Bravo to Mojang and Minecraft for a complete ban on NFTs

NFTs suck. There’s no two ways about it: they’re a completely unnecessary, exploitative (and already highly exploited) waste of time, money and energy — and yet there seem to be a worrying number of high-profile game publishers out there who are very interested in incorporating them into their upcoming titles.

The usual argument in favour of NFTs runs that you can not only earn rewards in a game, you can also transfer those rewards from one game to another and make money from those rewards by selling them. None of these things are things that people really want, though; your average video game enthusiast plays games to enjoy themselves, not to earn money — and the second you add the possibility to earn money, what should be an enjoyable entertainment activity becomes a job.

Minecraft and NFTs

A solid argument against NFTs is that they don’t provide any real benefit that existing technologies and frameworks don’t already provide — with much less in the way of consumer exploitation, artificial market inflation through speculation, and excessive energy consumption. For example, Minecraft provides an in-game marketplace where not only can players add additional content to their game either for free or by purchasing in-game currency, the people creating that content can get their work exposed to a wider audience.

With this in mind, it’s noteworthy that Minecraft’s staff from Mojang Studios have come out with a very clear statement that NFTs are not and will never be part of the Minecraft experience — and that anyone attempting to use Minecraft to exploit the NFT fad is not welcome to do so.

At present, Minecraft allows server owners to charge for access, allowing for more exclusive, premium membership clubs that don’t get overrun with members of the public who could potentially cause issues. It also allows individuals to subscribe to the “Realms” service to rent a server and have Mojang take care of managing it. At its core, though, Minecraft is built on a set of fundamental principles that everyone who plays the game has access to, simply by purchasing the game once.

Minecraft and NFTs

“Uses of NFTs and other blockchain technologies creates digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft’s values of creative inclusion and playing together,” reads the statement. “NFTs are not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots. The speculative pricing and investment mentality around NFTs takes the focus away from playing the game and encourages profiteering, which we think is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players.”

That last sentence is, I think, the most crucial thing here, because other companies who have expressed an interest in incorporating NFTs into their games, such as Ubisoft, seem to actively want to encourage the profiteering angle at the expense of enjoying the game. Indeed, no discussion of NFTs’ involvement in gaming ever makes any mention whatsoever of how they make the game more fun — instead, they focus entirely on how the games become “play-to-earn”.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but when I play a game I do so in order to escape pretty much everything about the real world — and that includes financial commitments. This is the main reason I don’t play free-to-play or mobile games any more — their constant pop-up banners about “Last Chance Sales!” and “Best Value!” packs of gems only serve to remind me that I’m playing a game that has been designed more around monetisation than providing an actual enjoyable experience to its players. And both the mechanics and narratives of games built like this inevitably suffer as a result.

Minecraft and NFTs

As an inherently creative game, Mojang does feel it important to note that their obvious distaste for NFTs does not preclude talented creators from recognition and perhaps even compensation for their hard work.

“We recognise that creation inside our game has intrinsic value,” the statement continues, “and we strive to provide a marketplace where those values can be recognised. AS such, 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 utilised to create NFTs associated with any in-game content, including worlds, skins, persona items or other mods.”

While the potential benefits of blockchain technology haven’t yet been proven in the gaming space, Mojang claims to be open to future developments that are less demonstrably a big pile of shit like NFTs are.

“We will be paying close attention to how blockchain technology evolves over time to ensure that the above principles are withheld,” they note, “and to 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.”

To all this, I say bravo to Mojang and the Minecraft team for taking a clear stance against something which the vast majority of gamers are vehemently opposed to. NFTs do nothing to enhance the enjoyment of video games — and, as the Mojang statement correctly notes, simply create a culture of haves and have-nots. We have enough of that in society at large already, thanks; it doesn’t need to infect our escapist experiences also.

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Pete Davison
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