GameStop tries to calm internal fears about shift to NFTs

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GameStop is embracing NFTs, and many of its employees worry this will lead to anger among customers. But now the company is attempting to dismiss those concerns with some internal messaging.

Following the February 3 announcement that GameStop is building an NFT marketplace on the Immutable X platform, GameStop acknowledged that could anger some of its customers. As part of a question-and-answer session with store associates, GameStop store experience boss Christopher Harkness compared the early days of digital ownership tokens to previous tech shifts like free-to-play and microtransactions.

Here’s a transcript of the question and Harkness’s answer:

Q: Why are we getting into NFTs? We have struggled with GameStop’s public image in the past, and NFTs are widely seen as a scam and dangerous to the environment due to the amount of energy necessary for the blockchain. Aren’t we worried that this will just put another round of articles about us on Kotaku and Polygon?

A [from Chris Harkness]: The gaming marketplace is rapidly changing. If we look back at some of the biggest shifts in gaming culture, there were several innovations that really changed the way we consume content: shifting from physical to digital, story-drive DLC add-ons and microtransactions, streaming services, the free-to-play phenomenon, and mobile gaming are a few that come to mind. NFT and blockchain are new technologies to many gamers but show that they may be the next big evolution in gaming. Regarding scams and energy concerns, there’s an opportunity for a company to overcome these challenges to make the next step in the evolution of gaming.

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