Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney claims his company will “definitely not” imitate Minecraft developers by banning non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
As previously reported, Minecraft developers Mojang Studios banned NFT integrations on Wednesday, as they feel the speculative aspect of NFTs coupled with the scarcity and risks of foreclosure and scam allegedly associated with NFTs go against the principles of the game..
The measure was considered very controversial in the NFT community, but has been met with praise for the cohort of crypto skeptic gamers.
Sweeney’s company is the creator of the wildly successful battle royale game Fortnite, which is also seen as a platform for the Metaverse. While Epic Games is not necessarily in favor of cryptocurrencies or NFTs, the CEO said that the firm does not seek to impose any opinion on the subject on its users.:
“Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you are free to decide if you want to play them. I believe that stores and operating system manufacturers should not interfere by imposing their views on others. We certainly won’t.”
Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you are free to decide whether to play them. I believe stores and operating system makers shouldn’t interfere by forcing their views onto others. We definitely won’t.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) July 21, 2022
In response to the post, Twitter user Low5ive asked Sweeney if Epic Games’ policy on banning “hateful/discriminatory content” differs from this. In response, Sweeney suggested that Epic Games does make “editorial” judgments, but NFTs don’t currently fall into them..
“A store can choose not to make such judgments and host anything that is legal, or choose to cap it according to popularly acceptable standards, as we do, or accept only games that fit the owner’s personal beliefs,” he said..
Mojang Studios’ ban on NFTs has left one project in particular dubbed NFT Worlds with a huge problem to solve, given that it was built on one of Minecraft’s open source servers..
The community-driven, play-to-earn (P2E) platform has an entire ecosystem of cryptocurrencies and NFTs built around it, and its NFTs generate 51,000 Ether (ETH), or $80.8 million in trading volume at the moment of writing this article. However, since the news broke, the minimum price of their NFTs has fallen from 3.33 ETH to 1.01 ETH. at the time of writing, and its native WRLD token has plunged 55% in that time frame.
Following Mojang’s announcement, the NFT Worlds team stated that they are now “thinking about solutions” moving forward.. The team mentioned that they are working to contact Minecraft to see if a possible solution can be found. On the contrary, a switch to a “Minecraft-like game engine” or a GameFi platform has been outlined as a possible option.
We’ve just shared the following announcement on our Discord regarding the current @Minecraft & @nftworldsNFT situation. pic.twitter.com/ARbKABRK4A
— NFT Worlds (@nftworldsNFT) July 20, 2022
We just shared the following announcement on our Discord regarding the current situation of @Minecraft and @nftworldsNFT. pic.twitter.com/ARbKABRK4A
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