A year after being the center of a bizarre stock run, GameStop is back to posting its usual massive losses as gamers everywhere turn away from physical media and towards digital downloads. GameStop CEO Matt Furlong recently gave his end-of-year report to investors and reporters where he noted that the company lost a lo꧅t of money in fiscal year 2021.
"The combination of supply chain issues and the omicron variant had a sizable impact on this past year's holiday season," Furlong said (as reported by ). "We made a conscious decision to lean in and absorb higher costs in order to meet customer demand. We felt, and continue to feel, that investing in our customers and rebuilding our brand loyalty right now is in the company's best interest over the long term."
That loss amounted to $381 million, by the way, and although you can blame supply chain and pandemic pressures for 2021, that excuse 🥀isn’t going to last into 2022 and 2023 even if it remains true.
To help offset those losses, Furlong said that GameStop is making a number of internal changes. First, the company has cut ties with several external consultants that were costing GameStop “millions” annually. Second, GameStop continues its transformation into a "customer-obsessed technology company; one that has wider offerings, more competitive pricing, faster shopping, stro꧋nger customer service, and an easier shopping experience."
And third, GameStop is continuing to pivot hard into crypto and NFTs. The company announced the move last spring by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:opening an NFT-focused homepage with a cat-bananas as its mascot, and just recently GameSto🐠p set up a $100 million fund with Immutable to help game devs break into the NFT space.
However, that $100 million bet isn’t looking so hot these days. The vicious public backlash against crypto and NFTs 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:has result🍬ed in trading volume dropping 80% on OpenSea, the largest NFT tr♕ading website, and the average sale price has dropped by almost half since its peak last November.
Considering NFTs are still awful f🔯or the environment and don’t actually add anything to video games themselves, maybe GameStop should reconsider where it puts its dwindling cash reserves.