Microsoft Gaming is famous for maintaining a harsh response towards the inclusion of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in the gaming verse. In a recent interview with Bloomberg in the exclusive interview series Studio 1.0, its CEO Phil Spencer shed light on how he feels about NFTs and Metaverse together. He has conveyed his and his firm’s stance very clearly and precisely.
Phil Spencer has said that gamers are in the Metaverse environment since the beginning of digital gaming. He also cited the reasons why he has concerns regarding the addition of NFTs in gaming and play to earn gaming modules. His point of view clearly depicted the stance of Microsoft as a whole and why Microsoft had immediately withdrawn its support for NFT-based projects.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Believes the Metaverse is not New
Phil Spencer of Microsoft Gaming firmly believes that gamers have been in the Metaverse for a long time now. He elaborated that gamers are not getting the concept of Metaverse because it is nothing new for them so it doesn’t attract them. The features that are being portrayed as unique and novel – play to earn (P2E) and avatars – are in reality been used by them for the last 30 years.
He added that gamers are provided avatars and a way to communicate with other gamers in the Metaverse but the gamers have been doing this already. They spend time and create avatars and earn some coins and then selling their identities and performance to those who have money but not the time to spend. They have created and earned themselves names and they are earning real money as well by selling their avatars to the rich. He cited this as a reason why he was against the play-to-earn gaming concept.
Phil Spencer also answered why gamers are hesitant to adopt the Metaverse. He said that monetization is already available for them in the Web2 (indirectly) so the gamers don’t feel the need for Web3 unless some new features are innovated.
Mojang Studio Restricts NFT Projects
Recently, Mojang Studio has revamped its guidelines for the community and Minecraft to stop NFT and blockchain projects from using its platform in any possible way. It is pertinent to mention here that Mojang Studio is owned by Microsoft since 2014 and its policy update clearly reflects the apprehension of Microsoft Gaming. Mojang’s move had attracted harsh criticism on Twitter for blindsiding NFT Worlds.
The use of NFTs is believed to produce an environment in Minecraft that is characterized by unstable access, which is one of the reasons why NFT projects have been allowed to make use of the platform. The management team at Microsoft considered projects involving NFTs to be “exploitative.” The decision made by Microsoft had an effect on a number of platforms that revolved around NFTs, but the one that was most negatively impacted was NFT Worlds. Because of pressure from outside sources, NFT Worlds had to abandon its plan to use Minecraft as the basis of the entire project. NFT Worlds was using the source code of Minecraft as the ground of its NFT ecosystem.
