GameStop's NFT marketplace sold games without developers' permission

rockpapershotgun.com:

An NFT minter using the GameStop marketplace has admitted to minting developers' games without their consent or knowledge. The games, which are freely available on itch.io, were sold several hundred times before GameStop delisted them, and continue to exist on GameStop's servers regardless of the wishes of the original creators.

As reported by Ars Technica, the NiFTy Arcade was a bit different from most of the NFTs on offer in GameStop's marketplace, selling the ability to access certain games from one's wallet, rather than (receipts for) JPEGs. However, these games weren't made by the person minting them, and the actual creators had not given permission for them to be used in this way.

The games, made in the (excellent, undeserving of this mess) Pico-8 engine, include Worm Nom Nom and Galactic Wars, both of which were and remain freely playable on the developers' itch.io pages.

The person who minted them as NFTs, Nathan Ello, was selling them for 0.019ETH (about $23/£19) and 0.052ETH (about $63/£52) respectively. The advantage of making this purchase over playing them for free, according to Ello via Ars, was "the convenience of playing the game directly from their wallet or their own profile page on the marketplace without having to navigate to mine." This was apparently reason enough for hundreds purchases, earning Ello a reported 8.4ETH (about $14,878/£12,270) in primary sales and 4.67ETH (about $8,271/£6,822) in secondary sales. GameStop would also have recieved marketplace and commission fees on these transactions.

Ello admitted to Ars that he minted the games without the developers' permission. At least one of the games, Worm Nom Nom, was listed under a Creative Commons license that prohibits commercial usage.

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