Minecraft Still Hasn’t Officially Banned NFTs—But It’s Coming

NFT

The July 2022 announcement that Minecraft deliberate to ban the usage of NFTs on player-run servers despatched a shockwave by way of the Web3 world.

Practically a yr later, nonetheless, that deliberate motion has but to take impact—however it’s nonetheless coming.

Microsoft-owned recreation developer Mojang issued a information publish final summer season saying that it might replace the sport’s utilization tips to spell out particular restrictions relating to the usage of NFTs, or distinctive property tokenized on the blockchain. Broadly, Mojang wrote that “integrations of NFTs with Minecraft are usually not one thing we’ll help or enable.”

Microsoft’s Minecraft to Ban NFTs on Sport Servers, Spinoff NFT Initiatives

Since then, nonetheless, Minecraft’s tips nonetheless haven’t been up to date, and there’s been no follow-up announcement.

However a Microsoft consultant confirmed to Decrypt this week that “the replace to the official tips continues to be forthcoming and the coverage hasn’t modified.”

Minecraft’s anticipated ban announcement got here final yr within the wake of unofficial and community-driven Web3 tasks constructed round Mojang’s long-running recreation, which Microsoft mentioned had 141 million month-to-month lively gamers throughout all gadgets as of 2021.

Taking purpose at token-gating

Mojang mentioned particularly that it might ban the usage of NFT property in ways in which “gate” or prohibit entry to sure content material or options on fan-operated recreation servers.

Mojang permits gamers to cost for entry to servers, however such options should be out there to everybody to buy. With NFTs, there might be options restricted to a small set of asset homeowners.

“Every of those makes use of of NFTs and different blockchain applied sciences creates digital possession primarily based on shortage and exclusion, which doesn’t align with Minecraft values of artistic inclusion and taking part in collectively,” Mojang wrote after citing utilization examples. “NFTs aren’t inclusive of all our group and create a situation of the haves and the have-nots.”

“The speculative pricing and funding mentality round NFTs takes the main target away from taking part in the sport and encourages profiteering, which we expect is inconsistent with the long-term pleasure and success of our gamers,” Mojang added.

Moreover, the publish mentioned that Minecraft would ban the creation of third-party NFT property which can be primarily based round any official recreation property. The deliberate strikes impacted third-party Web3 tasks that had been constructed round Minecraft servers.

Restricted Version Minecraft NFTs Have a good time Ladies, Ladies in Science

Most notable amongst them was NFT Worlds, a mission on Ethereum scaling community Polygon that bought customizable land plots as NFTs, with plans to construct out a devoted Minecraft server that utilized them. That mission’s creators pivoted and altered the mission to Topia, an unique recreation that’s nonetheless visibly impressed by Minecraft however is seemingly “constructed from scratch.”

Curiously, Microsoft itself launched NFTs tied to Minecraft in February 2021, launching a collection of digital collectibles to rejoice Worldwide Day of Ladies and Ladies in Science. These NFTs have been launched in affiliation with crypto gaming startup Enjin, and might be used throughout the recreation by way of an Enjin-created plugin.