No NFTs In Minecraft?

On June 20, Microsoft-owned Mojang announced that NFTs and blockchain technology would no longer be allowed to "integrate" with Minecraft. That was bad news for NFT Worlds, which has spent months building an entire crypto-economy on top of a collection of the randomized seeds needed to make specific Minecraft maps.

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NFT Worlds' team has now announced that they will create a new Minecraft-style video game. It will use many of the core Minecraft mechanics but be completely untethered to the policy enforcement Microsoft and Mojang have on Minecraft.

The team claims that NFT Worlds will remain free to play and that users won't need to use a credit card to buy additional content. That content will presumably be purchased instead with the NFT Worlds token, whose value has plummeted over 60 percent in a week following Mojang's announcement.

Vice received confirmation from Microsoft that NFT Worlds players can still use their random seed to play Minecraft, or host multiplayer sessions there. But that's not saying much, since the NFT itself never provided exclusive rights to that map any more than writing "World 1-1" on a piece of paper provides ownership rights to the iconic Super Mario Bros. level.

Microsoft's new rules say that NFT Worlds blockchain won't be able to connect with Minecraft's API. This means that players will no longer be able to make in-game crypto payments in NFT Worlds $WRLD token. They can also not take advantage of other features coded with the NFT Worlds API.

NFT Worlds' team stated that it will prioritise "backwards compatibility" with existing Minecraft server development plugins, practices, and tools in its upcoming clone. This means that creators can "continue building NFT Worlds Content" on top Minecraft. The team is confident that it will work with its new, rebranded NFT Worlds title.

Mojang has changed their EULA to prohibit any NFT Worlds-related Minecraft development. This includes any blockchain-based functionality, NFT Support, or game currency. These were the main features that made NFT Worlds worth its price as an add-on. Now, it's unclear exactly what NFT Worlds developers are doing until their new Minecraft alternative is ready.