Minecraft NFT version of OP Prison coming soon

Minecraft may have made its stance on NFTs quite clear, but that doesn’t stop the release of a new one Minecraft NFT games. Minecraft OP Prison is a collaboration between official partner Meraki and blockchain studio Good Gaming, and will feature integration with NFT platform MicroBuddies.

Back in July, Mojang and Microsoft announced that NFT and blockchain games were not welcome Minecraft worlds or servers. Despite this, official Minecraft partner and content creation studio Meraki has announced a new version of Minecraft OP Prisona popular prison RPG server made by Good Gaming, and it will have NFT integration.

According to a press release, the new version of Minecraft OP Prison will contain “cross-functionality between Minecraft and the MicroBuddies ecosystems”. This will be facilitated through “a brand new GOO trading system”, with GOO here referring to the cryptocurrency used to buy and sell MicroBuddies’ NFTs.

Mojang’s guidelines regarding NFTs i Minecraft are quite unambiguous. The studio says NFT integration in Minecraft is “generally not something we would support or allow”. It goes on to say that blockchain technology is “not allowed to be integrated” into Minecraft client or server apps, nor can it be used to “create NFTs associated with in-game content”.

Since Meraki and Good Gaming are tight-lipped about exactly how NFT integration will work Minecraft OP Prison will work, it is entirely possible that they have found a way around these guidelines. After all, if you don’t create Minecraft NFTs and instead allows players to earn currency that allows them to buy NFTs elsewhere, that’s different I guess.

When we asked Meraki about Minecraft OP Prison, CEO Dion Wichgers told us that as far as he knows, the game will feature “no direct blockchain integration,” so it wouldn’t violate Mojang’s policies. However, Wichgers also told us that this was Good Gaming’s project, so we should contact them (which we did, and we haven’t heard back).

We asked for clarification on exactly what Meraki is contributing to this project, for which Wichgers told us the studio is “providing the building blocks” (i.e. maps) Minecraft OP Prison. Wichgers didn’t seem concerned about this, saying it’s “not much [Meraki] can do” if the buildings or services are used in projects that are in violation Minecraftits NFT guidelines.

We also asked Mojang for comment on this story. They told us they were unable to “share anything definitive at this time” as they were in the process of updating Minecraftits guidelines with reference to NFTs, and that the situation with Meraki and Minecraft OP Prison would require “deeper analysis”.

It’s worth saying, though, that Mojang frowns on NFTs in general; the company says NFTs “do not include” the whole Minecraft the community and that they “create a scenario with the haves and the have-nots”, which they say is contrary to the atmosphere they want Minecraft to make. As such, though Minecraft OP Prison does not technically conflict Minecraftits guidelines, it arguably violates them in spirit.

Meraki and Minecraft NFTs: a brief history

As a studio, Meraki has historically been involved in Minecraft NFT games and developers. The studio has worked on projects such as Seabums’ The Conservation CoastThe turkeys Megaverseand NFT World’s project, all of which either directly or indirectly contained NFT integration. Since Mojang made its NFT stance clear, Meraki has stayed away from the subject, although it now appears that the studio remains determined to find a way for the worlds of Minecraft and NFTs to meet.

The NFT Worlds project itself is currently working on a new game to compete with Minecraftwhich brings together “the best visionary developers” from Minecraft content creation community to facilitate that project. It’s not clear if those developers include Meraki or Good Gaming, but NFT World’s new project will have similar core mechanics to Minecraft while offering what the developers call “modernization and active development Minecraft has been missing for years.” Presumably by that they mean cryptocurrency integration.

This is yet another battle line being drawn in the battle between NFT games and those who are skeptical of them. In particular, Valve has banned cryptocurrency and NFT games from Steam (although companies are finding ways around it), and digital platform Itch.io has described NFTs as a “scam”, although that hasn’t stopped prominent industry veterans and studios from embracing the blockchain. Nor has it stopped other storefronts from accepting NFT bets; recently, the Epic Games Store listed its very first Web3 game Blanko’s Block Party.