Minecraft slaps down NFT

 Mission failed: We'll get 'em next time

We're going to be hearing about NFTs slow and steady implosion for a very long time as more and more fools come to realise how piteously self defeating it all is. All except for Ubisoft, I guess, who have already murdered their own respectability and are in competition with themselves to see how far off the deep end they can drag themselves. (I have faith in them; I think they take it all the way to chapter 7 Bankruptcy!) This 'NFT movement' becoming one of those issues where no matter how little you think it matters about anything, you can be sure at some point you're going to learn what certain people think about them. Whether it's influencers, celebrities or even that sterile amalgam of an entity we call 'companies'. Not because this is the wave of the future, but because it's a normie plaything that serves as a fascinating litmus test for how much of an out-of-touch luddite your are. Proof that under the right dressing, MLM's and Ponzi-schemes can be pimped out by any famous mouthpiece, not just professional-moron Gwyneth Paltrow.

Yes, I wish this whole boat would just tip over and sink too, but even with pretty stern evidence that the single most successful NFT exchange is an elaborate, and wildly successful, prank run by 4Chan grifters; the ship of public opinion is a mile long. Turning from stern to bough is taking years at this point. Still in the belated interim, slightly more self aware pundits and commentators can use this whole movement as an easy way to score themselves some quick public relations win with the public by simply coming out and stating that they're not interested in engaging with this new buzz term. Which has to be one of the most ironically lazy ways to cement your moral values. "Hey, just so you know; we're not going to kidnap children so we sell their organs on the black market." "Thanks, Company X; I didn't even know you were considering it!"

Although even with that framework for moral mediocrity which this atmosphere breeds, I have to admit to a little bit of surprise when I heard that Minecraft, of all companies, were publicly moving away from NFTs. Given that they're now a subordinate of a mega conglomerate, you'd have thought that tired money schemes would be their catnip. Then again, it takes no great strength or moral upstanding to take a look at the many failed ventures of your peers and decide your efforts are best spent literally anywhere else. (They might as well spend funds in an alchemist to chemically distil liquid gold for them; it'd have a higher chance of success) If anything taking such a stance just proves you have some slight sense. Not like Gamestop, who are desperate to leverage all that unearned publicity the whole 'Gamestonk' incident earned them and waste it on a pitifully misguided NFT collection. No, I'm not kidding even though I so wish that I was. Now your hero has been fallen and their message corrupted; what do you stand for now, WSB?

In a statement that, from an outsider's perspective, dropped out of freakin' sky, Minecraft has come out to clear their up stance on this issue publicly, instead of the much more effective route of doing it litigiously. (Which is what I would have done in their shoes.) Apparently Minecraft considers the NFT movement to be outside the established scope of their mission statement to be inclusive to as many players as possible (which is- I'm not even going to lie they're 100 percent correct about. It's weird to agree with a corporate statement so totally with no caveats) and as such they're concerned about some individuals who are already implementing Minecraft world files and skins. They've outright banned blockchain integration into their game and sent a stern warning whilst doing so; although if they seriously think this is just going to stop anything they've got another thing coming. The NFT marketplace was built on theft, first of art then money; you ain't stopping no one from outside the court room. 

So what is it that they're talking about? Well I've actually seen a few of these offers pop up around the Internet and thought nothing of them, which probably matches the level of forethought that went into constructing these lacklustre schemes in the first place. Minecraft Servers that have access tied to NFT ownership so you can't get in without the blockchain's approval, and from there it get's even 'better' as these blocky landlords dictate the land you're allowed to exploit with the amount of NFT's you purchase. That's right, the exact same digital land ownership that everyone from Earth 2 to Peter Molyneux  are trying to take advantage of right now has been transplanted to the digital ownership space so we all can share in the hatred together; how utterly and unabashedly terrible! Of course, many big servers already play around with land plots for some sensible management reasons, but as always NFTs ruins that to greedy extremes.

There's also talk about 'skins' through NFTs which I've actually heard nothing about but am agog by the sheer audacity of. Are people selling Minecraft skins as non fungible speculative assets? I can't imagine such a grift considering that in the Java version at least the ability to freely create and use skins is exactly that... absolutely free. Any skin can be replicated easily using basic factory software, and if NFT owners lose their mind about screenshotting just wait till they learn about copy/paste! Bedrock Edition actually does have a framework to buy and sell skins because it's infrastructure isn't as open to mess around with, but even then I'm decently sure that every skin pack has to be sold directly through Minecraft's ingame store so there's no way for independent grifters to make millions off that without raising some eyebrows; nor is it really possible to instil any sense of exclusivity.

So not only is Mojang rejecting NFTs as a rank condemnation of their conceptualisation, but the Minecraft systems don't even really support such a world anyway. And I know what the idea is, these NFT heads wanted to interface with Minecraft and NFTs in very precursory little ways until such a time where they can force Mojang to rewrite the game to accommodate them due to the widespread mass-adoption their propositions have garnered. Except they hadn't garnered that adoption, and never would. Obviously. You can't just develop a scheme tailored to exclusively exploit the wealthy and then turn around and say this is the playground of the everyman, that's what we call: 'asinine'. Mojang aren't going to fall for that, Microsoft ain't going to fall for that, any company with more than 5 brain cells to share around their management board aren't going to fall for that. Which is probably why Ubisoft is still very much on the grind.

The lesson is clear; the whole idea of the WEB3 world being primed to overwrite the antiquated old way of the Web is a fabrication, one that not even the big potential profiteers are willing to buy into. Now as any monetarily minded organisation would, Minecraft did the leave the door open in their statement declaring they'd witness how things develop across the blockchain world, but all of that is mostly just lip service. Unless some real visionaries get behind this technology and sculpt it into something sublime and actually industry changing, they're not going to budge any more than us moralists on the topic are budging. Although just seeing that slightly jutted door is enough to convince these grifters to never give up as they consume themselves with the myth of success they've fuelled their very being with. Which is kind of respectable in a deeply embarrassingly sad way.