NFT
The July 2022 announcement that Minecraft planned to ban the use of NFTs on player-run servers, a shockwave through the Web3 world.
Nearly a year later, however, that planned action has yet to go into effect, but it’s still coming.
Game developer Mojang, owned by Microsoft released a news item last summer said it would update the game guidelines for use to describe specific restrictions regarding the use of NFTs, or unique assets tokenized on the blockchain. Broadly speaking, Mojang wrote that “integrations of NFTs with Minecraft are generally not something we will support or allow.”
Microsoft’s Minecraft prohibits NFTs on game servers, derivative NFT projects
Since then, however, Minecraft’s guidelines have still not been updated and there has been no follow-up announcement.
But a Microsoft representative confirmed this Decrypt this week that “the official guidance update is still pending and the policy has not changed.”
Minecraft’s anticipated banana announcement came last year in the wake of unofficial and community-driven Web3 projects centered around Mojang’s long-running game, which Microsoft says 141 million monthly active players on all devices from 2021.
Focus on token gating
Mojang specifically said it would prohibit the use of NFT assets in ways that “port” or restrict access to certain content or features on fan-operated game servers.
Mojang allows players to charge for access to servers, but such features must be available for anyone to purchase. With NFTs, functions can be limited to a small number of asset owners.
“Each of these uses of NFTs and other blockchain technologies creates digital property based on scarcity and exclusion, which is inconsistent with Minecraft values of creative inclusion and collaborative play,” Mojang wrote after citing use cases. “NFTs don’t encompass our entire community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots.”
“The speculative pricing and investment mindset around NFTs takes the focus away from playing the game and encourages profit-seeking, which we believe is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players,” added Mojang.
Furthermore, the post said that Minecraft would prohibit the creation of third-party NFT assets based on official game assets. The planned moves affected third-party Web3 projects built around Minecraft servers.
Limited edition Minecraft NFTs celebrate Women, Girls in Science
The most notable among them was NFT worldsup a project Ethereum scalable network Polygon who sold customizable land plots as NFTs, with plans to build a dedicated Minecraft server that used them. The creators of that project turned and turned the project into Topiaan original game still visibly inspired by Minecraft, but apparently “built from scratch.”
Interestingly, Microsoft itself released NFTs linked to Minecraft in February 2021, launching a series of digital collectibles to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Launched in partnership with crypto gaming startup Enjin, those NFTs can be used in-game via a plugin created by Enjin.