GameStop Looks Ahead to NFT Marketplace Launch After Big Q4 Loss

After suffering a net loss of $147.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, beloved video game retail chain GameStop (GME) is looking ahead to its long-awaited NFT market and Web3 gaming division.

GameStop quietly built a simple NFT site in mid-2021, but ramped up its efforts significantly this year, unveiling an NFT and Web3 gaming division in January and signing a major deal with Ethereum scaling solution Immutable X the following month. Partnership to build an NFT marketplace.

As part of its fourth-quarter results (ended January 29, released March 17), GameStop revealed that it intends to launch its NFT marketplace by the end of the second quarter of 2022.

According to reports, GameStop will open its NFT marketplace by the end of the second quarter of 2022.

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The company also emphasized that the deal with Immutable X will bring the company $150 million worth of IMX tokens upon "achievement of certain milestones," noting that it has hired "dozens of additional people in blockchain gaming, Experienced employees in areas such as e-commerce and technology, product refurbishment and operations".

GameStop's net loss of $147.5 million was 83% higher than its loss in the year-earlier period, and its loss per share of $1.94 fell far short of Wall Street's forecast for a profit of $0.84 per share.

GameStop's fourth-quarter earnings report appears to have had a major impact on GME's stock price, which is down 7.31% at around $81.29 as of this writing. Despite positive developments on the Web3 initiative, GME prices have been on a strong downtrend this year, with prices down more than 40% since early January.

Digging a little further into the report, GameStop posted sales of $2.254 billion last quarter, up slightly from $2.122 billion in the same period last year. A major hurdle in the latest figures was cost of sales of $1.87 billion, while selling, general and administrative expenses totaled $538.9 million.

The company raised more than $1.67 billion, enough to eliminate "all of the company's long-term debt, except for a low-interest unsecured term loan of $44.6 million related to the French government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Despite the negative trend in the NFT market in the past few months, Immutable X, a partner of GameStop, has gradually grown. The company announced a $200 million Series C financing on March 8th, with a valuation of $2 billion. The price of IMX surged about 50% in 24 hours to about $1.78. Since then, the price has fallen back to around $1.54.

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