GameStop NFT Marketplace is Accused of Selling Games With No Permission

GameStop NFT marketplace is in hot water following the accusation that the NFT games that were being minted and sold do not have the creators’ permission. 

According to Ars Technica, there is also no agreement set for the creators’ share in any crypto profit.

NiFty Arcade Collection is Being Sold Without Creators’ Permission

The NiFTy Arcade collection stood out during the first week of GameStop’s recently launched NFT marketplace because instead of just selling basic JPEGs, the collection included “interactive NFTs” connected to HTML5 games.

But what made it more controversial is it was found out that the NFT-ified versions of HTML5 games being sold are without permission of the creator.

The NiFTy Arcade collection was released by Nathan Ello on the GameStop’s marketplace. It earned a total of 8.4 ETH or about $14,000 in initial sales, according to PC Gamer. 

It turned out that Ello did not have permission to utilize at least two of the games in his project. 

According to PC Gamer, although not entirely certain, it seems that he was not given the authority to utilize a further three more games, which are part of the NiFTy Arcade. 

Additionally, Ello is not authorized to utilized the PICO-8 engine used in all five of those games.

The NiFTy Arcade has since been pulled out from the GameStop’s NFT marketplace, and Ello has been suspended. However, he still possesses the tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency that he made by selling those NFTs prior to the suspension. 

However, even if NFTs are already pulled out from GameStop NFT marketplace, users can still access their copies of these unlicensed games.

Ello has revived the project on another marketplace. But he made a promise that games in the future will be “in proper compliance with all terms of service of the NFT marketplace.”

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Man Behind the NiFty Arcade Collection Claims Licensing Issues are His Honest Mistakes

Ello admitted that he never sought the permission for the original creators of Worm Nom Nom and Galactic Wars pior to selling them. 

Evidence shows that Ello minted and distributed other games through NFT marketplaces without the creators’ permission. The games include Breakout Hero, Super Disc Box, and Invader Overload.

According to Ello, he attempted to put up his NiFTy Arcade by “finding open source game repositories approved for commercial use.” However, he seems to be quite careless with the approval process. 

For example, Worm Nom Nom is listed on itch.io with a Creative Commons asset license that does not allow commercial usage. Likewise, Super Disc Box is part of the Lexaloffle website with the same noncommercial license.

The PICO-8 engine, which powers the games, has licensing issues as well. “PICO-8’s license agreement does not allow use when author permission is not granted,” said Joseph “Lexaloffle” White, the creator of the PICO-8 pixel game engine.

According to Ello, some of these licensing issues were hist honest mistakes. But White didn’t buy Ello’s alibi.

Madrid-based Galactic Wars creator Borja “Volcano Bytes” de Tena said that Ello didn’t contact him regarding using his games. Ello simply took the games and sold it.

Meanwhile, Ello offered to provide compensation to the developers harmed by the NiFTy Arcade, as per PC Gamer. But this act was pretty insulting to the developers, Ars Technica noted.

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