Most people, no matter their age or interests, have heard about Gamestop. The company made headlines all around the world back in 2021 when it became the hottest tick in the US stock in the market.
Having been close to going out of business, these events allowed the company’s shareholders to keep the business going. Now, the gaming retailer has moved towards the digital trend and is looking to cement itself in the crypto world.
The game changed, and now GameStop is funded in a big way. Back off vultures, this dog can hunt.
As part of the push, GameStop hired over 20 people to launch a division looking to develop their crypto ventures and establish partnerships in that world. We are now seeing the fruits of that labor with the launch of the GameStop Wallet and the GameStop NFT marketplace.
The latter was launched on July 11 and is an exciting new venture for the video game retailer.
GameStop & NFTs – it’s Real!
In this GameStop NFT Marketplace review, we’ll be diving into the details of the gaming retail store’s crypto venture.
We’ll be giving you all the information that you’ll need to make the most of your non-fungible collectibles.
We’ll see how these are traded and give you some insight as to what the future might bring for this exciting new marketplace.
An Upstart in the Market
The platform has proven to be a hit all over the world ever since its inception on July 11th. Just in its opening week, it saw over 5,000 ETH or $7.2 million in trading volume alone.
In contrast to the direct competitor Coinbase NFT that reached just above 2,300 ETH since its inception on May 4.This large volume in trading and adoption of the GameStop NFT Marketplace is largely thanks to the great following that GameStop has in the world.
That being said, both these marketplaces are quite a lot behind the well-established and most known NFT marketplace, OpenSea. While this is true, it still has to be considered that OpenSea was launched in 2017 and has had all this time to grow.
It’s difficult to expect a market that was just launched to reach the volumes of the industry leader just yet. Time will tell if we end up seeing GameStop NFT Marketplace stepping it up to the big boys in the non-fungible token world.
The Ins and Outs of the GameStop NFT Marketplace
The next stop in this GameStop NFT marketplace review is taking a look at the details of how it works. As you probably understand, the marketplace lets members show off their NFTs or crypto art for all to see.
People looking to buy art they’re interested in can contact the seller and buy their artwork.
Creators are encouraged to show off their art and sell their pieces with royalties for any traded artworks. As such, all the parties involved win when a piece of art is bought. The buyer gets their art, the seller gets ETH and the creator is supported accordingly.
The Blockchain
The great thing about the GameStop NFT marketplace is that it’s run on the Loopring Network. Loopring is a transaction processor that lets its users make transactions with other Loopring users for a fraction of the cost.
How does this work? Layer 2 is another protocol that is built on top of and parallel to the standard ‘Layer 1’ Ethereum Blockchain.
While Layer 1 transactions are settled individually, Layer 2 transactions are bundled together and then settled all at once. This helps reduce the cost of transactions by splitting the bill. This all works in favor of the Marketplace as it reduces fees for trades.
How to Use GameStop NFT Marketplace
Getting started is easy with the GameStop NFT Marketplace. You don’t need any prior crypto experience for you to be able to support your favorite creator or even sell your art if you are of the artistic sort.
Create a Wallet
To be able to go ahead and trade NFTs, you’ll first have to have a crypto wallet. At this time, the GameStop NFT Marketplace supports GameStop Wallet, MetaMask, and WalletConnect.
While the platform highly encourages the use of the GameStop Wallet, it is still in beta. People who already have one of the supported wallets can use those to trade.
Connecting your wallet is simple enough. In the top right corner, you’ll find a “connect” button. Follow the prompts This will let you connect your marketplace with your wallet. Once your wallet is connected, you can see your address and copy it to the clipboard, add funds and access your profile page.
The GameStop Wallet
With the launch of the NFT Marketplace, GameStop also launched their GameStop Wallet. This wallet is a Browser Extension Wallet built to work in tandem with the marketplace. The wallet in question was launched on May 23 and resulted in a 3% jump in the company’s shares. So let’s look at what this wallet brings:
For one, the GameStop Wallet is self-custodial. Self-custodial means that your funds are yours alone.
You truly own your digital assets unlike with custodial wallets, the likes of which you would have in an exchange. You can store all your Ethereum and NFTs yourself without fear that your crypto isn’t held by you but by the exchange.
Given that it’s a browser extension wallet, you can add it as an add-on for Google Chrome and Brave web browsers. This lets you access your wallet any time from the extensions tray. This lets you trade your crypto, NFTs and interact with your favorite web3 apps without much difficulty.
Adding Funds
One thing to remember is that the GameStop NFT Marketplace only supports ETH at this time. This means that you’ll have to have ETH to be able to make any trade.
Once you have your ETH, just move it to the GameStop NFT Loopring Layer 2. This will make it available and accessible in your balance.
If you do want to buy ETH with your fiat currency you can do that with the option to Buy ETH with Card. To do so do the following:
- Make sure your wallet is connected.
- Click on your profile Icon.
- Choose the Buy ETH with Card option.
- Select how much you want to buy and enter your payment method details.
- And that’s it. Once the payment is confirmed, the ETH will appear in your Layer 2 balance. You should now be all set to buy and trade NFTs.
Trading on the GameStop NFT Marketplace
Once you have your funds ready, you can start browsing for artwork that you are interested in. Looking at the marketplace, you’re instantly hit with two sections, one for exploring collections and the other for creating your own.
Browsing the Market
For now, let’s stick with exploring collections. In the next section of this GameStop NFT Marketplace review, we’ll look into the creation of new NFTs.
In exploring these, we can find featured creators, featured creators, and even featured NFTs. The things that fall into the featured section are those items that have drawn the most attention and are most likely to be of interest to you.
Should you not find what you’re looking for, you always have the option to explore all. Here you’ll find all the items that are for sale on the GameStop NFT Marketplace.
