Crypto projects built on top of Minecraft, like NFT Worlds, have been left scrambling by Mojang’s decision.
Crypto projects built on top of Minecraft, like NFT Worlds, have been left scrambling by Mojang’s decision. Credit: NFT Worlds
The NFT Worlds team says that it will prioritize “backwards compatibility with existing Minecraft server development plugins and practices” in its upcoming clone. That means creators should “continue building NFT Worlds content” on top of Minecraft, the team says, confident that it will work with the new, rebranded NFT Worlds game whenever it launches.
Thanks to Mojang’s new EULA, though, any further NFT Worlds-related development in Minecraft can’t involve any “blockchain-based functionality, NFT support, or game currency” for the time being. And since those were the central features that defined NFT Worlds’ value as an add-on, it’s unclear what, exactly, NFT Worlds developers will be doing until their new Minecraft alternative is available.
You can’t fire us, we quit
NFT Worlds is characterizing this new split as “a web2 vs web3 battle… between two different visions of the future of the web” and “a technological struggle over who will have ownership of digital assets.” The team casts itself as the protectors of “the spirit of innovation through independent creators” while casting Microsoft as a profit-obsessed behemoth that “will always act in the interest of their shareholders and balance sheet, to the detriment of innovation, player experience and creators.”
On the contrary, Mojang argued last week that projects like NFT Worlds create systems of “digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft values of creative inclusion and playing together.” The rules it has put in place barring NFTs are intended “to ensure that Minecraft remains a community where everyone has access to the same content,” the company wrote.
But while NFT Worlds talks a big game about “innovation,” “open, free, [and] evolved” gameplay, and a “player owned and operated economy,” the devil is in the details. With Minecraft, for example, anyone can access any map just by typing in its specific 32-bit integer seed, even if someone else claims to “own” that lot of land as an NFT Worlds token (although, discovering the specific seeds for specific NFT World tokens can be difficult).