What Breaking Through Looks Like
The Sudden Rise of “NFT Worlds”
“And then what?”
“And then what?” has become my code and my mantra as I peruse Metaverse projects. I find it’s pretty effective at tunneling under all the aesthetics. It gets pretty quickly at the core utility that either makes the project worthwhile or persuades me to take a pass.
“This project will allow you to create a world of your own design to view in virtual reality!”
“Okay, and then what?”
“You look at it.”
“ Okay…”
I can’t remember exactly when I first saw the “NFT Worlds” project, but it was early on. I remember browsing their website and comprehending the core value prop: each NFT I purchased gave me the right to own and develop a giant world compatible with Minecraft. At this point, the mantra rose up within me again, incredulous as always: “Yeah? And then what?” I can’t remember if they, at that time, had included that there would be mechanics for play-to-earn games on their platform — mechanics that any of Minecraft’s 100 million+ user base could access. I’ve been telling myself there wasn’t, but it’s probably just a self-preserving fiction. The odds are that it was there, and I either failed to notice or didn’t care.
And so, I missed out on yet another moonshot. NFT Worlds’ ten thousand maps were initially given away for free. As of this writing, some few months later, they are now worth at least 18.2 ETH ($48,370) each. Last night, it was just 14 ETH. But this is only the latest miss on my part — one of many. I got none of that practically free five figures, but I try not to get too upset about it. After all, you can’t lose what you never had (credit to Muddy Waters). But I also can’t spend what I ain’t got, can I?
My fallback position is that missing the rocket ride wasn’t entirely my fault. After all, browsing “Web3 Twitter” seems to activate the same cluster of neurons that staring out my windshield does. There’s the dim perception of information rushing towards me, but then it passes under the bottom of the screen, and my index finger bats it down into the void: that great vacuous pit into which all old social media disappears. It’s unusual for my attention to adhere to anything at all on Twitter. Each post, another telephone pole whipping past.
So, I’m not exactly certain what it was about NFT Worlds that got my attention initially. Regardless, they successfully diverted me to their website for a short while.
The Goods
In retrospect, NFT Worlds has that particular “Why-didn’t-I-think-of-that?” breed of brilliance. Rather than create a metaverse entirely from scratch, they’ve put it on top of literally the best-selling computer game ever made, which also happens to be largely open-source. This allows people to create enormous worlds with the same astounding complexity and customization that is common within Minecraft. Moreover, anyone with a copy of Minecraft will be able to access them immediately. That’s over 130 million active players. The leverage that this generates for the project is nuts.
“And then what?” you may be asking. “You made a Minecraft server. Now what?” This is where the draw exists for users. NFT Worlds is incorporating a currency ($WRLD) and mechanisms to allow for the creation of play-to-earn games on their maps. They will provide $WRLD to players, which they can then spend to get items, perks, and so on. NFT Worlds argues that doing so will bring many people to their platform who used to design and play on Minecraft for free. By going to NFT Worlds instead, they have the potential to earn while continuing to do what they already enjoy. I think it’s a brilliant idea, and I do wonder why nobody else thought of it first.
By the Grace of Bill Gates
Or, perhaps other projects did think of it, but figured it would never fly. Microsoft bought Minecraft for $2.5 billion back in 2014, making them the current owners of the platform. But, despite Microsoft’s reputation for being cutthroat with other businesses, Minecraft’s End User License Agreement (EULA) still provides a wide berth for creators. The bold text says there’s really only one rule:
It would seem, on its surface, that “making commercial use” and “trying to make money from Minecraft” are precisely what NFT Worlds is attempting. Won’t Microsoft just smash them as soon as they figure that out? I spoke to ArkDev about the matter. He’s one of NFT Worlds’ co-founders, and I tried to press him a bit. Once he came to realize that I had read over the EULA, I felt like he opened up a bit on the details. Referring to the specific language it uses, he replied “We haven’t directly commercialized because our worlds were given away for free in the beginning… [Our] income comes from speculation in trading via royalties when people exchange [them] to access the tech we’ve built ourselves. That’s a layer on the Minecraft platform that enables everything we’re doing. Not Minecraft itself. So as far as commercialization, nothing of theirs has been sold.”
It’s really clever, but kind of in the way that teenagers are when they break rules: finding a way to obey the letter of the law while violating its spirit. To be honest, it didn’t seem convincing to me. But still, I have to concede that if Microsoft were to step in, the responses from NFT Worlds would be pretty reasonable. One could argue that Microsoft hasn’t done this for the other money-making projects built on Minecraft. One could also point out that if Microsoft had a problem, they could have stopped NFT Worlds earlier on. They were, after all, in communication. These probably aren’t legal arguments, per se, but they are sensible.
Microsoft’s primary concern, as ArkDev sees it, is really just protecting kids from inappropriate content. They don’t want anything of that sort in a context where it could be associated with Minecraft. So, it’s a brand concern; not a money concern. They do mention something similar to this in their EULA as well:
Still, it’s practically Internet law that any corner of it left untended will eventually sprout porn and harassment. It seems that NFT Worlds cannot possibly avoid explicit, offensive, or gambling-related content ending up on their platform. Under the Web 2.0 paradigm, they could just delete it, but that’s not the case here. NFT Worlds has structured their platform in a decentralized fashion, meaning that they are not able to police or control what anyone is doing in the world that they own. Their only recourse, according to ArkDev, is to delist the world from their website and software, making it harder to find. There’s also a voting mechanism to prevent the $WRLD currency from being made available on worlds that are acting up. This would be a disincentive for sure, but as I understand it, it’s also totally possible for another currency to be used instead.
