If you asked almost any consumer of video games from our generation about the titles that have impacted them the most in their upbringing, I would wager the shirt off my back that Minecraft would make an appearance at least once in that conversation. In fact, it’s the first game that pops into my mind whenever I am asked that question. It is undoubtedly one of the most influential and boundary-forging video games of all time, if not a shoo-in for the number one spot. I have even heard many people make convincing arguments that Minecraft could be the best video game ever created. There was certainly a time when that was the case, but this is no longer the truth. Minecraft is a dying game, and it’s solely the developers’ fault.
Do you remember Mojang’s infamous Mob Votes? At one of their regular conventions, the developers of Minecraft pitched a novel idea to have fans vote for one of three mobs to be added to the game. This is all fine and good until you understand the context in which these yearly polls occurred. Mojang had pretty much entirely neglected to add anything of substance to their game despite having more than enough resources to do so. These resources were being directed toward Minecraft spinoff games that have since inevitably fallen flat on their faces, and it seems they have forgotten about the original fanbase that is giving them the funding that they choose to waste in such an indiscriminate fashion. People were mad, and rightfully so. This was around the time when the first Mob Vote took place, and the fanbase was irate. The very notion that one measly creature was all they were getting after such a long drought in new content was too much, and artists in the community began to create 20th-century-style propaganda posters arguing that Mojang was being tyrannical and that the people deserved all three mobs to be implemented into the game.
This is not an isolated incident but rather a single example of a trending developmental laziness that has been taking place since 2019. Besides the pretty transformative “Caves and Cliffs” updates, there has not been any substantial change in the game since 2018’s “The Update Aquatic,” and even that wasn’t nearly as substantial as it could have been for a year of dormancy. Some argue that the trial chambers in this year’s “Tricky Trials” update are new and interesting, but to me, they feel more like a fairly unimpressive mod and less like a true addition to the main game. Sure, they also added some village reworks, bees and some changes to the Nether, but, for a game like Minecraft, that is not enough change to span five entire years as one of the most dominant video games on the entire planet.
Minecraft has a core player base due to its immense legacy, but even these people get aggravated by not only the lack of interesting changes being added to the game but also the ineptitude with which the developers implement the changes that do go through. They are often extremely buggy and require multiple patches to get right, and even then can sometimes detract from the game more than they add to it. Take 2017’s victor of the Mob Vote, the phantom. It is a creature that flies around in trios at night and attacks the player from above. While interesting in concept, it is now universally hated by the player base because of the unwelcome challenge it provides. It was marketed as something much different than it actually is, and it often feels more like a “wrong place, wrong time” scenario rather than a genuine test of skill.
Compiling all of these flaws together creates a large accusatory finger directed directly at Mojang. People have been beginning to express this sentiment more and more, and if Minecraft does not begin to listen to its loyal fanbase, they’re going to begin leaving in droves.
