While some industries are still sussing out their opinions on NFTs, the video game community is making it clear: NFTs stand for “No F’n Thanks” in their industry.
The latest company to take a stand against non-fungible tokens: Mojang Studios, the developer of the massively popular video game, Minecraft.
In a statement put out today on the official Minecraft website, titled simply “Minecraft and NFTs,” the company made it crystal clear that it would not permit any sort of blockchain or NFT integration with its game.
Mojang Studios and Minecraft laid out a few reasons as to why they are against NFTs. For one, they made it clear that fake scarcity plays a major part in it. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are basically digital assets stored on a blockchain. A unique token is minted and connected to a media file in order to declare ownership of that piece which has turned NFTs into speculative assets.
The statement makes clear that Minecraft is not against monetizing, and uses the example of users charging for access to a Minecraft server as an approved use case. However, because NFTs would change the gameplay dynamics and give players with monetary means an upperhand in-game, the developer is opposed to the technology.
“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,” declares the statement.
The developer also brought up concerns about the trustworthiness of third-parties who mint Minecraft-related NFTs, and their tendencies to abandon projects, and fraudulently inflate prices on the NFT aftermarkets.
“No blockchain for block game,” as Molly White of the website Web3 is Going Great succinctly put it. The website tracks the various scams, frauds, and drama going on in the Web3 world, which includes cryptocurrencies and NFT projects.
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As White points out, the value of existing (and unauthorized) Minecraft NFT projects tanked on the news of Mojang Studios’ statement. NFT Worlds, which also has a token associated with it, saw the value of both the token and its NFT floor prices crater by more than 70 percent.
Minecraft’s Mojang Studios is far from the first video game company to run far away from NFTs. Gamers have made it clear that they hate the idea of buying NFTs on top of the video games they already purchase. And their anti-NFT opinions have forced the industry to follow. Just earlier this month, Sony announced a loyalty program called Playstation Stars which will reward players with digital collectibles. The company stressed that these digital collectibles were not NFTs.
“It’s definitely not NFTs. Definitely not. You can’t trade them or sell them. It is not leveraging any blockchain technologies and definitely not NFTs,” said Grace Chen, Sony VP of network advertising, loyalty, and licensed merchandise, in an interview with The Washington Post.
Mojang Studios did end its statement by saying that they would monitor how blockchain technology evolves for any possible future use cases, leaving the door somewhat open based on currently non-existent possibilities. But, at least for the foreseeable future, chalk up another win for gamers who absolutely hate NFTs.