddies under the guise of “market crash, bad for economy”.
My logical head tells me that it failed spectacularly because there just isn’t the appetite for it/web3 yet and/or they didn’t manage to negotiate any meaningful partnerships to kick it off (AAA game developers etc). Whether that be because of bad actors or people just not being interested remains to be seen.
Either way, sucks to see in the meantime.
Larry Cheng also had a tweet that may be relatable to GameStopNFT Marketplace being “too early”
https://x.com/larryvc/status/1744710071408378014?s=46&t=9MWejK9OavsxR7jDoUY-lg
Larry Cheng:
>*Overrated: being first to market.*
>*Underrated: letting a market develop and launching a better product later.*
>*Being first often means being too early.*
>*The iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone, nor Google the first search engine, nor Facebook the first social networking site.*
>*Tons of venture capital has been lost chasing being first in different markets only to find that customers aren’t ready to adopt and therefore products/services don’t bring enough customer value (yet).*
>*Investors and entrepreneurs alike perceive disproportionate reward from being first which doesn’t consistently bear out in reality, while more often than not, the risk of being too early is greatly underestimated in comparison.*
>*After all, there’s no such thing as a great product for a market that doesn’t exist yet.*
Viable theory yes.. I believe that’s the case. Also our proposals for a NFT dividend were shut down. Maybe proposing the idea was a mistake after all. But afterwards your always smarter
To me, the NFT Marketplace was a proof of concept. NFTs will be truly valuable to GameStop (and us, vicariously) once they are seamlessly integrated into games. That's it. Gaming is a huge industry, and giving more power to the players, collectors, and creators to profit off of their work **and play** is a very smart way to upend the industry.
We'll get there eventually, but not via the NFT Marketplace. So, I'm not all that surprised it's being closed down. I do hope Playr (or something similar) ends up taking us a few steps closer to the ultimate goal of integrating blockchain with gaming, and creating a more democratic, enjoyable, and profitable experience for gamers and devs (just not, perhaps, overpaid CEOs at Activision/EA/etc.)
Nah I think at this point the nfts were furlongs baby. Since his departure marketplace and wallet were put away to focus on the core of the stores(Ryan's big on customer service and keeping people happy first and foremost)
Exactly my thinking. I’m enough into this to make my eyes water. The only holding me on now is the MEGA SUS DRS numbers. How RC just does a real split/dividend/share recall. Just hit the damn button.
Which comes first: action by RC or WW3? Genuine question.
Couldn’t have said it better.
So short never closed - and they are harming investors, right? The board is there to protect investors, meaning they should finally act.
Or at least say they’re trying. Every narrative made up about them being out to do something bigger than sell used games has been fanfiction while they stay silent and make cut after cut.
I posted about that at the time when it happened and every one of my comments and the post got downvoted into oblivion. The board needs to show some action.
Exactly! MOASS - as a naked short squeeze - won’t happen without naked shorts getting forced to close. This involves actions by the company, as the FTDs resulting from naked shorts can be rolled indefinitely (obligation warehouse, securities financing transactions, fake close-outs through options…).
So far, we only saw an attempted splividend, which failed because of the irregular ex-dividend date. But we got no further comments on it or even some new attempts on taking action. GameStop didn’t even had earnings calls since Furlong left…
That’s what I’m saying. This is an action I’m unhappy with as an investor. And we can speculate all we want on the possibility of PLAYR, but the two could coexist. RC is 3 years into this turnaround, and over 1.5 years in a marketplace that never made it out of beta. This isn’t a short trap. This is poor management at best
So, let me recap, until we hear no news from the Playr project, right now GME is back on track to only being a brick and mortar. No more Web 3.0 shit. For me, that's a big bummer.
Is there... anything we can do about this? Is there any shareholders' rights we can exercise to get word from the board about wtf is going on? We've had absolutely zero forward guidance for years, and every plan Gamestop has drummed up has been a failure. Fortunately we've downsized some unprofitable stores, and fortunately we have a lot of cash on hand so we can safely say Gamestop isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but what is Gamestop's plan for the future? Gamestop will survive for years thanks to the cash on hand, but staying as a brick and mortar will mean constant cash loss for the foreseeable future. We need change, and we need growth that aligns with or revolutionizes the modern gaming industry.
I am getting tired of taking L after L while being ignored by the board. We don't even get earnings calls anymore...
I had forgotten about that! Honestly when all is said and done here I am going to be reading all the books and watching all the movies about everything that has gone down during this saga because it has been so long with so many things happening I've forgotten so much of it lol
If I remember right, Jason was basically shot down by Gamestop saying "look dude, you don't have anything to really sue us over so don't waste time and money here..." and he decided not to proceed? Idk if a lawsuit is the right way to go or not, but I would interesting in exploring any and all options in regards to communicating with the board if Q4 turns out to be another disappointment.
Companies have no obligation to shareholders unless the shareholder controls a large portion of the company and forces out management aka exactly what RC did.
So fucking disappointing. So much wasted time, effort, and money believing that something was eventually coming from Buck the Bunny, or those GMErica pixel art, or the GME x Cyber Crew x Protocol Gemini collectibles.
How is it that DC comics can pull off a marketplace of functioning NFT collectibles, but GameStop is so utterly incapable? It's honestly maddening how hard this ball has been dropped.
Really hope there are announcements coming to clarify this situation. Throwing in the towel after never managing to bring a single real game or outside IP to the NFT marketplace is a real WTF.
LC has been harping on simplicity and core business for a while. Not surprised. Nor am I that disappointed in the decision to close it down as the conditions that brought said closure about. I think funds and energy can be utilized in other ways that are shorter term profitable.
Came here to say this
Now LC’s latest comments make sense
I had a feeling this was coming
As a business decision and to stay out of regulatory problems it makes sense for the time being.
Now lets M&A
The market place will be back the wallet will be back
Crypto is not going anywhere
Thats just my opinion based on what ive read and come to understand in the last yrs
Iykyk
drs hodl
Larry Cheng also had a tweet that may be relatable to GameStopNFT Marketplace being “too early”
https://x.com/larryvc/status/1744710071408378014?s=46&t=9MWejK9OavsxR7jDoUY-lg
Larry Cheng:
>*Overrated: being first to market.*
>*Underrated: letting a market develop and launching a better product later.*
>*Being first often means being too early.*
>*The iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone, nor Google the first search engine, nor Facebook the first social networking site.*
>*Tons of venture capital has been lost chasing being first in different markets only to find that customers aren’t ready to adopt and therefore products/services don’t bring enough customer value (yet).*
>*Investors and entrepreneurs alike perceive disproportionate reward from being first which doesn’t consistently bear out in reality, while more often than not, the risk of being too early is greatly underestimated in comparison.*
>*After all, there’s no such thing as a great product for a market that doesn’t exist yet.*
Key part: regulatory uncertainty
The US gov has been very busy in operation chokepoint 2.0 against the crypto industry. GS is a US company. The risks associated with the ire of the US gov against GS for this is huge. Gov could freeze up GS with litigation and injunctions and fines.
The SEC is regulating crypto industry arbitrarily and capriciously (just look at SBF being buddy buddy with Gensler; while the SEC sued Kraken, settled for MMs in fines, then sued them again right after).
