When Mojang banned NFT projects from the Minecraft ecosystem in 2022, many blockchain-enabled server communities died overnight. For Max Holmes and Braydon Batungbacal, co-founders of NFT Worlds and long-time builders in the Minecraft private-server scene, it was more than a business setback. It was a strategic wake-up call.
The ban made it clear: anything built on someone else’s rails could be taken away at any time. That’s what inspired HYTOPIA originally, and it’s latest pivot.
“After struggling with getting our client to be compatible with the Minecraft server protocol, which was insane code-spaghetti, we decided we couldn’t be dependent on another company’s platform and its limitations any longer,” Holmes said in an interview with GamesBeat.
Holmes added, “There’s a ton of engineering talent out there, both experienced and just getting started, that will never get their chance at building games. We released the HYTOPIA SDK last year to give them a platform that’s incredibly easy to develop for. We’re talking playable games built in a matter of days—eventually hours if we’re successful. It also gave us the freedom to build a creator-first revenue split and secondary royalties that are simply not possible when you’re a layer on top of someone else’s product.”
With the HYTOPIA SDK maturing and a 1.0 monetization launch coming, the founders say they’ve finally reached the phase they envisioned back in 2022: a full-stack, creator-first UGC platform designed to compete in a Roblox-dominated market.
Building a clean slate
Holmes said the decision to walk away from compatibility wasn’t driven by analytics—it was driven by business need. Trying to mimic or retrofit Minecraft’s architecture meant inheriting its limitations: fragmented server code, hard-to-modify behaviors, and a protocol that wasn’t designed for rapid iteration or modern monetization models.
Their solution was to rebuild the entire stack from scratch. HYTOPIA now runs its own client, server, networking layer, and engine. The team describes it as a hybrid of Roblox’s ease-of-use and Minecraft’s visual language, but without the technical debt of either. Worlds are built from blocks, but edited through a web-based graphical user interface (GUI). Multiplayer is baked in from the start, and the blocky aesthetic reduces performance overhead enough that the client can run instantly in a browser.
“Since February, when we launched the SDK, we’ve grown to over 143K user accounts created, which have logged nearly 2 million minutes of playtime,” Holmes said. “Last month we saw 150% growth in both users and engagement, and we’re now averaging 5,000 game sessions per day. Also, we have new creators coming to us every day saying they want to develop for HYTOPIA. The biggest challenge for us right now is getting the word out, because once developers use the SDK and understand the platform, it usually clicks.”
Since conducting that interview, a HYTOPIA representative confirmed to GamesBeat that as of November, there have been over 100,000 app downloads with 20,000 daily active users. Once monetization launches, creators will receive 85% of the revenue.
With the full-stack architecture in place, the cornerstone of HYTOPIA’s pitch is speed. The company migrated the entire platform to a JavaScript/TypeScript SDK last year, letting developers build multiplayer games using a language most creators already know.
“We want our game creators to focus as much as possible on the game creation, and less on performance optimization and cross-compatibility,” Holmes said.
Challenging the status quo
Roblox remains the undisputed leader in the UGC space, but its size comes with trade-offs: competition for visibility is fierce, monetization is complex, and the effective revenue share for creators can fall below 25% after platform fees. HYTOPIA is positioning itself as a counterweight. It’s a platform that gives creators more control, faster iteration cycles, and simpler monetization.
Holmes said migrating teams from the Minecraft-compatible era to today’s HYTOPIA has its own learning curve, but that the platform is intentionally familiar to both Roblox and Minecraft developers. Tooling blends block-based building with visual editors, and the UGC economy centers on cosmetics and small-ticket items.
“Being on the bleeding edge of technology is a challenge,” Holmes said. “Crypto lacks regulation and has obvious user experience and security issues. Many Web3 companies are blind to these problems or just ignore them. We see the shortcomings and are dedicated to solving those issues while still retaining the benefits of crypto, such as true player ownership of their earned in-game assets.”
Holmes added, “Our plan is to allow users to decide how they pay for in-game assets, but have that revenue converted to $HYBUX (HYTOPIA’s token) at the other end when the creator receives it. Since the player/creator has complete custody and ownership of their assets, they can take the token and do what they wish with it (including selling it). Because all these systems are on chain, in-game purchases/transactions are permanent and final on the blockchain.”
As HYTOPIA approaches its 1.0 launch, Holmes says the team is actively looking for the next wave of breakout creators.
“We are actively looking for the unknown creators out there with a passion to build a viral hit on HYTOPIA,” Holmes said. “We are platform-agnostic and non-exclusive, and we want to empower and cultivate developers, wherever they come from. We’re looking for developers that are ready for a fresh platform and big opportunity, so we can grow together as partners and make fun games that players love.”
To learn more about HYTOPIA, check out the official builder website to get started making something.