I could imagine a situation in which Microsoft sees someone misbehaving on NFT Worlds, and construes it as a threat to the kid-friendly Minecraft brand. When NFT Worlds fails to remove the content — because they can’t — Microsoft takes action against the platform. Again, I expressed this concern to ArkDev. He assured me that Microsoft “understand[s] with the decentralized nature there’s only an extent to what we can do” and “As long as we’re taking action within our ability and being proactive, at this point in time they’re happy with that.” I asked him if he had written proof of this mutual understanding, but none was available.
Ultimately, it feels like a project that depends upon the goodwill and patience of the Microsoft Corporation to survive. They’re not exactly Exxon Mobil, but they’re powerful and willing to play dirty, so I see Microsoft as the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room. If at some point they change their mind about NFT Worlds, they have a lot of weight to throw around. I shudder to think what would happen to them if subject to Satya Nadella’s silverback fury. Even ArkDev acknowledged that there’s a certain degree of risk in this for them, but it’s a calculated risk. He seems unconcerned, adding that he has contacts within Microsoft that might step in to help if he ever came under real pressure. “I have heard absolutely nothing to date from anyone internally or directly speaking with us that has given us any reason to be concerned at the moment. It’s all positive. They’re curious to see what we build.”
What They’ve Built
I wanted to have a look for myself. So, at age 35, I finally shelled out to buy Minecraft. I have to admit to being biased: I’ve always kind of hated Minecraft. There’s something about the inexpressive, blocky characters with their squeaky, C-3PO-like movements — something about the total lack of curving lines anywhere — that just bugs me. I was willing to put that aside for the sake of journalism, though.
I set out to jump into NFT Worlds and see how it plays. I knew from reading their website that I first needed to download version 1.17 of the game. That was a little annoying, but not too high of a hurdle. I got it installed and navigated over to NFT Worlds’ “Play Now” section in the hopes that I might, well, play now. No luck. None of the worlds worked. Despite what the instructions told me, it turns out I needed version 1.16 for one world, 1.17x for another, and 1.17.1 for the rest. So, I left, admittedly somewhat peeved that following the instructions actually prevented me from playing, and I grabbed version 1.17.1 to try again. I loaded it up, and…success! I was in!
Just kidding. The SMP server was full. I tried again later in the day with the same results. Full server. Apparently that’s the norm there at the moment. In a very recent interview, ArkDev said that there’s typically a queue of a couple thousand people waiting to get in. I’ll pass on waiting in that line. There were four other worlds to choose from, though. I tried two others, and those both failed me, resulting in long and indecipherable error messages. But, finally and suddenly, I managed to get into the one called “Dino World”. Okay! I’m in!
Kind of. I couldn’t actually access any of the playable content there. There was a sort of entrance area when you log in, but the teleporter wasn’t working to bring me to the “Survivor Mode” part, so I was essentially stuck in the lobby. I meandered for a bit, but ultimately found nobody to bother and nothing to do, so I figured I’d exit this world and try my luck with the fifth and final option. To my surprise, I got in there, too. I ran along the bridge to the main area, and found a couple of other players silently ambling around. But there really wasn’t much going on here, either. I found myself awkwardly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with some guy as we read a low-res map, and the discomfort was surprisingly similar to my real-world experience of people standing just a bit too close. Once again, though, I ultimately found nothing to do besides sightsee. So, I took a bit of a tour, got bored, and left.
The experience was comically bad. But, there was potential! And if you’ve spent any time in Web3, you’re aware that a little potential is all you need. People have put up thousands of dollars to participate in projects with significantly less of it than NFT Worlds has to offer.
Headlong
From the outside, all this Metaverse stuff can seem like a gold rush: mindless speculation with the hopes of fast riches. Deeper in its waters, where I find myself now that I write about the topic so often… frankly it still looks pretty much like that. But it becomes clear that it’s at least not mindless. The people I’ve encountered in this world, ArkDev included, are some of the most intelligent I’ve ever met. Buyers and founders do lead with their heads, but man is it headlong. Full commitment. It can get reckless, but when something breaks through, it’s often with terrifying momentum.
NFT Worlds has barreled into the top tier of virtual real estate with such speed that I wonder if people are even fully aware yet that it’s happened. The average price per NFT World in November 2021 was $752. Now, just three months later, the floor price is over $48,000. That means the cheapest NFT World is more expensive than that of Sandbox, Decentraland, Somnium Space, and Cryptovoxels combined. In the span of a single month, NFT Worlds has blown apart, burned, and buried the long-standing meme of the “Big 4” metaverses. Now there are five.
“In the span of a single month, NFT Worlds has blown apart, burned, and buried the long-standing meme of the ‘Big 4’ metaverses.”
As I said before: headlong. It’s really the way that we all move here in Web3, creators and investors alike. I suspect that a lot of it has to do with the generation to which so many of us belong: The Millennials. I’m one myself. Many of us have plodded into adulthood with a real sense of having surprisingly little to lose. We’re a generation that carries with us a certain degree of resentment — resentment that the world we were prepared for never came. We were inculcated with the assumption that, if we study and work hard, we can find “a good job” and move up in life. Instead, we found stagnation, the gig economy, and tuition bills that may outlive us. Many of us carry a sense of urgency — an inner need to make up for the lost time and catch up to where we were already supposed to be.
When a reasonable opportunity gets noticed, commitment is swift. Headlong motion. We don’t wait — can’t wait — to be guided by the incremental proof that we’re on the right track. Instead, we’ll try to drag that proof in behind us as we bust in. Whether it’s a tech startup examining a brilliant idea that has some obvious risks, or a small investor considering a play experience that would be lackluster if not for the glimmer of promise, we’ll take it and we’ll run with it. NFT Worlds ran with it, and the purchasers of their land ran with them. Together, they changed the whole paradigm in a month. In the context of the Metaverse in 2022, this is what breaking through looks like.