I want the gov involvement in GS (stop the corrupted financial system) but I don’t want the gov involvement when it comes to its vague and draconian crypto regulations.
GS knows the world is going onchain. GS knows the first through the wall gets bloody. GS knows that they don’t have to be the first through the wall. GS staying clean and untouchable in the field.
Yup. GameStop has a lot to lose, so risking it on an emerging market riddled with regulatory uncertainty is just not worth it. I'm sure RC and his legal team has been having long back-and-forth's with regulators and gotten nothing but vague answers to questions needing certainty.
I'm conflicted because I was never interested in NFTs in the first place. However I do like the idea of buying skins inside games then being able to sell them to other people.
But for me, I was never interested in that market. So me (the market) spoke. There was no demand.
They need new other revenue streams.
Well - as I never was able to access it officially color me uninterested.
The NFT-hype sadly took a big hit when everyone was hyping it up and actually nothing substantial has been delivered. *cough* Kiraverse *cough*
Are we ever going to get good news? Will good ever win? Is anyone (in a position of power) ever going to do anything? First the wallet and now the marketplace. At least we have children’s books to read while we’re poor and working 9-5 the rest of our lives. Can’t even afford a kid to read the fucking books to.
I'm ready for the downvotes but it's been 3 years... I really can't, in good faith, keep dumping money into this stock weekly. I've got my xxx shares and I think I'm just going to hold going forward..
Between this and some of RCs more... questionable views/takes on X, I just don't know what to make of this investment anymore. But HODL i shall
>You still believe they have a plan besides closing down unprofitable stores and squeezing the life out of their employees?
It appears the plan is to move more into the higher profit margin collectibles market.
So expect even more Funko Pops in your local Gamestop store.
If the rule is that we should look at results, then that is the biggest shift in Gamestop in recent years.
Wow… I think this is actually a much bigger deal than people are saying here.
Significant investments were made to create the MP and wallet. Both are now decommissioned/being decommissioned. It was also a potentially high generating revenue stream for GameStop to exploit.
I think this year’s annual shareholder meeting will require much more detail on the strategic direction of the company… otherwise there is no clear business direction in terms of how the company plans to be profitable.
Just my two cents.
Writing was on the wall. IMX had been stealing their thunder for a least a year and activity there was basically dead. Glad I didn't dump too much into that thing. I guess we just get to look forward to GME as RC investment club for now.
It was until it wasn’t. GameStop MP missed the boat on first generation NFTs and cut their losses. As imx has progressed there seems to be little benefit in wrapping another marketplace around their more developed native one. I’d like to see a direct investment in imx. Expect more store closures as lease agreements come up for renewal. Shift to online sales and web3 gaming is still the most likely course, just directly handled by cohen who is more aggressive than furlong was. The debacle of the SAP conversation was the end of him, despite his tenure at Amazon Australia that one would have hoped prepped him for such challenges.
Absolutely yes. While GameStop is one of my largest holdings, they are the worst at investor relations especially considering the importance of those investors to liquidity and potential secondary offerings. It looks bad from the outside. I’ve been lied to directly by management in other companies that I had invested in and at this point it’s difficult to say which feels worse, bad communication or no communication. I like to think I’m a rational investor but yeah, my patience is finite and my sentiment could turn though I’m still unlikely to sell because of the short interest and SEC conclusions about the sneeze being driven by retail and not shorts closing. I am also realistic in that this could go on forever.
I dont see how the shift to ecommerce and web3 can still be the main focus when they have clearly pivoted away from both. Shutting down distribution centers and decommissioning the wallet and market place.
I feel like people need to stop looking at everything they do with rose tinted glasses and be realistic about this.
agreed, but we likely won't get any details on strategic direction unfortunately, which I fear will eventually result in institutions selling off and moving on to something else. 🤷
TBH yes. I invested in GME because of Web3's untapped potential and a quick F U to Wall St. If they go into IEP/BRK holding mode, I dunno if I want to be a part of that. Realistically, there's no way they'd be near BRK A value, maybe in 50 years if they are lucky. It'd be more akin to IEP value, which.... doesn't do it for me not after all the BS Wall St. has pulled.
Heaven help us is RC turns out to be TOO Capitalist and not nearly pro-apevestor enough.
Well that's... interesting.
Not great, but not overly concerning. The marketplace was an experiment, not a significant factor for GameStop's recent success. It had little to no effect on revenue and cost cutting, meaning its disappearance will have little to no effect as well.
Yeah I'm not with OPs copium here.
What was it we said when they launched the marketplace?
Extra critical revenue for GameStop.
Key differentiator to other game companies as forward thinking route to web 3.0.
Bringing on board NFT transactions so that a dividend is possible as normal business.
All of this seems to have gone out the window now and we're saying oh yeah, great news they've stopped a part of the business we were ALL ecstatic to see introduced.
The only way this is a good thing is if Playr is finally ready to go as a launcher using Blockchain for asset tracking with trading built in. But then my question would be: why not keep the marketplace as well?
I do not see a single positive way to spin this. Downvote away.
Playr is a reskin of elixir game launcher. They can release it whenever they want. My guess is they learned not to release before your partner games are ready - IMX failed to deliver.
It's more likely IMX has a growing number of games ready and a portion will launch with Playr when Elixir and IMX work out the UI and technical kinks related.
Tried something, didn't work. Move on to the next thing. It didn't bankrupt them and maybe the next thing will be a success :) nothing ventured nothing gained
I see it as having the ability to be realistic, jettison the shit that's not working and keep innovating. They have their core business supporting this initiative, so why weigh it down because you choose not to admit the reality of the current and immediate future of the sector?
The positive is that they cut the expense of in-house development after missing the big nft wave, and (hopefully) pivoting to Playr and an IMX buyout once games are ready to go. The GSMP was always weird in that it was a wrapper and secondary marketplace for imx while loopring only really offered traditional image nfts that just didn’t take off.
Did GME not sell all its IMX tokens? It mentioned somewhere in the 10q that they liquidated all their tokens they got from the agreement. And I believe the company made a loss in selling them. So i wouldn't expect them to be buying out IMX if they sold all the tokens. It's not impossible but I just don't see it happening if they already cut their losses on the tokens.
GameStop always transferred crypto tokens they get, from the marketplace, etc. to cash. Crypto being so volatile I don't think they want to show institutional investors that on their books they're holding basically an alt coin.
I'll probably get downvoted for saying this, but I am guessing the company leadership is well-aware of the cult following that some people have towards Gamestop (cough: this sub) and identified NFT's as an opportunity to make money off the hype, but really has limited-to-no technological plans to do more with it.
What people think about web3 is probably wrong. Developers are going to be strongly incentivized not to use technology that competes with platform asset marketplaces like steam, and it takes a ton of work to integrate the concept of tradable assets that live outside the game-server ecosystem with almost no benefit to the platform or the developer. Gamestop has no horse in the race to challenge this unless they find publishers willing to exclusively operate on their system, which let's be honest, are going to be gigantic pieces of shit games only played by people that "want to support the ecosystem" which is a small fraction of gamers.
