Microsoft bans advertising agencies from creating Minecraft mod for promotions

Mojang today announced that they are updating their Commercial Usage Guidelines that is related to promotions within Minecraft. According to their new change, advertising agencies and corporations are not allowed to build Minecraft mod or server to advertise unrelated products or for organizations to promote their causes.

If you are an ad agency, corporation, non-profit, or politician, you can’t do these kinds of things or hire someone to do them:

• Build a Minecraft mod or server that promotes unrelated products in playable form; e.g., if you are a restaurant chain, you can’t market your restaurant by releasing a mod that includes your restaurant built out of Minecraft blocks.
• Build a Minecraft map or mod that markets a movie or TV show; e.g., if you’re a movie studio, you can’t make a map that uses Minecraft blocks to build out the fictional world of the movie or its characters, and you can’t make an official movie trailer out of gameplay footage from that map or mod.
• It’s worth mentioning that fans of a particular restaurant, movie, or some other thing are still free to build things in Minecraft that represent or celebrate it so long as the goal or focus is not to promote or sell that stuff. The new rules only apply to companies or organisations that are using Minecraft to sell their products or promote their causes.

You can read the new rules in details in the section of the Guidelines called Building Promotions with Minecraft.