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Comment by recursive | Hacker News Reader

What's wrong with paid mods?

Not OP, but for me I'm wary whenever I see in-game currency (Minecoins). Thankfully there are no gambling mechanics tied in to Minecoins directly, but the server ecosystem is still rampant with gambling just the same[0].

[0] https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/3600...

I agree regarding in-game currency. I find it distasteful. But in my mind, paid mods are a different thing that can exist independently. I don't find those distasteful. I find their existence slightly positive.

If it's made by randoms, then Microsoft is barely better than a rent-seeking middleman. If it's made by Microsoft, they should just put it in the f-ing game or move on to making something new to get more money.

Neither of those really sound like a problem with Minecraft for my purposes.

> Any Mods you create for Minecraft: Java Edition from scratch belong to you (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don't sell them for money / try to make money from them

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/eula

Is that legally enforceable? If a mod doesn't contain code / assets from the game itself, what legal rights does Microsoft have over the distribution of that mod?

It's copyright infringement by being a derivative work. Maybe. I don't think it's ever been tried in court. They can still blacklist you.

Yes courts have found that game mods, even if they don't directly include any content from the original game in their distributable, count as derivative works under copyright.

> The ruling continues to apply to the legal status of video game modding, with mods viewed as derivative works that require the consent of the copyright holder. While this may legally limit the creation of mods, machinima, broadcasts, or even cheats, many game developers have authorized and encouraged some of these activities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Star_v%2E_FormGen_Inc%2E

For sure. But the unofficial non-paid mods for Bedrock allow for gambling mechanics, so long as it's not linked to real world currency, which I still find problematic for a game marketed towards kids. Link I posted is from years ago claiming that featured servers in Bedrock almost all have gambling, and nothing has changed since then.

Java edition is a lot more wild west and next-to-impossible to enforce their EULA due to the nature of distribution and installation of Java edition mods.

It feels like monetizing something that used to be free and built by passionate tinkerers for its own sake. It's destroying yet another part of that hacker culture some people so very often reminisce about on this site.

Me personally, I absolutely hate it. I got into programming to mod my favorite games of the time, Minecraft among them. My first exposure to actual code was through reading open source mods and trying to modify them to achieve my own ideas.

As far as I know, you can still write free mods outside the mod store to your heart's content, just as you ever could. The existence of paid mods doesn't seem to limit your ability to do that.

> with I Can't Believe It's Not Gambling mechanics targeting children

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