GameStop took down an NFT based on a 9/11 victim

Falling Man, an NFT delisted from GameStop's NFT marketplace

(Image credit: Jules)

In February, videogame retailer/persistent meme GameStop announced it was planning to open an NFT marketplace. Currently in beta, the GameStop NFT marketplace allows customers to buy and sell NFTs minted by an approved selection of creators. One of those creators named Jules minted and began selling an NFT called Falling Man, in which a figure resembling an iconic Associated Press photograph of a man falling from the World Trade Center on 9/11 called The Falling Man is dressed like an astronaut and described with a caption, "This one probably fell from the MIR station."

For those not familiar with the photo:Left (NFT): "Falling Man"Right (photo): "The Falling Man" pic.twitter.com/KgXWqmwzQeJuly 23, 2022

GameStop's NFT marketplace currently uses astronauts as mascots, in places like the form new creators have to fill out and some downloadable wallpapers. That doesn't really explain why Jules thought it was appropriate to take such a well-known and already controversial image, turn it into a tasteless joke, and then try to profit from it. At any rate, after the NFT began being criticized on places like Web3 is going just great and the Resetera forum, GameStop delisted the image. Following the link now goes to a blank page, though the original is still preserved on the Wayback Machine.

Several people had already bought the NFT, of which 25 editions were minted. The GameStopNFT Twitter account explained the decision to one such customer, saying that, "Certain collections violated our terms of service, which resulted in the NFTs being suspended from our marketplace. You will still be able to transfer these NFTs to layer 1 and between wallets, but they cannot be sold on our marketplace."

Someone who complained about the image via a direct message was apparently told that, "This NFT will be removed from our marketplace entirely. This user has already had their minting ability removed from their account, and we have already been in direct contact with the creator about these actions."

On the meme stock subreddit GME_Meltdown, a user has suggested that the figure in the NFT is actually a render of an existing 3D model of a Russian flight suit created by a different artist and used without credit or permission. Here it is on Blender Market.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.