Block chains where you can't (ever) mine. Are they considered private?

[astralliam]

I've been taking a look at decentraland. Look interesting, decentralised VR. Sounds like something that I'd be interested in.

But wait, you can't mine the blockchain? You have to buy tokens only decentraland can produce? This is sounding a lot less decentralised and a lot more ICO scam.

What do you think?

Should we considered this kind of blockchain 'private'? and a long way from 'decentralised'?