Minecraft Bans NFTs & Blockchain: What Should NFT Worlds Do?

Last week major news hit the computer gaming community when popular game Minecraft and video game developer Mojang Studios announced they’re banning NFTs and blockchain on their platform. As a result of this policy shift, this will effectively eliminate NFT Worlds from the Minecraft ecosystem, of which who immediately voiced their frustration over Minecraft’s decision.

So how should you understand what this means? First, let’s take a look at NFT Worlds. NFT Worlds was a partnership that would take Minecraft into Web3 on the Polygon Network. NFT Worlds is a project built on third-party Minecraft servers with a Polygon-based overlay. And Polygon is an Ethereum sidechain that would offer lower gas fees for transactions taking place in the system. What NFT Worlds did was its blockchain layer on Minecraft allowed players to access Web3 features like an online shop to buy items for the Minecraft game through a token called WRLD.

However, apparently after more thought, and maybe given the state of the market, Mojang Studios (Minecraft’s effective owner) decided that NFTs and blockchain don’t fit in with what Minecraft wants to create, which is an all-inclusive game that doesn’t incorporate third-party outside developers from the blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFT spaces. So as a result, Minecraft has closed the door to Web3, and to NFT Worlds in particular.

What Does This Mean For The Videogame & Blockchain Gaming Space?

This is a slight step back for the blockchain gaming industry, however, it’s not an industry killer. For example, Epic Games revealed their stance that they won’t be following in the steps of Minecraft, so that’s a positive. But, it is a step back for NFT Worlds, which took a gut punch from Minecraft’s decision.

This reminds us of the dangers of building on corporate platforms. For example, if a blockchain game goes in a different direction, if a game garners too much popularity, and if a game can potentially threaten the financials and popularity of the base layer game, then the blockchain game will get kicked out. That’s how it works. So in this aspect, centralized games are bad, but they have the right and that’s their decision. But luckily NFT Worlds is on the blockchain, and thus all those assets can be bridged and incorporated on another chain and platform, for example The Sandbox or the Internet Computer’s Cubetopia.

However, The Sandbox won’t be taking NFT Worlds’ assets, so the Internet Computer’s Cubetopia can be a great partnering destination and network to build out NFT Worlds.

Why Is Cubetopia A Great 1st Option?

• First, because Cubetopia is the most similar blockchain game innovation to Minecraft out there, which gives it a significant leg up for attracting NFT Worlds’ assets and metaverse gameplay.
• Second, because Cubetopia is all on-chain, which means NFT Worlds won’t face the same platform risk they experienced with Minecraft and Mojang Studios.

For these reasons, let’s see what happens. It’s still too early to say what exactly NFT Worlds is thinking, but for those analysts and developers who know what the Internet Computer is building with its on-chain smart contract platform complete technology stack, then it should be a pretty clear choice — go ahead and link up.