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Comment by ashurov | Hacker News Reader

I have seen so much fuckery with the stock price and ridiculous headlines in het media about GME that can't really believe that we have seen the actual squeeze. Furthermore, the SEC report said that the price run-up was because retail bought in, not because the hedge funds closed their positions. So when did they do this and went from 200% to 20%? Besides all of that, the fundamentals for GME are great. They are hiring great people and seem to be working behind the scenes with some of the biggest companies to, what seems to be, create a NFT marketplace linked to gaming, that will be 'carbon neutral'. all-in-all a good investment on that end I think. time will tell.

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This reads exactly like the comments on conspiracy theory subreddits like Superstonk.

yep. "time will tell" meaning GME ideologues will continue to move the goalpost for when the MOASS will happen in perpetuity.

I don't necessarily believe in MOASS happening anymore, but I do have a strong believe that introducing an NFT marketplace and what else GME has in store will make sure the long term view for this company is optimistic. Wallstreet might have "won", but it seems that SEC is introducing new bills to prevent some of the stuff that was going on.. Hopefully they will start enforcing it as well.

A more jaded individual would see the introduction of elements like an NFT store to be less long term planning and more capitalizing on its new fan base which is heavily jaded with the current system and so prone to accepting opportunities to upset the market, regardless of actual merit.

a company shoehorning in NFT's is not a "long term" plan, it's a dying brand capitalizing on the latest craze that will almost certainly die out alongside it.

Precisely. Many, many retailers have gone out of business in my country in the last ten years and a lot of them died painfully. Trying desperately to turn things around- unsuccessfully.

Why will an NFT marketplace do any of those things?

Valve essentially stopped making games because selling virtual items is so insanely profitable. Being able to sell digital rights to items and then take a sellers fee no matter what platform that item is resold on later could be a huge deal, if that's what they're building.

I wouldn't agree with that, but even accepting that premise as true, why would gamestop be in any position to benefit from this? If you're, say, activision, why would you possibly sell your digital content on gamestop's platform where you owe gamestop a cut rather than on your own platform where you get the cut? Why would you put it on a blockchain at all? Just use your own boring db.

More than that, it is taking a decentralized tech and centralizing it. The point of this benefitting GME is because it would be a market they absolutely control (so they can get a cut of the profits). What's the point of a crypto tech in that case?

You can do that today, NFTs don't give you anything except memes and complexity. What do NFTs give GME that companies like Valve aren't already doing?

For those of us not in the know, what is the prevailing conspiracy theory on Superstonk?

Ken Griffin is flying a private jet filled with gold bars around Europe to bribe banks into not margin calling citadel.

There are facts out there amongst the near constant stream of BS on reddit. GameStop filed a SEC form [0] about disclosing a partnership with Immutable X, which is in the NFT space for games, not art.

The market for in-game purchases (like every mobile game for crying out loud) is huge. Epic games' Fortnite is 100% free to play but has a store for purchasing cosmetic stuff (and a lawsuit with Apple over this). There was $3.7 Billion dollars of revenue associated with Fortnite in 2019 [1]. Billion with a B. All cosmetic, in-game items.

What is reported as being built would be a marketplace for gamers, and possibly content creators (people that build mods, skins, maps, etc. for games if allowed) to buy/sell/trade these in-game items. Not $10k GIF's of apes or whatever nonsense. Instead of spending $5 or $20 on something and it sits on a gamers account, think of it as they could spend that and later on they could re-sell it or trade on a marketplace.

I don't think any of this requires blockchain or NFT. I think the companies involved are using that because it ticks a lot of requirements boxes for basically Digital Rights Management with sales/resales built in (I think via ETH/smart contracts).

As silly as buying pixels for a game may sound, it already is a large market and a company like GameStop getting into that could capture a reliable subscription-like revenue stream not tied to game console refreshes or used physical games.

What would be sad is if this is a revolutionary type of change to an industry (i.e gamers own the digital sword they bought, maybe take it from one game-world to another like in Ready Player One?) but is squashed by the volume of noise about "hedge funds r bad, boo wall st" every time the company is brought up.

[0] sec filing: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1326380/0001... [1] fortnite rev: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1238904/fortnite-revenue...

Please don't park any money behind this narrative unless it's literally money you'd burn in a campfire for just as much amusement.

There is zero chance of GME of all places becoming some sort of market for NTF game cosmetics. None of that blather matters if you don't have a user base, and there's no way GME is going to get one.

Why would Epic, Valve, etc go along with GME's scheme? If they want to offer unique to a single player items they can do so essentially trivially with their existing platform. They don't need to partner with anyone, just put a dev team or two on it for a short bit. They certainly don't need to partner with anyone like GME, let alone a bunch of shady cryptocoin operations running out of tax havens.

Basically no one cares about this utopia you're imagining to start with, and even if they did, there's no pathway to create it in the form of GME.

If this is their strategy it's incredibly silly.

1. The Steam Community Marketplace already exists.

2. Why is GameStop - a retail chain with an increasingly irrelevant brand - the right company to build a digital marketplace?

3. Why would developers and publishers participate in GameStop's marketplace - what would it offer them?

4. Gamers hate NFTs. Search that phrase.

Don't you love it when the once in a lifetime opportunity for generational wealth is also a great fundamental investment? In case the biggest short squeeze the market would have ever seen, with the potential to crash the US economy, somehow doesn't happen (damn hedgies!). With all of that that, it doesn't matter that physical sales of video games are dying and that the company is bleeding out money with a loss of $100 millions in Q3 2021 alone.

I think the Q4 earnings report will show massive improvements, furthermore, them moving away from just being a brick-and-mortar store will help valuation in the long run. MOASS is unlikely to happen, but I think in the long term the valuation of GME will keep increasing considering their new plans and their new following/customers. They definitely gained in brand-name in the last year.

This whole saga seems to at least introduce some new rules and regulations. Although enforcing them will be the real game-changer.

The only benefit of gamestop is selling back old games. If gamestop is a digital retailer they will die.

> Besides all of that, the fundamentals for GME are great.

You need qualitative and quantitative to arrive at a fundamental value. Everything you’ve listed is qualitative.

I think the Q4 earnings report will show us quantitative reasons to believe the company is turning around to a profitable company. Furthermore, their move to a NFT marketplace will also move them away from just being a brick-and-mortar company to more than just that.

The speed of the turnaround on GME's public perception is crazy. In the beginning of the pandemic they were constantly excoriated for refusing to close stores and let employees go home. But then the squeeze happened and everyone's opinions did a complete 180.

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