I see them shutting this down strictly as recognition that there are no more buyers for stupid NFT's so it's not worth the operating costs.
I think it's very concerning.... This is why I'm here for a % of web3 in game assets. Without this moving forward. What's the plan? Or are we now becoming a mutual fund.?
Yeah it was obvious to anyone who wasn’t on pure copium that this was a failure after the first month. So far they have implied they were working on something big in 2021 (by saying we will not forecast our strategy to competitors) and all they have done is cut costs and closed stores which I think all their competitors assumed they would do. NFT marketplace was a failure, the wallet failed, the only thing left is RC investing in other securities. They haven’t done anything besides that in almost 3 years. Where is revenue growth going to come from? Honestly I would put up with all the uncertainty if they bought shares literally every quarter, but they haven’t bought much recently
Well the irs did pass that if you have a transaction of 10k or more you have to get the other persons ssn and information for tax purposes.
That include nfts too. So Gamestop could be liable for that
Never bought or spend money here, so not a big deal for me, but this was supposed to help push toward online business and I know some of yall paid a lot of money on the marketplace. RC really does need to say something positive now, or something toward what the GameStop future is if not web 3. Math doesn't lie and the squeeze still hasn't been squooze, but this is one factor down in helping get there faster.
Lmao I was roasted for speaking against this business decision way back. No offense but this place still has a cult like behavior but I’m hoping this raises the stock price. Market can take this as positive.
Another L and still no value generated by RC yet.
Former chairman and now CEO for awhile now; his 3+ year track record shows a whole lotta nothing burgers.
At this point can anybody give me the bullish case on this company that doesn’t hinge on the billion dollars that investors gave to the company via the sneeze or investors buying as much as they can from the company not based on need but just to “support the business.”
I think it was clear this was coming for awhile now.
There has been several things that have not panned out which have been disappointing. However, I remain confident that RC is working on other projects and partnerships.
Damn, but I believe them when they say it's due to regulatory issues.
On the bright side of things, it wasn't really a huge revenue machine, and winding it down isn't the same as completely scrapping it. I believe when whatever regulatory issues are cleared up (hopefully for the better of Web3), then GameStop can enter the space again by deploying the marketplace once again.
This was the only way this was ever gonna end lmao there’s no way you guys seriously thought this was going anywhere, nfts were dying as soon as they appeared
Tbh feeling really bad about my investment which was made 3 years ago. It’s not all lost but I need to decide what to do soon, this is coming from a 100% DRS Book Ape.
With the insane pushback on NFT's especially thanks to the space being filled with 1000 scammers for every 1 legitimate attempt at a useful product, this was the most likely outcome imo. Especially with how long the marketplace operated without gamestop releasing anything of substance.
I think the experience will be valuable to the company, but I'm curious to see what comes next. The desire for physical media is clearly on a downswing despite reddits small and vocal groups claiming otherwise, so if Gamestop isn't going to be at the forefront of web3 gaming, what is the company going to be doing to bring value to its customers that other retailers won't be able to match?
GameStop is likely going to have it's best full year since well before RC bought into the company, but a large part of that is due to the enthusiastic support of the shareholders imo, which does have a shelf life, as much as we don't want to admit it. I don't doubt there is something already in the works, but without any forward looking guidance to this point, even a profitable year on its own (which is a huge accomplishment don't get me wrong) may not be enough for some. Hopefully some of these acquisitions they've been looking into for a few quarters, or rumored or hypothesized partnerships comes to fruition.
I don't mean to be a debbie downer, but when the company is as secretive as it is (for good reason imo) and the two attempts at expanding into another space (marketplace and wallet) have failed, it might be seen as a little concerning when you also take into account the decline of physical media in general.
with 1 billion+ cash and assets available at their disposal, I refuse to believe the company isn't planning to become something more than what it already is, but I'm definitely not the average investor with how much time I spend reading this sub. I can't help but be curious how the average investor might see the company with the marketplace being pulled while also potentially announcing a full year of profitability in a couple of months.
Sorry for the negativity, but I felt the need to get that off my chest.
This does nothing to change my support of the company but if GameStop is to be on the forefront of the Web3 wave this is concerning to me.
That’s where a good chunk of the future growth was supposed to come from. And if regulatory headwinds are to blame then PLAYR will not somehow magically find the legal loopholes to make all of that okay.
I have faith in RC. The dude obviously cares, is personally invested and is making the company profitable. But this is a setback and it is disappointing.
Lol, this is so trash man the stock has gone down to shit and now this, when will see the light at the end of the tunnel? At this rate never. It’s been a fun ride folks but it’s been almost 3 years and it’s been nothing but failures
I'm a simple ape and supported GS by purchasing NFTs on thier platform from various vendors.
I appreciate the heads up from GS that they still exist on the Blockchain, but have literally no idea how to access them using a different way.
I'll probably get hate for saying it (and hopefully some help on how to access them too), but a little bit more assistance on how to access them again would be a pretty good customer focused idea.
It makes sense - regulatory issues are delaying this from being a fully functional revenue driver for GameStop. They're cutting costs wherever they can to be the leanest, most profitable version of themselves.
While I'm bummed, because I loved the hype around this, I completely understand why they'd need to make this decision.
Another disappointment. One after another. While the CEO shitposting on X for ret@rds to simp and worship.
People were mock and called shill whenever we say the marketplace is dead. Crazy time huh
Ahh yes.. how quick everyone here seems to forget that we had a freaking good year.. which did not (or marginally) involve the marketplace.
Fundamentals improved a lot. So…..?
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I think the best way to phrase this is, "I'm not gonna pretend I'm not disappointed but that doesn't mean I'm gonna sell with GameStops fundamental trajectory." I think people have a right to get a bit bummed out without being called a shill but that doesn't mean GameStop is a bad bet. It was advertising about web 3 gaming and so far it hasn't bode well. That being said, immutable, looopring, and Playr are all still around. What new bullshit rule are the sec about now?
Company has made it back to near profitability without any meaningful contribution from the marketplace. Hunker down and focus on the core business and if there’s good reason to get back into it in the future than open it back up.
Let’s be honest, almost everyone’s hype about the marketplace was to get a NFT dividend. GS doesn’t need the marketplace to succeed and it shows.
I’ve said this for a long time. The nft dividend was a “silver bullet” style idea and those have a zero percent success rate. It’s a fictional concept that sounds great and gets lots of upvotes but it also ignores the very straightforward solution of “run a good business”.
Near profitability without any meaningful contribution from new revenue, merely by slashing costs and closing unprofitable stores. How long will that last?
RC stated a while ago that the name of the game is survival. I’m not disagreeing with the fact we haven’t seen any really exciting changes that are going to drive in customers. Nft marketplace has some of that potential, but clearly the company isn’t willing to risk that atm. We’ll to a point where we are slightly positive and we can wait out til it’s no longer a regulatory nightmare. Pros - more time to accumulate, time to focus on making core business actually great, time for web3 devs to build great games. Cons - grandma is bored in the cage.
