No blockchain integration for Minecraft

Mojang Studios, the Swedish game developer behind Minecraft, said that blockchain or NFT technology “cannot be integrated within client and server applications”.

Minecraft will not integrate blockchain and NFTs

The company that created Minecraft has closed once and for all the possibility of integrating blockchain and NFTs into the game. 

The company blog explains:

“While we are in the process of updating our Minecraft Usage Guidelines to offer more precise guidance on new technologies, we wanted to take the opportunity to share our view that integrations of NFTs with Minecraft are generally not something we will support or allow”.

Rumors had been circulating for months about the possibility that Minecraft would sooner or later follow what now seems to have become a fad for gaming developers: seeking a solution for integrating NFTs and blockchain.

TL;DR:
“To ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our Minecraft client and server applications nor may they be utilized to create NFTs associated with any in-game content…”

— Minecraft (@Minecraft) July 20, 2022

In the lengthy post, the company explains in detail how NFTs are fundamentally at odds with the game’s values of cooperation and collaboration because virtual resources are by their nature extremely rare collectibles.

Mojang Studios developers explain:

“In our Minecraft Usage Guidelines, we outline how a server owner can charge for access, and that all players should have access to the same functionality. We have these rules to ensure that Minecraft remains a community where everyone has access to the same content. NFTs, however, can create models of scarcity and exclusion that conflict with our Guidelines and the spirit of Minecraft”.

To date, Mojang has sold 238 million copies of Minecraft and no other video game has sold more. Minecraft’s sales are followed by best sellers such as Grand Theft Auto V (165 million copies), Tetris (100 million copies) and Wii Sports (82.9 million copies).

Mojang Studios decides not to follow the crowd

This news comes as, by contrast, nearly every other major game developer ranging from Ubisoft and Square Enix to Konami are experimenting with NFTs and blockchain implementations on their best-selling games. 

Square Enix itself has just announced that it will release its NFT sticker collection in early 2023. The company is one of those that from the beginning strongly believed in Non-Fungible Tokens and the metaverse, where it developed The Sandbox on Ethereum in 2020 and earlier this year announced plans to bring its Dungeon Siege franchise to the NFT-based game world. 

In May of this year it decided to sell the Tomb Raider game to three Studio specifically to fund NFT projects.

A recent study in November 2021, based on interviewing 197 of the major players in the gaming world, found that 58% are starting to use blockchain to develop their games. Moreover, according to the same study, 48% of them would be incorporating elements of NFTs into their games.

But this does not seem to concern Mojang, which has clearly expressed its opinion against the possible NFT implementation in the most popular game it has developed. According to them, the mindset about NFTs being introduced into Minecraft would cloud players’ long-term enjoyment of the game. 

Moreover, according to Mojang, non-fungible tokens and their valuations would distract community players from the specific purpose of the game.

This stance would also seem to be a response to the many criticisms received by Ubisoft, which in recent weeks has included NFTs within some of its most popular games, and according to some early estimates the novelty has not produced the desired results at all, even in terms of economic return.