On July 20, 2022, Mojang published a post on its official website, outlining its stance on the usage of NFTs in Minecraft. The short and sweet of the post is Mojang does not permit the integration of NFT and blockchain technologies in its Minecraft client and server applications. It also does not permit the use of the client or server in creating NFTs associated with any in-game content such as worlds, skins, items, or any other such mods.
This is a huge statement from Mojang. As the most popular game in the world, Minecraft is the target of many NFT projects, including NFT Worlds where players would purchase a world as an NFT and earn money by using the game’s free Java Edition.
By rejecting NFTs, Mojang effectively stated it currently does not want NFTs as part of Minecraft’s future focusing more on the safety and the inclusivity of Minecraft as a game above all else.
▍Mojang’s Minecraft and NFTs Guidelines
In Mojang’s guidelines post about NFTs, the company briefly explains what NFTs are, what effects it has on the player base, and its policies on the matter.
It stated that in the Minecraft Usage Guidelines, server owners can charge for access and all players should have access to that same function. However, these rules do not extend to NFTs, which can create models of scarcity and exclusion that conflicts with their guidelines.
This means in order to maintain the game’s accessibility, and the freedom for server owners and players to be able to own and play with the same files, it will reject the use of any kind of NFT and blockchain technologies that could create digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, stating that “NFTs are not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots…”
It also described one of the reasons it does not want to implement NFTs is the fact that some third-party NFT implementations require the use of an outside client, which can disappear without notice, causing people to lose access to the assets they paid for artificially and fraudulently inflated prices. It recognized that certain creations in the game have an intrinsic value, and will strive to provide a marketplace where these kinds of creations can be recognized, for all players.
The post does end by stating that Mojang has no plans of implementing them currently, suggesting in the future it may still be open to NFTs once many of the issues stated are ironed out. But by making such a public statement, it doesn’t seem like that will be any time soon.