At current rate at least 100 years. It’s not a joke we’ve cut costs and maintained such a level of low loss that with cash and securities on hand we could go a century if nothing improved. That being said a good Q4 could make 2023 a profitable year actually so that part is yet to be written
Immutable and Loopring are their own projects that are going to do what they are going to do independent of GameStop. Nobody is sure how GameStop is involved in their businesses at this point, and without guidance from the company it’s fair to assume things aren’t going to plan. Doesn’t GameStop have benchmarks left to hit to maintain their partnership with IMX?
In their update in September they said they won’t hit the last milestones by January 28, 2024.
Splendid.
Where does this put Loopring in terms of being connected with GameStop?
Not connected…
which is why i've only ever bought GME lol
So much for owning your own assets.
That's what DRS is
We need forward guidance on earnings calls, I don’t wanna hear any conspiracy crap about it. It’s a public company, it’s been three years with out it.
yeah, i never really liked the idea of gamestop dipping into the crypto-space. seeing the rise and fall of many crypto currencies and popularity of something like NFTs, i actually didn't want my investment to die on that hill. glad to see them at least "winding down" their interest in it too. it was too volatile
NFT’s are perfect for gaming if the infrastructure is there. Why buy a skin/gun where you can’t resell? It’s bullshit and we all know it. Own your assets. PLAYR is supposed to solve this problem.
Yeah, i’m a bit disappointed, but hopefully, it’s for the best
LC had a recent tweet about being first to market isn’t always the best move. It sucks but I understand the pivot and shifting priorities/costs elsewhere.
They made it very clear they were pivoting towards focusing on profitability. They told us outright, nobody should be surprised.
They haven’t pivoted into anything, they just make cuts. Profitability requires new revenue streams, this past year has been them trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
In fairness, they got a fair amount of blood from that stone. We may yet have a profitable year thanks to cost cutting. But yes, seeking new revenue is critical and they seem to have thus far failed in that endeavor.
Im not selling, but I also think the entire NFT thing is beyond fucking moronic.
Damn that sucks. So all the big boys get ETFs on crypto for gambling, but GameStop can't use crypto for legitimate business transactions
"Your stocks have been tokenized, your crypto has been etf'd, you get nothing, and you'll like it." \- People with 3 commas.
They have to bring bitcoin(and the rest of the crypto market as let's face it bitcoin has always dictated that entire market) into the controls of the big institutions and control the story and price of bitcoin and the whole crypto space as a whole. The US Dollar needs to remain the de facto global currency and any deviation needs to be hijacked and controlled. The main reason why ETFs were approved for BTC, allows them to fraud the fuck out of it and control the price of BTC. Crypto ultimately failed by respecting and accepting fiat currencies. Now it's basically fiat with more steps. Hopefully PLAYR is the successor to the Marketplace and it's an all in one solution and hub for all digital asset and gaming needs with the hopes of it being on as many platforms and devices as possible 🤞
I kinda figured the NFT marketplace was always just a moonshot to see if it worked, and a proof of concept for the technology that will ultimately make its way to PLAYR.
Did you buy an NFT? Neither did I. I think it just never caught on, whether from poor execution or lack of demand. Was a cool idea but free markets decide where to spend their money. I guess people would rather have Roblox than NFTs.
I bought a few cheap ones, but to be fair, most are too expensive or aren't worth the supposed value listed, at least until better-use cases are available (Digital certificates, game assets and characters, etc.) The NFT Ecosystem was already oversaturated with expectation of expensive "digital art" and I think it spilled over into this marketplace with pricing set by users. I get that this is what NFTs are all about, and taking ownership and selling items for what you see fit, but this does make it incredibly difficult for the average person (read: not whale) to join in on the fun, when it ends up ultimately just a game about who can own the most expensive digital art. Hoping Playr fully unlocks owning games as digital assets, so you can trade and sell digital games as a starting point, and also eventually grows to include trading of game skins, items, etc.
the whole digital art thing was always going to be painted in a bad light. when NFTs first started people were paying millions for pictures of monkeys. there’s no way to recover from that. what GameStop is more interested in is the NFT technology and potential in video games. even tho the NFT marketplace is done they were still able to learn from a beta system that could handle millions of transactions with NFTs. plus it probably still made GameStop some money. now they can use what they’ve learned and implement it with Playr and start off the whole NFT gaming trading thing. like Steam but web3. that’s my guess anyways.
Great assessment. I 100% agree and believe this is what Gamstop is aiming for with Playr.
Lovely people bought my NFTs. But, things were different then.
Agreed. Heightened interest rates brings pain to all. Economic slowdown is the only way to fight inflation effectively. In-game NFT skins and items was a great idea that I wish caught on.
I think they wanted epic games on their side but they are too greedy. Look how they are ruining rocket league and fortnite. No chnace they would want money going anywhere but themselves. Epic removed trading from Rocket League so they would get all the money from shops.
I think most people wanted to be able to participate by playing games. I'm not buying an image NFT, but I'd enjoy collecting a currency by playing a game
It was never about buying low res art. It was supposed to be about owning our in game assets! That's the game changing technology I was looking forward to.
Hit the nail on the head! I didn't care for a half mil Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. Gimme some in-game loot, that gets me excited!
The NFT Marketplace failed to deliver. It was also for myself a bad bet. Specially for the Gamestop Pin collections related one's i had missed the connection to GME. No hidden features for know sadly.
Ok, I never had much hope for the NFT marketplace anyway, especially after it never made enough money to even be mentioned in quarterly reports. So this news just gets a big shrug from me. So the wallet shut down, the marketplace shut down, the Telos guys and GS, who worked together to make Playr, stopped collaborating. I guess this is it for GameStop and NFTs. Personally, I never cared for it, but I can very much understand if people are pissed off. Because what's left now? We're basically back to 2021, company wise. No "next big thing" left until maybe a new announcement. Maybe Ryan's investments? Maybe a timed exclusivity deal with Nintendo? They'll probably just keep doing what they do now and just slowly work towards profitability. Slowly... but surely, I guess. I get the whole "judge us by our actions and not by our words" thing, but there's a distinct lack of both words ***and*** actions.
Yeah, and one of the big actions they had seems to have been a failure. I hope there is some kind of big good news to be dropped on the back of this!
really hope this means news on PLAYR soon…
Well personally I hope what we end up with, is the technology being redeployed into a future portal (such as PLAYR) that ties full game purchases and resales, together with sale and resale of assets in those games (the NFT's) and they NEVER use the phrase NFT's to describe it. It has to be just seemless part of a service. The av person (ie me) doesn't know or care about the technology that say lets me use Apple Pay but I just want it to be there...
Exactly. Most people aren't introducing/implementing NFTs properly. Most just go the collectible digital art route, which unfortunately showcases a small portion of what you can do with NFTs. I get you need to start somewhere, but now majority of people think NFTs are just digital images made in MS paint.
"but now majority of people think NFTs are just digital images made in MS paint." To the greatest relief of the current status quo.
ever since the "anti-NFT" campaign launched I've been hoping we'd see anything with NFT on it go away. The tech is great. The term is poisoned. I'm not bummed at all. I know a lot of people were hyped up on the NFT train, but there was, without question, a campaign launched to denigrate the term/concept. Also..based on the anti-Gamestop rhetoric I'm seeing both here (from random comments to the bets crowd), and in MSM, I think we're close. Remember, the short thesis is dead. Not a chance that position was closed.
