Then, on July 20, 2022, in a post on the Minecraft website, developer Mojang Studios dropped a bombshell: Minecraft would not support integrations with NFTs. The company laid out its position and stated in bold text that “blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our Minecraft client and server applications nor may they be utilized to create NFTs associated with any in-game content, including worlds, skins, personal items, or other mods.”
For Critterz, the implication was existential. Although Mojang’s announcement did not detail how its new policy would be implemented, it seemed likely that a failure to comply with the new rules could lead to the end of the Critterz Minecraft server and the collapse of its in-game economy. Players who had paid thousands of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency for Critterz NFTs saw their investments plummet in value, and those who had been making money playing the game had their incomes vanish.
i… have no idea why these people thought that Mojang was going to be amenable to the ponzi scheme-ass style of game this is, or even why they thought Minecraft would support NFT integration. what could possibly incline you to believe this is a thing Minecraft needs, and which you stake so much of your wealth on?
A lot of people in this article seem to exist in this weird space that a lot of NFT and crypto people do, a completely unwarranted optimism towards some kinda technology that they see as the herald of some kind of new age. That it will solve all problems, that it’s a panacea for everything negative to society. It’s got a weird cult-like feeling in so many places, and I found this article an interesting exploration of this thought process. The way they framed what was essentially exploitative child labor was particularly telling. From a realistic perspective, I think it’s a lot less harmful to have kids be providing labor for something they are opting into, rather than something they have to do (read: a better alternative than child sweatshops) but there also seems to be a complete lack of recognition that maybe children shouldn’t have to do labor of any kind or how this system could be easily abused or turn out worse (just look at other game-based services like gold farming in WoW for examples on how this can become a capitalistic hellscape quite quickly).
i… have no idea why these people thought that Mojang was going to be amenable to the ponzi scheme-ass style of game this is, or even why they thought Minecraft would support NFT integration. what could possibly incline you to believe this is a thing Minecraft needs, and which you stake so much of your wealth on?
A lot of people in this article seem to exist in this weird space that a lot of NFT and crypto people do, a completely unwarranted optimism towards some kinda technology that they see as the herald of some kind of new age. That it will solve all problems, that it’s a panacea for everything negative to society. It’s got a weird cult-like feeling in so many places, and I found this article an interesting exploration of this thought process. The way they framed what was essentially exploitative child labor was particularly telling. From a realistic perspective, I think it’s a lot less harmful to have kids be providing labor for something they are opting into, rather than something they have to do (read: a better alternative than child sweatshops) but there also seems to be a complete lack of recognition that maybe children shouldn’t have to do labor of any kind or how this system could be easily abused or turn out worse (just look at other game-based services like gold farming in WoW for examples on how this can become a capitalistic hellscape quite quickly).