Minecraft Says ‘No’ to NFTs

Despite the game being almost 13 years old, 141 million active players still come back to Minecraft every month, as of August 2021 numbers from Statista. In a 2019 interview with Helen Chiang, the Minecraft studio head, told Edge Magazine that the average age for Minecraft players was 24. However, the game is specifically designed to be kid-friendly, Chiang said. The ERSB rating is for players 10-years-old and up. Having a money-making investment scheme built into the client does raise a lot of red flags and potential for abuse, especially when you make children susceptible. She reportedly told Edge that “We need to be really clear and simple around how we plan to monetize in the game.”

Meanwhile, other games geared toward kids like Roblox have leaned all-in on monetization and in-game geared toward kids. Users are incentivized to spend Roblux on in-game items while visiting worlds specifically made to promote products. Still, the company behind the game updated its community standards last year to take a vague aim at potential use of NFTs in-game. Users, they said, are not permitted to use Roblox to offer payment for acting as a model for assets.

Devs also wrote: “You also may not use third-party services or products to sell, either directly or as a bundle: in-experience items, exclusive features, or other in-experience enhancements.”