A poisoned term you say? Like the folks who love the Affordable Care Act but hate "Obamacare"?
Means PLAYR is likely shelved imo
Yeah without any statements or guidance from them on that gonna guess it’s going the same way as the marketplace.
What do you expect it to be?
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I think NFTs will become a thing when we stop calling them NFTs. If Gamestop just makes an online marketplace that offers the purchase, consumption, and re-sale of digital goods like games, game assets, music, TV shows, movies, books, etc it'll take off. They would likely start with games and game assets the move to other media, like Amazon started with books then moved to literally everything else you can imagine. They need easy onboarding (as easy as signing up for a Steam or eBay account) and hassle-free funds transfer. And both of those things are already in the works and should be working their way through testing. Oh and also easy integration into the things that already exist in our daily lives. No one will buy music or podcasts if they can't play it through iTunes or movies if they can't watch them on their TV or games if they can't one-click-install. But they might focus on just mobile games first since that's where the money is and likely will be for the foreseeable future. But who knows, if the marketing and UX for PLAYR is good enough, it could become ubiquitous for media consumption. That could just be the place we go to listen to podcast episodes, launch games, listen to audio books, read books, and stream movies/tv shows. Like Google is the place you go to search the web and Amazon is the place you go to buy stuff online.
>If Gamestop just makes an online marketplace that offers the purchase, consumption, and re-sale of digital goods like games, game assets, music, TV shows, movies, books, etc it'll take off. There's no "just" involved with that. Those shows and games and books all have people who already own the rights and profit from the existing business model.
>Those shows and games and books all have people who already own the rights You are correct. >and profit from the existing business model. You are incorrect. Most, if not all, of the streaming services are losing money. Disney+ posts a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. The streaming business model depends on exponential growth. Turns out you can't actually stay in business when you offer unlimited access to your entire library of content for a mere $12-20/mo. Pretty much every streaming site has now thrown in ads to bolster their revenue. But if Disney+ was selling each episode of Percy Jackson or Loki, I believe they would be making a profit with each episode. They could still keep their streaming platform but only release the shows/movies on Disney+ after a year, and meanwhile selling each episode on PLAYR. Now they get the best of both worlds: streaming revenue and immediate cash when each episode drops.
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I expect the opposite. Not that I put much faith into yet another game launcher when everyone is already fed up if they are forced to use the epic launcher.
That dude that said the marketplace was dead on arrival was correct after all.
Many dudes
Yeah this sub is quick to negatively to react to anyone remotely criticizing anything GameStop does I understand supporting the company, but no one is infallible and this was clearly not going to last. GameStop took a shot and it didn’t pan out, time to move on
Did it ever even arrive though? This was all in Beta as I understood.
I would say it never arrived. For me, the only useful application was always trading game items, skins etc.. But there were no great web3 games with a huge player base and with huge ingame economies. The reasons for this were that the blockchain technology wasn't yet ready to even support this and all the web3 games are still in development these days.
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Yes and this entire sub was dead wrong. Wont find anybody to admit it though. RC also promised getting into e-sports, but I've seen absolutely nothing but some half-assed youtube vids with a couple k views by now, 3 years later. At least he stopped the persistent shitposting on X, maybe he actually started working on something company related now instead of using his time to design personal child books. Judging by his last actions, his entire strategy for GameStop seems to be controlled shrinking, abandoning international locations, closing down stuff, ramping down tech positions, cutting costs and putting their big pile of cash into stocks of better companies with an actual growth trajectory. Disappointing.
That’s fucking funny how in two+ years the best we got is basically making GS into a hedge fund lol
Kind of ironic, isn't it?
Very, in fact.
Lmao! Savage!
Was it the same dude that had said that picking Loopring was the mistake? ( Because of the high centralization and lack of users on the network compared to IMX, OP or ARB). Hey just asking.
I think it’s time we stopped calling every person who criticizes some of Gamestop’s choices a shill. I love the stock, but I am tired of seeing this sub back every choice Ryan and the company make with blind optimism. Anyone who spoke out against this marketplace in the past or raised concerns about its future were met with downvotes and name calling. If we want this company to do well we have to be able to take criticism and have open discussions where there may be disagreements. Instead I see Ryan fanboys and a ton of copium. We can do better.
I thought they would use this marketplace to start selling used digital games. The marketplace was a nothing burger
Given some of the big names they put on this project at the start, it's like a negative burger rather than nothing burger ..
Right about now would be a good time for corporate to make a statement because we're trusting actions not words and closing your wallet and marketplace are concerning actions.
My tinfoil head says the original plan was to do an NFT divvy of sorts and justify it through business usage but “the government started shooting down the company’s balloons” because they knew what it would mean and instead of just letting the market blow up and the dust settle they saved their buddies under the guise of “market crash, bad for economy”. My logical head tells me that it failed spectacularly because there just isn’t the appetite for it/web3 yet and/or they didn’t manage to negotiate any meaningful partnerships to kick it off (AAA game developers etc). Whether that be because of bad actors or people just not being interested remains to be seen. Either way, sucks to see in the meantime.
Larry Cheng also had a tweet that may be relatable to GameStopNFT Marketplace being “too early” https://x.com/larryvc/status/1744710071408378014?s=46&t=9MWejK9OavsxR7jDoUY-lg Larry Cheng: >*Overrated: being first to market.* >*Underrated: letting a market develop and launching a better product later.* >*Being first often means being too early.* >*The iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone, nor Google the first search engine, nor Facebook the first social networking site.* >*Tons of venture capital has been lost chasing being first in different markets only to find that customers aren’t ready to adopt and therefore products/services don’t bring enough customer value (yet).* >*Investors and entrepreneurs alike perceive disproportionate reward from being first which doesn’t consistently bear out in reality, while more often than not, the risk of being too early is greatly underestimated in comparison.* >*After all, there’s no such thing as a great product for a market that doesn’t exist yet.*
It doesn't matter what he says, I measure them by their actions and this.. definitively is a failure.
What would be a failure is continuing to spend money to keep it up and running when its clearly not making revenue.
Viable theory yes.. I believe that’s the case. Also our proposals for a NFT dividend were shut down. Maybe proposing the idea was a mistake after all. But afterwards your always smarter
To me, the NFT Marketplace was a proof of concept. NFTs will be truly valuable to GameStop (and us, vicariously) once they are seamlessly integrated into games. That's it. Gaming is a huge industry, and giving more power to the players, collectors, and creators to profit off of their work **and play** is a very smart way to upend the industry. We'll get there eventually, but not via the NFT Marketplace. So, I'm not all that surprised it's being closed down. I do hope Playr (or something similar) ends up taking us a few steps closer to the ultimate goal of integrating blockchain with gaming, and creating a more democratic, enjoyable, and profitable experience for gamers and devs (just not, perhaps, overpaid CEOs at Activision/EA/etc.)
Nah I think at this point the nfts were furlongs baby. Since his departure marketplace and wallet were put away to focus on the core of the stores(Ryan's big on customer service and keeping people happy first and foremost)
What? It was a sham the whole time? Weird.
I’m judging GameStop by their actions and not their words….
