On Wednesday the 20th July the of the best-selling video game of all time Minecraft[1] has decided to not allow or non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) [2] on their very popular gaming platform.
NFT’s are the ownership of a unique digital items, normally images, videos and music, this is like a receipt in the physical world, NFT’s are recorded on a register like blockchain[3].
Minecraft for those whom don’t know is a virtual world where players can create and customise their environments, since launching the game has a massive following of users that already design skins, maps and mods for the game.
Knowing what NFT’s are and do and what is happened already in Minecraft you can understand why Minecraft was such a huge opportunity with NFT’s, selling Skins, Maps and Mods.
The maker of Minecraft (Mojang Studios) have released a statement, a snapshot below and a link to the full statement.
“NFTs, however, can create models of scarcity and exclusion that conflict with our Guidelines and the spirit of Minecraft.
To ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our client and server applications, nor may Minecraft in-game content such as worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods, be utilized by blockchain technology to create a scarce digital asset.
….uses of NFTs and other blockchain technologies creates digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft values of creative inclusion and playing together. ”
The full press release from Minecraft is here:
https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/minecraft-and-nfts
Will others follow suit?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
[2] https://decrypt.co/resources/non-fungible-tokens-nfts-explained-guide-learn-blockchain