“We Don’t Sell Blocks” Exploring Minecraft’s Commissioning Market

We have seen a rise in videogames using the creation of content in game as their primary mode. While there is literature that has examined many aspects of these games, it is crucial to examine the potential ways to make money that emerge from their context. Our ethnographic research revealed a vibrant market for commissioning in the Minecraft creative community. Our findings highlight the three main players that comprise this market: the customers, who are the owners of Minecraft servers; the contractors, who handle the clients’ requests for Minecraft maps and the builders who are the ones responsible for the creation of said maps. Minecraft Creative Servers has proven that the commodity at stake is not in-game content as one might think but rather the process of creating it. The findings suggest that the current structure of Minecraft is influenced by commissioning, an organised process that is initiated and sustained by the community of the game. They also challenge the notion that content generation in gaming environments is free labor that is merely exploited by the game’s developers.