Minecraft fans have another surprise coming in the highly anticipated Discovery Update: The new in-game store will give Windows 10 and Pocket Edition players access to an assortment of digital goods created by and for members of the Minecraft community.

It won't replace the existing in-app purchases offered by Microsoft; it supplements them. In fact, those in-app purchases paved the way for this latest evolution.

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When the mobile game received its first paid add-ons — skin packs — two years ago, it wasn't even possible to play as Alex, the default female avatar; only Steve was available. It was a successful move that led to subsequent content drops: While Minecraft Marketplace will be available to players on Windows 10 Edition, Oculus which uses the Windows 10 release , and mobile devices, it's the latter group that stands to benefit the most. Where PC players have easy ways to find and install free mods, Pocket Edition players are stuck with what's sold in-app.

That's why the Minecraft team is placing a heavy emphasis on content curation. With only nine community creators in the Marketplace when it launches — Sphax, Blockception, Blockworks, Eneija Silverleaf, Imagiverse, Noxcrew, Polymaps, Qwertyuiopthepie, and Razzleberry Fox — it's easier to ensure a certain level of quality across all releases.

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All currency and purchases carry across all versions of Minecraft that include Marketplace. Using a custom form of currency like Minecraft Coins comes with some advantages.

On the player side, it gives the Marketplace team more flexibility to set prices that fall outside of standard app store pricing denominations: It also lets creators set their own prices on whatever they're selling.

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On the creator side, Minecraft Coins makes it easier for those providing the content to see how their income breaks down.

Turning builders into businesses is one of the goals with Marketplace, and transparency is essential for creating a trust in these relationships.

Since every app store operates differently, a coin-based system just made more sense. A 30 percent cut of every sale goes to the app store in question — this is an industry-standard — and the lion's share of what's left goes to the creators.

There are real costs of goods associated with every creator we bring into the program," Thornton said.

The easiest thing to say is: The contracts that we have written with them are more precise than that obviously, but that's what we're sharing. There's an intention to add more creators over time, but never in an "all are welcome" sort of way.

A completely open Marketplace would pose a challenge to continuing curation, especially since one of the goals is to let committed content creators turn their Minecraft work into an income-generating business. The Discovery Update will be coming to Windows 10 Edition and Pocket Edition with Marketplace and a number of other new features sometime this spring. We're using cookies to improve your experience.

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