Minecraft developers collaborating with other gaming platforms started a petition to end gaming NFTs but even after a week, only 72 people have signed it so far.
Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of gamer backlash against NFTs claiming they are bad for the environment and other nonsense, but the reality is, you either adopt new technologies and go with the flow, or lack behind like a elderly in a village who still relies to the mailbox newspaper subscription service, paid in cash to the postman.
The Pledge
A group of developers started this petition where they asked the gamers and game developers to address the dangers of NFTs and cryptocurrencies in their NFT Pledge. The pledge was led by Climate Replay (a group of developers originating from Mojang Studios).
In this pledge, the developers urged that the new play-to-earn gaming mechanism isn’t heading the industry in the right direction. The developers said that we should play the games for fun, not for working or making money.
The pledge also called out the financial and physical expenditures of NFTs.
“Most NFTs, and by consequence most forms of digital ownership, in their current state serve the exact opposite purpose – their value defined completely by artificial scarcity and speculation and powered by an unnecessary expenditure of physical resources.”
On top of that, the pledge clearly reads that NFTs are useless in games. “NFTs in gaming do not bring any meaningful value to the players”, the pledge reads.
Since the pledge was led by a group of developers from Minecraft and Mojang Studios, a concept artist from Minecraft, Mariana Salimena, made it clear that the petition has nothing to do with Minecraft.
Cory Scheviak, who co-authored the Pledge, confirmed that 72 individuals have signed the pledge until now. In addition to that, Scheviak also said that five other companies have signed but the verification is currently in process.
The pledge consists of seven main parts.
- Brings meaningful value to players
- Does not make use of technology that is intentionally inefficient, resulting in a concrete, significant environmental impact
- Does not embrace artificial scarcity to generate speculative value
- Does not rely on unregulated, volatile cryptocurrency
- Does not disproportionately benefit early adopters or wealthier users/players
- Does not perpetuate either of the following negative aspects of the Play-to-Earn model – Informal Jobs
- Shifts the primary purpose of a game from enjoyment to earning money
- Is implemented with transparency and takes seriously concerns from studio members
Should We be Concerned About NFTs and Cryptocurrencies?
For me, entities and people from the gaming sector who rally against NFTs and crypto with the pretext that they are bad for the environment, do not want the current monetization system to change. Just like Warren Buffet and other banks who were against Bitcoin the previous years, they are part of a system that works in favor of them, why would they want this to change? They want to continue making money from in-game assets, DLCs and other stuff without allowing the players trade and own their assets. After all, in traditional games, the items belong to the game, not to the players.