Minecraft, the wildly popular game that lets players create infinite worlds, will soon allow community developers to sell storylines, games within the game, new landscapes, and adventure maps directly to players.
“Minecraft Marketplace” is launching this spring with a handful of developers authorized to sell items using a digital currency called “Minecraft Coins.” The game does already have a store but it currently only sells items created by the Minecraft team, according to Bloomberg News.
“The idea is to give Minecraft creators another way to make a living from the game, allowing them to support themselves in the creation of ever-greater projects, while giving Pocket and Windows 10 players access to a growing catalog of fun stuff — curated and supplied by us,” Minecraft said in an announcement.
Redmond, Wash. software giant Microsoft acquired Minecraft-maker Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014. Allowing third-party developers to sell their creations is one of the biggest changes to the game since Microsoft took it over.
The Marketplace will be available on mobile platforms and Windows 10 but it isn’t launching on Xbox or PlayStation consoles.
Minecraft Coins can be purchased in most popular app stores. Players must have the coins to buy items in the Minecraft Marketplace. It’s not clear how much of money goes into the pockets of developers. Minecraft says, “the app store platforms take a 30 percent cut, but creators get the majority after that.”
Minecraft will be launching a beta of Marketplace on Android this April and plans to roll out the final version sometime later this spring.
