Companies going big on NFT gaming; will the craze continue?

According to a Reuters report, GameStop declined to comment anything on it, but The Wall Street Journal first reported the news citing people familiar with the matter.

An unnamed source familiar with GameStop’s plans told that the company is building an NFT platform that enables the buying, selling and trading of gaming NFTs, along with establishing key cryptocurrency partnerships.

The marketplace is slated to launch later this year, and the gaming company is close to ink partnerships with a couple of crypto companies that will share technology and co-invest in the development of blockchain and NFT games.

However, GameStop is not the first player to rush to NFT space and launch a marketplace for it. It has multiple companions in the segment to compete with.

Samsung and Netgear are the latest few of the consumer focused established brands to leap onto NFT commerce in their own ways, says Arjun Reddy, Chief Technology Officer, GuardianLink.

“NFT is the newest manifestation of crypto like wave of new asset class adoption and brands who missed the last few tides don’t want to miss out on this one,” Reddy added.

NFT-mania continues

NFT is a digital asset that exists on a blockchain, a record of transactions kept on networked computers. The blockchain serves as a public ledger, allowing anyone to verify the NFT’s authenticity and who owns it.

Kameshwaran Elangovan, Chief Operating Officer, GuardianLink says that there’s no inherent way to prove ownership for the utility segment and NFTs are not merely changing, but revolutionizing this idea.

The NFTs have remained in buzz in 2021 throughout as Collin’s dictionary names NFT as word of the year in 2021, which indicates the popularity around NFTs.

Hitesh Malviya, founder,
itsblockchain.com said that NFTs are becoming a part of popular culture due to extraordinary marketing around it by influencers, brands, and celebrities.

Companies see NFT bandwagon as the new business horizon with a strong potential of raising money. “Getting into NFTs is opening a new vertical for companies, and it’s also an easy way to raise funds through selling digital artworks specially for brands, and popular celebrities,” he added.

The future of NFT gaming

Nvidia launched a Metaverse building tool called ‘Omniverse’. Nvidia was flooded by the demand for their graphic cards by catering to the crypto mining market. Seagate made investments in Ripple in 2018 and the stock skyrocketed.

“In India alone, we have more than 50 million people who play games, signaling the market potential of play to earn NFT games. It’s a trillion-dollar opportunity,” Malviya from Itsblockchain highlighted.

A flurry of new startups have found their voice in Game-Fi. The future of NFT gaming is very promising because it provides opportunities for gamers to earn liquid income by playing the game.

This is tribe building at its most basic level. We will soon see gems that may have missed being published by brands, and directly find their fanbase among the NFT gamers who will determine the future of those games, said Elangovan of GuardianLink.