The share price of the popular video game store chain GameStop (GME) rose about 13% in one day amid rumors circulating online about a collaboration with Microsoft to work with NFT Games (a non-fungible token).
At the time of writing, GME was at $115.60 at the close of trading on February 8th, and also remained near that level after hours, according to TradingView data.
Launched in February at around $100, GME has grown this month after GameStop partnered with Immutable X’s NFT-focused Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution to advance the future NFT marketplace. As part of the agreement, GameStop is also launching a $100 million scholarship program denominated in IMX tokens for NFT content creators and technology developers.
Recent rumors circulating on channels like Reddit and Twitter suggest that GameStop may team up with Microsoft to launch NFT integration into existing games as well as create new NFT-focused games.
Earlier Wednesday, Twitter user “P_MackD” shared an image containing screenshots of tweets from Immutable X and Microsoft executives posting “probably nothing” memes about GameStop’s big partnership.
In particular, York Rhodes III, director of Microsoft’s blockchain division, singled out Xbox, Microsoft and GameStop in a tweet, suggesting that the tech giant could play a role in the behind-the-scenes Immutable X and GameStop partnership.
While the exact connection between the three parties is unclear, a February 6 post on the r/Superstonk Reddit community put forth a fascinating hypothesis of what the partnership might entail.
Commenting on Microsoft’s massive $69 billion acquisition of gaming giant Activision Blizzard, bamfcoco1 pointed to player-versus-player Hearthstone as something ripe for NFT integration across Immutable X and GameStop.
Related: 3 things every NFT investor should know to avoid a tax nightmare
The Redditor claimed that the drop in Hearthstone’s user base from a peak of about 23.5 million to 3.5 million is partly due to the high cost of card collection and a lack of real ownership of user assets, which can be addressed through the NFT integration:
With the ability to freely create and trade NFTs on the Xs stable platform, this is not an issue. GameStop can run Hearthstone on its brand-new Web3 platform by generating an NFT for each card and then distributing it according to users’ existing card combinations. It’s as simple as it would be. ”
Web3 and NFT related ads seem to have a huge impact on GameStops’ stock price. In early January, Cointelegraph reported that the price of GME had risen 26% after its sale following the opening of the company’s new NFT division.
