Microsoft's Minecraft Goes Web3 With "NFT Worlds" on Polygon

A few developers not affiliated with Microsoft are updating Minecraft's Web3 video game.

NFT Worlds is a project that uses third-party Minecraft servers and a Polygon-based overlay. Polygon offers lower gas costs (i.e. transaction fees) to users. NFT Worlds' Blockchain layer will enable Minecraft players to access Web3 features such as an online shop that allows them to purchase items for their Minecraft experience with the $WRLD token.

A portion of Minecraft's software can be downloaded open-source. This means that anyone with the necessary technical knowledge can use it. Roblox has an established economy, but Minecraft does not have a strong virtual marketplace or its own digital currency Robux. NFT Worlds offers players a metaverse experience within an existing game. This is great news for Minecraft enthusiasts and NFT collectors.

NFTs are unique tokens based on blockchain technology that can be used to signify ownership of an asset. They come in many forms. The NFTWorlds are virtual pieces of land. There are 10,000 Worlds with different appearances. They range from snowy tundras, forest islands, to massive volcanic eruptions. The current floor price, which is the lowest price you can buy land immediately without bidding, is 14.5 Ethereum. That's about $38,150.

Minecraft's player base has increased since Mojang Studios, Minecraft's developer, was purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 Billion in 2014. In 2020, Minecraft had 131,000,000 monthly active players and in 2021, it had more than 141,000,000 monthly active players.

NFT Worlds reports that there has been an increase in interest. This month, over 26,000 hours of player time were recorded on a test server. After being largely stagnant for months, the average NFT World price suddenly rose by 10 Ethereum ($26,000) between January and February.

Some might be reluctant to pay upwards of $40,000 for a piece virtual land. However, the Sandbox is a competing Ethereum metaverse game that often has much higher prices. In December, a person paid $450,000 to purchase a small piece virtual land adjacent to Snoop Dogg’s property in The Sandbox.

The Sandbox , whose economy is managed by the $SAND token-NFT Worlds' properties, are exponentially more than .

ArkDev, the co-founder and CEO of NFT Worlds, stated in a Twitter Space Wednesday that there were "concerns regarding the worlds being so large."

Temptranquil, co-founder of NFT Worlds, said that a player could not "just walk" across an entire area of land without a portal or transportation system.

The NFT Worlds team is keen to see future developments. They plan to make the game as easy and as cheap as possible using an EIP-271 interface, which allows for cheaper "meta transactions" with Ethereum. NFT Worlds is also planning to establish a "global marketplace" that will allow them to sell their products online.

Because they consider Microsoft to be more developer-friendly than Roblox, the co-founders decided to use Minecraft as their platform.

ArkDev stated that Minecraft is home to a large and custom-thriving game development system.

Microsoft seems to support metaverse thinking in general, with its $68.7 million acquisition Activision Blizzard last week. According to a press release, it was partly aimed to help it develop "building blocks" for the metaverse.

However, building a Web3-based world on top of a centralized game owned billion-dollar companies is not without risks. ArkDev and Temptranquil know that Microsoft might "get rugged" them. This means that Microsoft could close down their project with legal action.

They keep in close contact with Microsoft representatives to ensure that they do not violate Minecraft's End-User License Agreement (EULA).

The EULA for Minecraft states that you are not allowed to "make commercial uses of any thing we've created" or to "try to make a profit from anything we have made." These rules could be used against NFT Worlds in future.

Tranquil stated in the Twitter Space that "we do work pretty closely avec their IP enforcement team." "They are in our Discord continuously, reviewing our chat and we have meetings."

However, Microsoft is not yet clear if they approve of the project.

Tranquil stated that they are watching us from the sidelines, but not like a formal green signal. However, Tranquil believes we are the best scenario for anyone using their product.