This is MotherEarthtoMars, a newsletter about Policy making and Mars.
Hi all ,
Welcome to my first letter.
My goals are to:
*Understand policy making and different policies
*Push our imagination on what can be possible in colonizing Mars.
Today I’m going to be talking about Minecraft and their policy of NFT/Blockchain ban. Next week, I’ll be talking about Dan Brown’s novel ‘Origin’ and show you my thinking about Mars so far.
Minecraft is my favourite childhood video game. Me and my brother spent a good two years playing with the same seed (we had two worlds with identical features) and building our empire. We started by spending the entire, 2-week easter holiday of 2013 watching KingDaddyDMAC. Unfortunately, with the death of our laptop we lost the worlds we had poured hours into, but I won’t forget my brother crying when we couldn’t figure out how to build his skeleton farm. (Sorry bro).
At the end of July 2022 Minecraft announced they were banning all NFT’s and Blockchain technology from the platform. They cited that NFT’s create a culture of scarcity and they want all players to have access to the same experience of Minecraft.
Is it a power grab to stop others profiting off, or commercializing Minecraft for themselves? Or is it in the best interest of the players of Minecraft?
What lens should we look at this policy through? I don’t think Minecraft has any obligation beyond providing a fun experience for their customers. So, will this policy lead to more fun, or less fun?
Minecraft comes with the standard ‘survival’ game mode, where you build your world and defend against monsters. Also, there is ‘creative’ where essentially all the normal rules are switched off and you can build freely and create whatever you want. You can also join custom servers where people have built games, challenges, and worlds with their own custom rules. You need to pay to access some servers, and Minecraft also has fair and equitable rules around that. E.g. You must charge all players the same amount for server access. Finally, there are also ‘Mods’, which are essentially ‘modifiers’ to Vanilla (normal) Minecraft and they can give the game different visuals or add features for custom gameplay. You can also download completed worlds or custom worlds that other people have built to enjoy their creations. Minecraft, in my experience, is generous and allows for lots of creativity, socializing and fun. There are no annoying subscription models or in game purchases. You get the whole experience for $27.
In contrast, with some companies like NFT Worlds, you have to pay $1500 dollars to ‘buy a starting world’, plus the original Minecraft fee. They make the concession that it may be too much of an investment for many players, so you can also ‘rent’ space in a world monthly. Hello annoying subscription model? The idea is that players can build their own worlds with custom rules and challenges and then put the world under committee review (in the form of a DAO) and if accepted, other players can earn in game currency by completing the challenges, tasks or competitions the world owner had created. Players can then use this in game currency to buy perks or open up tasks in that world or others.
All the worlds are linked by in-game cryptocurrency $WRLD. It’s easy to see how this could create a world of ‘have or have nots’. Wealthy people could potentially run many worlds and also earn passive income. Creating a system in which many experiences are made available through this custom currency would mean that the game is not a uniform experience and certain features would be restricted to specific players.
One is like school and the other is akin to adult life. In your school, everyone around you is having similar experiences with the same content, same exams, and similar teachers. But in your adult life you can’t share the experience of anyone else. So maybe it’s comforting to have games where you know you can have the same experience as anyone else.
· “Players that are earning $WRLD by playing an enjoyable set of games or experiences in the world you've created are much more likely to spend their earned $WRLD back into your ecosystem through $WRLD shops, content access, cosmetic perks and more that you offer.”
· “All players should have equal opportunity to earn $WRLD token in your world if you would like to utilize the reward faucet”
NFT Worlds is like a whole economy with built in governance and community. A mirror of our world online. A metaverse. It feels eerie to imagine people spending huge amounts of time engaging deeply in this virtual world. Equal opportunity to earn seems like rule almost applicable to a nation state, rather than a mere online game.
Let’s look at the implications of Minecraft’s Policy:
The benefit for creating a system such as NFT World is that it pushes the innovation and creativity people have for Minecraft. It’s definitely a ‘Web 3’ idea. It creates a new idea of what a player and game dev. looks like. In one way, this policy supports the decision and rationale for building Web 3. This is essentially a way of operating the internet and digital assets so that ownership of assets lies with the individual rather than a corporation. Chris Dixon put it bluntly on Twitter: “Good reminder of why you shouldn’t build on corporate-owned (web2) networks. They change the rules on developers on a whim.”
On the other hand, it is clearly stated in the Minecraft ‘End User License Agreement’ or ‘EULA’ that nobody may commercialize Minecraft for any reason. So, building NFT’s on top of Minecraft would allow people to earn income and violate that policy. Streamers and YouTuber’s are commercializing Minecraft, but the EULA specifically mentions that you can put ads on videos of you playing Minecraft. Perhaps they allow this because it would eventually lead to more people buying the game (certainly did for me and my brother). They also comply with “fair use” or “fair dealing” laws. They don’t allow third parties to monetize ‘Mods’ they make for Minecraft, so this supports their value to provide a uniform experience. But they are changing this with the Minecraft marketplace.
You could argue that Minecraft is being greedy and wants to be the major profiteer from the game. You may also say Minecraft is holding its power as a corporation and serving its shareholders before the players. Or you could say that they need to restrict third party monetization to survive as a game and be profitable.
An accurate assessment of this policy also must include questions of how the company policy has evolved as ownership has changed with time. Until Microsoft acquired Minecraft in 2014 for $2.5 billion, everything was basically included in the $27 price. However, now Minecraft allows you to buy some ‘mods’ in its in- game store. These are developed by ‘Minecraft partners’ who are hired after they have demonstrated previous experience building for Minecraft. It’s a way for people to earn money for their ‘mods’ so they are in essence allowed to commercialize on Minecraft. But it’s all run through Minecraft itself- hundreds of mods are available on the marketplace. So, Minecraft seems to be cherry-picking developers and mods they want to monetize. In this light, you could consider this to be a battle between the corporate and the individual because an NFT Worlds situation would allow people to freely commercialize on the game without having to become a partner. This seems to be a contradiction to providing a uniform experience, but the price of mods on the marketplace is reasonable and set between $5 and $10.
In comparison to other game developers such as EA, Minecraft has definitely resisted much of the pressure to monetize. EA uses a system where players must pay to get access to a selection of in-game prize boxes which contain different game assets. Some prize boxes are more valuable than others. They have made these boxes a primary way of game progression through most of their games. Lawmakers stepped in as they had essentially created an online casino for kids, teens, and young adults. A pay-to-win model. Minecraft has definitely shown commitment to providing a fair, uniform user experience even through changes in leadership, and this policy seems consistent with that commitment. However, if NFT’s were applied to superficial aspects of the game, for example what your character looks like, then I wouldn’t say that would create adverse effects and could be another way for people to own and enjoy their creativity on Minecraft.
Ultimately, this is a general announcement by Minecraft and once this ‘NFT ban’ is fully integrated into the End User License Agreement, the better we will be able to understand the motives and the impact. This was also the first time I read the ‘terms and conditions!
From Earth to Mars -Imagination^2:
-We can study currency through the lens of different video games, maybe a simplified scenario to real life.
-We can also study how communities grow and build together as they do with Minecraft.
-We can see how a central authority like NFT Worlds may create a system that they can enforce, but that gives most of the power to the individuals within it.
Thanks for reading!
-Martiana