How Minecraft’s Ban on NFTs Scapegoats the Player
The recent announcement that Minecraft will be banning all blockchain technology from its video game platform has left many NFT projects in limbo. The Minecraft world was generally seen as one of the easiest and most accessible platforms for different NFT communities to build on due to its robust building mechanics and player base.
While the announcement is creating major challenges for many projects, there is a lot to be learned from the decision that can be applied to web3 businesses and how they'll need to adapt their business models going forward.
Minecraft bans NFTs
The announcement itself goes through a variety of reasons why Mojang Studios (and Microsoft by extension), the company behind Minecraft, believes that NFTs are bad for video games.
They state that the technology brings a focus to the video game which puts profits over entertainment, encouraging players to lose focus on what makes Minecraft a special game to begin with.
Rug pulls are also addressed, claiming that NFT developers are not held accountable and capable of running away with money from the community.
The announcement mentions that many of the aspects created by NFTs for the Minecraft platform break company guidelines for servers. The guidelines explicitly state that everyone must have equal access to all features of a server and that NFTs “can create models of scarcity and exclusion that conflict with our Guidelines and the spirit of Minecraft.”
Criticisms about the announcement
For the majority of gamers, the move from Minecraft to ban blockchain from their video game is being met with a mix of celebrations from the web2 gaming community. However, taking a closer look at the statement, we can see that much of the reasoning behind the decision was not made with the player in mind, but rather the company’s revenue model.
Lack of understanding
One of the biggest criticisms following the statement is what appears to be a massive misunderstanding of the technology.
The announcement says “An NFT is a unique, non-editable, digital token that is part of a blockchain and often purchased with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.”
This statement is completely false. Bitcoin does not have any NFT capabilities. It’s a major red flag to see such a decision being made by the company without fully understanding what different blockchain networks can do.
Not understanding the difference between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana shows that there is still major work that needs to be done on the education and marketing side of blockchain technologies because the general public still struggles to understand crypto.
2.Profiteering contradictions
The announcement also states that using NFTs “encourages profiteering, which we think is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players.” While this is a fair statement to make, the entertainment value of a game is the priority, it is contradicted multiple times by other statements made by Majong in the same post.
The announcement says “we outline how a server owner can charge for access” and “we strive to provide a marketplace where those values can be recognized.” Although the company claims that profiteering is a bad thing for players, they have already implemented methods of profiting for players well before this announcement was ever made.
These contradictions come off as a company that is less concerned with the integrity of their player base, and more upset that they cannot share in the profits of a web3 revenue model where the player’s earnings come before the company.
3. Inequality concerns
Majong further states that “NFTs are not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots.” Isolated, this claim makes perfect sense, NFTs allow access to token-gated communities.
Yet, seeing that servers can require payment for access, which is stated in their guidelines, it doesn’t appear that Majong is practicing what they preach. If inequality was a real issue for the company, then every server on the game must be free.
Leaving the door open for Web3
The announcement from Majong has been a major disappointment for many people in the web3 community because Minecraft provided a platform for building, which was popular and easy to use.
Fortunately, the company didn’t completely shut the door on blockchain technology, stating “We will also be paying close attention to how blockchain technology evolves 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.”
Though the decision to ban NFTs from Minecraft lacks convincing reasons, they are still going to keep watching blockchain technology to see if it will become more beneficial to the game studio in the future.
However, it needs to be stressed that a decision to implement a blockchain into Minecraft will only be approved if that blockchain has a direct flow through the Minecraft revenue model. They clearly have no interest in any sort of market ecosystem which they cannot have direct control over.
Effect on NFT projects
Majong’s announcement about their NFT ban has already created a negative impact on many collections on the Ethereum network. Projects such as NFT Worlds and NFT Maps have both taken significant hits from the decision and are now scrambling to pick up the pieces.
Moving forward, it’s clear that many NFT teams will have to think twice before developing a project which uses web2 as its base. These centralized platforms have the capability of dropping blockchain support.
Gamefi needs to be created for the web3 audience
The biggest takeaway from this is that blockchain gaming cannot be grown on web2. It requires organic growth from the web3 community which is less opposed to NFTs and blockchain.
Although the web3 community is much smaller than the web2 community, which dominates the internet, there is plenty of potential for blockchain gaming to grow as more liquidity enters crypto markets and NFT teams become more experienced.
It won't take long before a hit game is released via NFT that captivates the web3 community and encourages others to follow suit. This is the catalyst that is needed; but until then, if a web2 company can’t profit off of GameFi, then neither can you.
You can read more about GameFi here.