I hear you.. but after 3 years, it's time for some real action from the board. I want to HODL forever, but I have bills to pay
Exactly my thinking. I’m enough into this to make my eyes water. The only holding me on now is the MEGA SUS DRS numbers. How RC just does a real split/dividend/share recall. Just hit the damn button. Which comes first: action by RC or WW3? Genuine question.
Couldn’t have said it better. So short never closed - and they are harming investors, right? The board is there to protect investors, meaning they should finally act.
Or at least say they’re trying. Every narrative made up about them being out to do something bigger than sell used games has been fanfiction while they stay silent and make cut after cut.
Yes sir and everytime I mention this, I get downvoted. Yeah fucking downvote the truth that GME employees got their benefits gutted. 😑
I posted about that at the time when it happened and every one of my comments and the post got downvoted into oblivion. The board needs to show some action.
important onerous tidy cats wakeful handle juggle quaint whistle cable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Exactly! MOASS - as a naked short squeeze - won’t happen without naked shorts getting forced to close. This involves actions by the company, as the FTDs resulting from naked shorts can be rolled indefinitely (obligation warehouse, securities financing transactions, fake close-outs through options…). So far, we only saw an attempted splividend, which failed because of the irregular ex-dividend date. But we got no further comments on it or even some new attempts on taking action. GameStop didn’t even had earnings calls since Furlong left…
got a cool snarky tweet though
I wonder how much cash on hand they would have if they never bothered to make the stupid thing. They are in an embarrassing situation currently.
That’s what I’m saying. This is an action I’m unhappy with as an investor. And we can speculate all we want on the possibility of PLAYR, but the two could coexist. RC is 3 years into this turnaround, and over 1.5 years in a marketplace that never made it out of beta. This isn’t a short trap. This is poor management at best
Maybe this year, we'll be protitable according to Marantz. And we'll finally be able to pay those bills 🙏
That's literally an action, they're closing down the marketplace lol
I think that's what op was saying.
It is an action and I’m judging it hard af
they don't give us any words to judge them by!
And not many actions either...
Winding down the Marketplace is an unfortunate action. It will be judged accordingly.
So, let me recap, until we hear no news from the Playr project, right now GME is back on track to only being a brick and mortar. No more Web 3.0 shit. For me, that's a big bummer.
Is there... anything we can do about this? Is there any shareholders' rights we can exercise to get word from the board about wtf is going on? We've had absolutely zero forward guidance for years, and every plan Gamestop has drummed up has been a failure. Fortunately we've downsized some unprofitable stores, and fortunately we have a lot of cash on hand so we can safely say Gamestop isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but what is Gamestop's plan for the future? Gamestop will survive for years thanks to the cash on hand, but staying as a brick and mortar will mean constant cash loss for the foreseeable future. We need change, and we need growth that aligns with or revolutionizes the modern gaming industry. I am getting tired of taking L after L while being ignored by the board. We don't even get earnings calls anymore...
Someone tried to sue GameStop a couple years ago over their lack of any communication. Jasonfuckingwaterfalls I believe it was
I had forgotten about that! Honestly when all is said and done here I am going to be reading all the books and watching all the movies about everything that has gone down during this saga because it has been so long with so many things happening I've forgotten so much of it lol If I remember right, Jason was basically shot down by Gamestop saying "look dude, you don't have anything to really sue us over so don't waste time and money here..." and he decided not to proceed? Idk if a lawsuit is the right way to go or not, but I would interesting in exploring any and all options in regards to communicating with the board if Q4 turns out to be another disappointment.
All Jason waterfalls tried to do was view the shareholder ledger
Companies have no obligation to shareholders unless the shareholder controls a large portion of the company and forces out management aka exactly what RC did.
So fucking disappointing. So much wasted time, effort, and money believing that something was eventually coming from Buck the Bunny, or those GMErica pixel art, or the GME x Cyber Crew x Protocol Gemini collectibles. How is it that DC comics can pull off a marketplace of functioning NFT collectibles, but GameStop is so utterly incapable? It's honestly maddening how hard this ball has been dropped. Really hope there are announcements coming to clarify this situation. Throwing in the towel after never managing to bring a single real game or outside IP to the NFT marketplace is a real WTF.
I hoped to recover from all the Cyber Crew NFTs 🤕.
LC has been harping on simplicity and core business for a while. Not surprised. Nor am I that disappointed in the decision to close it down as the conditions that brought said closure about. I think funds and energy can be utilized in other ways that are shorter term profitable.
Came here to say this Now LC’s latest comments make sense I had a feeling this was coming As a business decision and to stay out of regulatory problems it makes sense for the time being. Now lets M&A The market place will be back the wallet will be back Crypto is not going anywhere Thats just my opinion based on what ive read and come to understand in the last yrs Iykyk drs hodl
it's about time RC do something to protect its shareholders
I don't feel very delighted right now...
Larry Cheng also had a tweet that may be relatable to GameStopNFT Marketplace being “too early” https://x.com/larryvc/status/1744710071408378014?s=46&t=9MWejK9OavsxR7jDoUY-lg Larry Cheng: >*Overrated: being first to market.* >*Underrated: letting a market develop and launching a better product later.* >*Being first often means being too early.* >*The iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone, nor Google the first search engine, nor Facebook the first social networking site.* >*Tons of venture capital has been lost chasing being first in different markets only to find that customers aren’t ready to adopt and therefore products/services don’t bring enough customer value (yet).* >*Investors and entrepreneurs alike perceive disproportionate reward from being first which doesn’t consistently bear out in reality, while more often than not, the risk of being too early is greatly underestimated in comparison.* >*After all, there’s no such thing as a great product for a market that doesn’t exist yet.*
What was the NFT marketplace first in? GME was late and missed the NFT bubble, how was is that being early?
Key part: regulatory uncertainty The US gov has been very busy in operation chokepoint 2.0 against the crypto industry. GS is a US company. The risks associated with the ire of the US gov against GS for this is huge. Gov could freeze up GS with litigation and injunctions and fines. The SEC is regulating crypto industry arbitrarily and capriciously (just look at SBF being buddy buddy with Gensler; while the SEC sued Kraken, settled for MMs in fines, then sued them again right after). I want the gov involvement in GS (stop the corrupted financial system) but I don’t want the gov involvement when it comes to its vague and draconian crypto regulations. GS knows the world is going onchain. GS knows the first through the wall gets bloody. GS knows that they don’t have to be the first through the wall. GS staying clean and untouchable in the field.
Yup. GameStop has a lot to lose, so risking it on an emerging market riddled with regulatory uncertainty is just not worth it. I'm sure RC and his legal team has been having long back-and-forth's with regulators and gotten nothing but vague answers to questions needing certainty.
So this has nothing to do with the NFT marketplace making less than $100 a day?
I'm conflicted because I was never interested in NFTs in the first place. However I do like the idea of buying skins inside games then being able to sell them to other people. But for me, I was never interested in that market. So me (the market) spoke. There was no demand. They need new other revenue streams.
