Gamestop doubles down on NFT Gaming with Web3 Game Launcher

by James · June 1, 2023

Quick take:

Gamestop has teamed up with the Telos Foundation to bring mainstream gaming to the Telos blockchain.
The games and accessories retailer is accelerating its web3 strategy with a blockchain game launch platform.
Telos will use GameStop’s newly launched Web3 game launcher GameStop Playr to access mainstream game distribution.

Gamestop is ramping up its NFT gaming strategy after announcing a new partnership with the Telos Foundation. The retailer of video games and accessories recently launched a web3 game launcher that will allow Telos to bring mainstream games to its blockchain.

The launcher, called Gamestop Playr, currently whitelists early adopters. Gamestop launched its web3 campaign last year when it announced plans to build an NFT marketplace for gaming products.

The company also partnered with Immutable to launch a $100 million grant program for developers who want to build NFT games on the Ethereum scaling protocol.

Gamestop’s latest collaboration will further expand the ecosystem by allowing users to enjoy web3 games supported by Telos.

“We are thrilled to enter into this transformative partnership with GameStop,” said AJ Dinger, director of business development at the Telos Foundation. “We believe this collaboration will be a meaningful driver for new users into the Web3 space. By combining GameStop Playr with Web3 games that use Telos’ high-performance blockchain infrastructure, we can break down many of the barriers that currently deter Web2 players from to embrace Web3.”

According to DappRadar, blockchain gaming remains the most vibrant segment of the web3 industry. The segment provides an exciting opportunity to bring web3 to the masses.

However, given the relatively lower quality of blockchain games compared to traditional online games, mainstream game developers and distributors have faced criticism several times whenever they revealed plans to move to web3 games.

This has created a need for a hybrid onboarding mechanism, which allows traditional gaming companies to leverage web3 elements without fully transitioning to blockchain gaming.

That’s the kind of solution Gamestop wants to offer through Gamestop Playr.

The collaboration with Telos will help bridge the gap between the conventional gaming community and the Web3 audience.

Justin Giudici, CEO of the Telos Foundation commented, “Telos offers an ideal environment for GameStop’s push into Web3 game distribution. We believe the prerequisites for advancing this dynamic space require a platform that is fast, secure, sustainable and scalable.”

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