As it stands, the marketplace has over 390 different collections which all in all contain over 63,000 distinct NFTs. If you’re looking for art that you like, you’ll surely be able to find something.
It doesn’t matter what art or price point you’re interested in, you will surely be able to find what you’re looking for.
Even if you’re not looking to or just want to show off your collection, the artworks that are on the GameStop NFT Marketplace can be listed here. They don’t necessarily have to be for sale.
Selling Your NFTs
Selling the NFTs that you no longer want is as easy as buying them. Just like in that case, you’ll first have to have your preferred crypto wallets connected.
You can just head to your owned assets in your profile and choose the NFT that you want to sell. After that, just post the listing and it will appear on the marketplace to be purchased by an interested buyer. It’s as simple as that.
Checking Stats
If you are looking at NFTs as an investment product, this section may be of interest to you.
The Stats section of the GameStop NFT Marketplace lets you see which collections and creators have been making the biggest moves in the last day, week or month. This lets you see what has been trending up and gaining influence in the world.
Even as a creator, this may be interesting as you can see how you’re gaining traction in the NFT ecosystem. You’ll be able to see how people like your artwork. As more people get your art, you’ll start climbing the leaderboard.
Gamestop NFT Marketplace Fees
The next stop on this GameStop NFT Marketplace review is the fees. A marketplace wouldn’t work if it didn’t collect some sort of payment for the services they provide. In this case, you can be looking at the following different fees:
Gas Fees
GameStop NFT is built on the Ethereum Network. Any transaction that happens over this network entails the payment of transaction fees to cover the infrastructure cost of the network.
The all-too-known problem with the Ethereum network is that these gas fees tend to be very high. This is usually attributed to congestion on the network.
GameStop NFT has worked to reduce gas fees by building with Loopring Layer 2 which we already mentioned earlier. This is a scaling solution that helps these network fees be significantly reduced while maintaining high transaction speed.
Marketplace Fees
While Gas Fees are paid to the network that these transactions happen on, Marketplace Fees are paid to the marketplace.
In this case, GameStop NFT charges 2.25% for every transaction on the platform. This fee is imposed on the sale price which means that buyers are free from having to pay extra when making a purchase.
This is a little lower than you see on the market leader, OpenSea with 2.5%. While it’s not significantly lower, it’s still a slight discount.
Creator Fees
Lastly, you can see Creator Fees or royalties. These are fees aimed to support the artists and creators that put their hard work into the art. What percentage is charged is a decision of the creator but can range up to 10%.
Creating on the GameStop NFT Marketplace
If you are of the artistic type and want to share your artwork with the world, you can also become a creator. At this time, GameStop NFT is invite-only but you can be invited by filing their creator application. Once you’ve been approved, you’ll be able to publish your artwork.
Mint Your Collection
Once you have been approved as a creator you can start minting your collection. To do this just add a thumbnail, your artwork, and add a title. You can also add other items like a description and other metadata. Once that is done, you can make it permanent by minting your NFT.
The supported media types are quite varied with different file format types depending on the media type. Static images, animations and even 3D media are supported and can be used to make your NFTs.
Once you’ve minted your new artwork, you’ll find the NFT in your wallet and your collections tab. You now have made a new NFT of your art.
Earn With Your Art
The truth is that as a creator, you want your art to draw attention and be loved by many people. The first thing you can do is set a sale price for your art. Your collection becomes your art gallery where admirers can enjoy and buy your artwork for the price you set.
You’re not limited to the initial sale of the art. The Creator Royalties structure lets you earn royalties on the trading of your art. As long as your art keeps drawing attention and love from people, you’ll keep earning to further your dreams and possibilities as an artist.
These Creator Royalties are set by the creator and can range from 0 to 10%. This means that you, as the creator, can choose how much you would like to make from your art being traded. If you want to, you can also choose not to take any royalties.
These royalties apply to both primary and secondary sales. Whenever your artwork changes hands the buyers will be sending you their appreciation directly.
One great thing about the creator royalties is that these can be adjusted at any time. This gives you, as the creator, the flexibility you deserve with your artwork.
What’s Next?
As we already mentioned, the launch of the GameStop NFT marketplace is all part of a bid by the company to reinvent the business.
GameStop is thus looking to find its way forward into the ever-expanding crypto space. The business has no plans to let off the trend towards crypto. As such they are looking to expand into ever more web3 projects.
This crypto push does not mean they have to leave their Gaming past. The company has partnered with Immutable X to bring the Next generation of Web3 games to the platform.
Immutable X is one of the leading Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solutions and should bring millions of different gaming assets to the marketplace.
The great thing about Immutable X is that gas prices for minting are at 0%. The eco-conscious of us will also be happy to know that this process is also entirely carbon neutral.
At this time, Immutable X has committed $100 million in grants to bring premium content to the GameStop Marketplace. As stated by Robbie Ferguson of Immutable X, “GameStop has the potential to cement itself as the ultimate destination in the new paradigm of gaming. One that rewards players rather than extract value from them”.
We can see that both entities have committed to the long-term success of this partnership.
Conclusion
I’m happy to say that the GameStop NFT is a great and simple marketplace for you to use. It should provide you with a rewarding experience, whether you’re an art collector or a creator. While it does have some downsides like only being able to make transactions in ETH, the upsides are plenty.
It may seem a bit odd for what used to be a video game retail store to be venturing into the NFT ecosystem. That being said, the world has moved to be much more digital.
As such, GameStop has put its chips on the push towards crypto. Launching an NFT marketplace that will support games and other web3 projects just seems like a natural evolution.
While we can’t expect it to compete with the established powerhouses just yet, we can hope to see it become a strong contender in the crypto world. From what we’ve covered in this GameStop NFT Marketplace review, it does seem to point that way.