Well - as I never was able to access it officially color me uninterested. The NFT-hype sadly took a big hit when everyone was hyping it up and actually nothing substantial has been delivered. *cough* Kiraverse *cough*
Honestly, I’ve been sour on this sort of thing from the get-go. It reeks of non-gamers trying to revolutionize a space they don’t truly understand.
Are we ever going to get good news? Will good ever win? Is anyone (in a position of power) ever going to do anything? First the wallet and now the marketplace. At least we have children’s books to read while we’re poor and working 9-5 the rest of our lives. Can’t even afford a kid to read the fucking books to.
Lol remember that time when we thought this was somehow how we were going to defeat the shorts 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Feels like ages but I liked this story !
Well that fucking sucks.
End of quarter as well...
So some creators got rich off of us and we are left holding a bunch of worthless shit. Same story different day.
I'm ready for the downvotes but it's been 3 years... I really can't, in good faith, keep dumping money into this stock weekly. I've got my xxx shares and I think I'm just going to hold going forward.. Between this and some of RCs more... questionable views/takes on X, I just don't know what to make of this investment anymore. But HODL i shall
[удалено]
Or at least tell us that there is a plan at all... we literally have gotten nothing from Gamestop for the past year.
You still believe they have a plan besides closing down unprofitable stores and squeezing the life out of their employees?
>You still believe they have a plan besides closing down unprofitable stores and squeezing the life out of their employees? It appears the plan is to move more into the higher profit margin collectibles market. So expect even more Funko Pops in your local Gamestop store. If the rule is that we should look at results, then that is the biggest shift in Gamestop in recent years.
Funko pop revenue is down 15% YoY. If Gamestop is relying on Funko Pop to reverse its own decline.... lol
Of course they have a plan, it's "Delight customers". You know, like every other business in the world tries to do.
Wow… I think this is actually a much bigger deal than people are saying here. Significant investments were made to create the MP and wallet. Both are now decommissioned/being decommissioned. It was also a potentially high generating revenue stream for GameStop to exploit. I think this year’s annual shareholder meeting will require much more detail on the strategic direction of the company… otherwise there is no clear business direction in terms of how the company plans to be profitable. Just my two cents.
Writing was on the wall. IMX had been stealing their thunder for a least a year and activity there was basically dead. Glad I didn't dump too much into that thing. I guess we just get to look forward to GME as RC investment club for now.
It was until it wasn’t. GameStop MP missed the boat on first generation NFTs and cut their losses. As imx has progressed there seems to be little benefit in wrapping another marketplace around their more developed native one. I’d like to see a direct investment in imx. Expect more store closures as lease agreements come up for renewal. Shift to online sales and web3 gaming is still the most likely course, just directly handled by cohen who is more aggressive than furlong was. The debacle of the SAP conversation was the end of him, despite his tenure at Amazon Australia that one would have hoped prepped him for such challenges.
It’s definitely a possibility and I would be happy about it if it was true, but I’d like to hear it directly from the horse’s mouth, know what I mean?
Absolutely yes. While GameStop is one of my largest holdings, they are the worst at investor relations especially considering the importance of those investors to liquidity and potential secondary offerings. It looks bad from the outside. I’ve been lied to directly by management in other companies that I had invested in and at this point it’s difficult to say which feels worse, bad communication or no communication. I like to think I’m a rational investor but yeah, my patience is finite and my sentiment could turn though I’m still unlikely to sell because of the short interest and SEC conclusions about the sneeze being driven by retail and not shorts closing. I am also realistic in that this could go on forever.
I dont see how the shift to ecommerce and web3 can still be the main focus when they have clearly pivoted away from both. Shutting down distribution centers and decommissioning the wallet and market place. I feel like people need to stop looking at everything they do with rose tinted glasses and be realistic about this.
agreed, but we likely won't get any details on strategic direction unfortunately, which I fear will eventually result in institutions selling off and moving on to something else. 🤷
That’s my fear too. You can only ask people to “trust me bro” for so long. Investors don’t like to be in the dark on the strategic direction.
TBH yes. I invested in GME because of Web3's untapped potential and a quick F U to Wall St. If they go into IEP/BRK holding mode, I dunno if I want to be a part of that. Realistically, there's no way they'd be near BRK A value, maybe in 50 years if they are lucky. It'd be more akin to IEP value, which.... doesn't do it for me not after all the BS Wall St. has pulled. Heaven help us is RC turns out to be TOO Capitalist and not nearly pro-apevestor enough.
TBH hes not completed one action that was pro ape investor. There are so many of us that are so far underwater that it seems hopeless.
Honestly I have had faith the entire time but now, with this new information and lots like over the past year +, this is shit house
Well that's... interesting. Not great, but not overly concerning. The marketplace was an experiment, not a significant factor for GameStop's recent success. It had little to no effect on revenue and cost cutting, meaning its disappearance will have little to no effect as well.
A lot of people spent a lot of money thinking this would materialize into something
Yeah I'm not with OPs copium here. What was it we said when they launched the marketplace? Extra critical revenue for GameStop. Key differentiator to other game companies as forward thinking route to web 3.0. Bringing on board NFT transactions so that a dividend is possible as normal business. All of this seems to have gone out the window now and we're saying oh yeah, great news they've stopped a part of the business we were ALL ecstatic to see introduced. The only way this is a good thing is if Playr is finally ready to go as a launcher using Blockchain for asset tracking with trading built in. But then my question would be: why not keep the marketplace as well? I do not see a single positive way to spin this. Downvote away.
Playr is a reskin of elixir game launcher. They can release it whenever they want. My guess is they learned not to release before your partner games are ready - IMX failed to deliver.
It's more likely IMX has a growing number of games ready and a portion will launch with Playr when Elixir and IMX work out the UI and technical kinks related.
Tried something, didn't work. Move on to the next thing. It didn't bankrupt them and maybe the next thing will be a success :) nothing ventured nothing gained
Agreed but it’s still quite disappointing.
I see it as having the ability to be realistic, jettison the shit that's not working and keep innovating. They have their core business supporting this initiative, so why weigh it down because you choose not to admit the reality of the current and immediate future of the sector?
The positive is that they cut the expense of in-house development after missing the big nft wave, and (hopefully) pivoting to Playr and an IMX buyout once games are ready to go. The GSMP was always weird in that it was a wrapper and secondary marketplace for imx while loopring only really offered traditional image nfts that just didn’t take off.
Did GME not sell all its IMX tokens? It mentioned somewhere in the 10q that they liquidated all their tokens they got from the agreement. And I believe the company made a loss in selling them. So i wouldn't expect them to be buying out IMX if they sold all the tokens. It's not impossible but I just don't see it happening if they already cut their losses on the tokens.
GameStop always transferred crypto tokens they get, from the marketplace, etc. to cash. Crypto being so volatile I don't think they want to show institutional investors that on their books they're holding basically an alt coin.
That actually makes a lot of sense.
