After Minecraft Says No To NFTs, NFT Worlds Vows To Make Its Own Game

Mojang made waves yesterday when it said, in no uncertain terms, that NFTs are not welcome in Minecraft (opens in new tab). Good news for gamers, perhaps, but not so much for anyone who has already committed to incorporating blockchain technology in the game-like, for instance, NFT Worlds.

"NFT Worlds is a fully decentralized, fully customizable, community driven, play to earn gaming platform where world owners can create their own limitless metaverse games or experiences for players or exclusive communities within their worlds," its website (opens in new tab) says.

"Currently using Minecraft with its sprawling opensource ecosystem, NFT Worlds builds off the backbone a decades-worth of Minecraft community open source development and radically expands that to enable a completely new type 3D voxel based, decentralized gaming metaverses backed the Ethereum blockchain."

What that means, basically, is that it supports custom Minecraft servers where players can purchase plots of virtual land and earn (and spend) cryptocurrency-the kind of hybrid system that Mojang's blockchain policy seems specifically aimed at shutting down. And it definitely had an impact: The price of $WRLD (opens in new tab) tanked badly immediately following the studio's announcement.

Mojang's policy change was met with anger by NFT Worlds, who released a statement (opens a new tab) condemning Mojang as well as Minecraft for "no regard to creators, builders and players" and vowing to make their own game.

NFT Worlds stated that they are creating a new game and platform that is based on many core mechanics of Minecraft. However, the modernization and active development of Minecraft have been missing for years. This is not a rewrite or clone of an open-source Minecraft clone. This would likely violate the EULA and still face legal action. It is completely new. This transition will also include a public-facing brand identity change that is more user-friendly.
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The Future Of NFT Worlds Read our statement below through the attached Twitter thread, or here: https://t.co/w0nf1f2xxnA threadpic.twitter.com/Oy2T7oXQVgJuly 22, 2022

NFT Worlds announced that the new game will have a similar "playstyle", look, and feel to Minecraft. However, it will include performance optimizations, graphics improvements, and new mechanics that will provide "a more accessible and ownable, enjoyable playing experience." It will be available to all players and "completely untethered" from the policy enforcement Microsoft has over Minecraft. It will also be compatible with existing Minecraft plugins so content creators can make the switch without too much fuss.

Making a better Minecraft than Minecraft (while maintaining compatibility with Minecraft) is an awfully big job, and one that I think would invite some immediate and intense scrutiny from Microsoft, but NFT Worlds doesn't have many options. Mojang has effectively shut the door on its business model. However a wholesale switch towards a new game could leave existing users and everything they've created behind. It is essential to create something that is both functionally Minecraft and not actually Minecraft in order to keep the wheels turning. It's a daunting task.

In the more immediate future, NFT Worlds said it will make changes to its launcher and play pages to attract new players who aren't interested in the cryptocurrency angle. It also set out some very high stakes, dramatic and important goals for NFT Worlds in the future.

NFT Worlds stated that Microsoft had made it clear that they will always act for their shareholders and balance sheet to the detriment and innovation of creators, player experience, and creators. We believe that Minecraft's open, free, evolving version will offer a better future than the one we have now.