Mojang Studios, the Microsoft-owned developer behind the wildly popular procedurally generated sandbox game “Minecraft,” announced Wednesday that NFTs and other blockchain products would not be supported by the studio or allowed in the game.
Minecraft says no to NFTs and blockchain, citing fraud and speculation
In its statement, Mojang explained that NFTs go against the game’s values of cooperation and collaboration because the virtual assets are, by their very nature, extremely scarce collectibles.
“NFTs do not include our entire society and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots,” the statement said.
Mojang also said that the thought-provoking NFTs it would introduce in “Minecraft” would detract from players’ long-term enjoyment of the game. The company expressed concern that players would spend more time evaluating NFT’s values and trying to make money through “Minecraft” rather than playing the game itself.
The statement listed other problems Mojang had with NFTs around quality control, instances of fraud, and NFTs sold at artificially inflated values. However, the ban on NFTs was conditional; Mojang said it would pay “close attention” to how the technology evolves. “To ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not allowed to be integrated into our Minecraft client and server applications, nor can they be used to create NFTs associated with in-game content, including worlds, skins , persona items, or other mods,” the statement said. “We have no plans to implement blockchain technology in Minecraft at this time.”
This is a bold position, especially for a title as absurdly popular and moddable as Minecraft. The decade-old sandbox game has sold a whopping 238 million copies according to Statista, making “Minecraft” the best-selling video game of all time. The appeal is obvious: “Minecraft” is simple, easy to run and enormously flexible. Players have used “Minecraft” to create a Harry Potter game set in a 1:1 recreation of Hogwarts, created a fictional cult commune dedicated to streamer MoonMoon and even created a working CPU.
The gaming platform “Roblox” is mentioned in the same breath as “Minecraft” due to both titles’ customization options and popularity with younger players. Roblox Corporation has yet to support NFTs, but in an interview with VentureBeat, Chief Business Officer Craig Donato expressed enthusiastic support for implementing them into the game in the future.
According to a recent study, more than $2.2 billion was raised by private blockchain and NFT gaming companies in the first half of 2022, reflecting a surge of interest among investors in the video game industry. On Wednesday, Lee Trink, CEO of gaming and esports lifestyle brand FaZe Clan, spoke glowingly about positioning the newly public company to pursue opportunities related to blockchain technology.
But NFTs have also been received skeptically by many developers. According to Bloomberg, Ubisoft’s foray into NFTs was criticized by its own employees. Frost Giant Studios co-founder Tim Morten described play-to-earn blockchain games as “dangerously close to a pyramid scheme” in an interview with Wired. A company of Mojang’s stature referring to NFTs as damaging to their game and brand might give some potential investors second thoughts.
