Earlier this week, Mojang took a strong anti-NFT stance by banning any blockchain-derived technologies from integration into Minecraft.
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, including worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods. We will also be paying close attention to how blockchain technology evolves over time to ensure that the above principles are withheld and determine whether it will allow for more secure experiences or other practical and inclusive applications in gaming. However, we have no plans of implementing blockchain technology into Minecraft right now.
The news reignited the debate surrounding NFT technology. In a series of tweets, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney reiterated his stance that stores should not prohibit NFT games.
Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you are free to decide whether to play them. I believe stores and operating system makers shouldn’t interfere by forcing their views onto others. We definitely won’t.
We are neither using NFT in our products nor forcing developers who use our technology or services to abandon NFT. And customers are free to make their own decisions about what products to use and now.
In a related discussion, Sweeney discussed his thoughts on how a metaverse game should be monetized. As a reminder, Epic received lots of investments towards metaverse development.
If the best outfits in a metaverse styled game cost $1,000,000, that’s telling customers they will never have as good an experience as a millionaire will have. Whereas in Fortnite and Minecraft, nothing is priced out of anyone’s reach.
In a future open metaverse, developers will try all different approaches from the egalitarian to the arche capitalist, and we’ll see what sticks. I expect many people will prefer parts of the metaverse that don’t just mirror the societal problems of the real world.
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