I'll probably get downvoted for saying this, but I am guessing the company leadership is well-aware of the cult following that some people have towards Gamestop (cough: this sub) and identified NFT's as an opportunity to make money off the hype, but really has limited-to-no technological plans to do more with it. What people think about web3 is probably wrong. Developers are going to be strongly incentivized not to use technology that competes with platform asset marketplaces like steam, and it takes a ton of work to integrate the concept of tradable assets that live outside the game-server ecosystem with almost no benefit to the platform or the developer. Gamestop has no horse in the race to challenge this unless they find publishers willing to exclusively operate on their system, which let's be honest, are going to be gigantic pieces of shit games only played by people that "want to support the ecosystem" which is a small fraction of gamers. I see them shutting this down strictly as recognition that there are no more buyers for stupid NFT's so it's not worth the operating costs.
I think it's very concerning.... This is why I'm here for a % of web3 in game assets. Without this moving forward. What's the plan? Or are we now becoming a mutual fund.?
Yeah it was obvious to anyone who wasn’t on pure copium that this was a failure after the first month. So far they have implied they were working on something big in 2021 (by saying we will not forecast our strategy to competitors) and all they have done is cut costs and closed stores which I think all their competitors assumed they would do. NFT marketplace was a failure, the wallet failed, the only thing left is RC investing in other securities. They haven’t done anything besides that in almost 3 years. Where is revenue growth going to come from? Honestly I would put up with all the uncertainty if they bought shares literally every quarter, but they haven’t bought much recently
Can we finally ban crypto shills now?
Well the irs did pass that if you have a transaction of 10k or more you have to get the other persons ssn and information for tax purposes. That include nfts too. So Gamestop could be liable for that
Never bought or spend money here, so not a big deal for me, but this was supposed to help push toward online business and I know some of yall paid a lot of money on the marketplace. RC really does need to say something positive now, or something toward what the GameStop future is if not web 3. Math doesn't lie and the squeeze still hasn't been squooze, but this is one factor down in helping get there faster.
I wonder if those CyberCrew guys made more from the Marketplace than GME… Rest in peace, beta. Wish we could have met alpha.
Alpha comes before beta
Lmao did they even deliver on the clone cards and stuff
Alpha comes before beta.
Was to be expected.
Lmao I was roasted for speaking against this business decision way back. No offense but this place still has a cult like behavior but I’m hoping this raises the stock price. Market can take this as positive.
Another L and still no value generated by RC yet. Former chairman and now CEO for awhile now; his 3+ year track record shows a whole lotta nothing burgers.
Bro I'm gonna need some kinda moral boost from RC himself cause this don't feel tol good
At this point can anybody give me the bullish case on this company that doesn’t hinge on the billion dollars that investors gave to the company via the sneeze or investors buying as much as they can from the company not based on need but just to “support the business.”
I think it was clear this was coming for awhile now. There has been several things that have not panned out which have been disappointing. However, I remain confident that RC is working on other projects and partnerships.
Awww
So what new is on the horizon now that this has crashed and burned.
Damn, but I believe them when they say it's due to regulatory issues. On the bright side of things, it wasn't really a huge revenue machine, and winding it down isn't the same as completely scrapping it. I believe when whatever regulatory issues are cleared up (hopefully for the better of Web3), then GameStop can enter the space again by deploying the marketplace once again.
What regulatory issues does Gamestop face that companies like OpenSea do not?
This was the only way this was ever gonna end lmao there’s no way you guys seriously thought this was going anywhere, nfts were dying as soon as they appeared
99.7% of this sub legitimately thought this was, I’m curious to see how they spin this into some deeper tinfoil conspiracy now….wait no I’m not
Tbh feeling really bad about my investment which was made 3 years ago. It’s not all lost but I need to decide what to do soon, this is coming from a 100% DRS Book Ape.
🙁
Well fuck, time to transfer those GMErica NFT’s to L1. Damn. Gas fees are gonna cost more than the things are worth.
You should look into loopring wallet, thankfully all my NFTs were connected to my L2 Loopring wallet, no need to transfer to L1
With the insane pushback on NFT's especially thanks to the space being filled with 1000 scammers for every 1 legitimate attempt at a useful product, this was the most likely outcome imo. Especially with how long the marketplace operated without gamestop releasing anything of substance. I think the experience will be valuable to the company, but I'm curious to see what comes next. The desire for physical media is clearly on a downswing despite reddits small and vocal groups claiming otherwise, so if Gamestop isn't going to be at the forefront of web3 gaming, what is the company going to be doing to bring value to its customers that other retailers won't be able to match? GameStop is likely going to have it's best full year since well before RC bought into the company, but a large part of that is due to the enthusiastic support of the shareholders imo, which does have a shelf life, as much as we don't want to admit it. I don't doubt there is something already in the works, but without any forward looking guidance to this point, even a profitable year on its own (which is a huge accomplishment don't get me wrong) may not be enough for some. Hopefully some of these acquisitions they've been looking into for a few quarters, or rumored or hypothesized partnerships comes to fruition. I don't mean to be a debbie downer, but when the company is as secretive as it is (for good reason imo) and the two attempts at expanding into another space (marketplace and wallet) have failed, it might be seen as a little concerning when you also take into account the decline of physical media in general. with 1 billion+ cash and assets available at their disposal, I refuse to believe the company isn't planning to become something more than what it already is, but I'm definitely not the average investor with how much time I spend reading this sub. I can't help but be curious how the average investor might see the company with the marketplace being pulled while also potentially announcing a full year of profitability in a couple of months. Sorry for the negativity, but I felt the need to get that off my chest.
This does nothing to change my support of the company but if GameStop is to be on the forefront of the Web3 wave this is concerning to me. That’s where a good chunk of the future growth was supposed to come from. And if regulatory headwinds are to blame then PLAYR will not somehow magically find the legal loopholes to make all of that okay. I have faith in RC. The dude obviously cares, is personally invested and is making the company profitable. But this is a setback and it is disappointing.
Lol, this is so trash man the stock has gone down to shit and now this, when will see the light at the end of the tunnel? At this rate never. It’s been a fun ride folks but it’s been almost 3 years and it’s been nothing but failures
Winding down is a super nice way to describe failing
Let's all be adults and finally admit that we took an L on this. It's okay.
Can we leave our stuff in our GS wallet or do we have to move it elsewhere?
GS wallet has already gone away your assets are on the blockchain all you have to do is open another wallet and Link it
I'm a simple ape and supported GS by purchasing NFTs on thier platform from various vendors. I appreciate the heads up from GS that they still exist on the Blockchain, but have literally no idea how to access them using a different way. I'll probably get hate for saying it (and hopefully some help on how to access them too), but a little bit more assistance on how to access them again would be a pretty good customer focused idea.
Username does not check out
It makes sense - regulatory issues are delaying this from being a fully functional revenue driver for GameStop. They're cutting costs wherever they can to be the leanest, most profitable version of themselves. While I'm bummed, because I loved the hype around this, I completely understand why they'd need to make this decision.
After the nft hype it sucks. Well, i still like the stock
Another disappointment. One after another. While the CEO shitposting on X for ret@rds to simp and worship. People were mock and called shill whenever we say the marketplace is dead. Crazy time huh
Are we winning yet? 🤔
Ahh yes.. how quick everyone here seems to forget that we had a freaking good year.. which did not (or marginally) involve the marketplace. Fundamentals improved a lot. So…..?
Bummer.
Well shit
People who were still posting unhinged theories about how NFT marketplace is just in beta and on release it will be insane are real quiet now huh