Let me tell you a story. In 2013, I went to my (then) close friend's house for a birthday party. To this day, that day was one of the best in my life. Chief among the many reasons that this day was one of the best I have ever had was due to their ownership of Minecraft. The game was, in my eyes, likely the best one I had ever seen. The idea of being able to make anything given enough imagination was something I had never seen before. Playing it, I saw hours fly by in the time that I thought minutes took place.
Now, why did I start a negative Minecraft review with one of my best experiences with the game? Easy. To show you what Minecraft used to fufill. It was a game so fun, it (and Roblox) easily took over a huge share in the Simple-Casual market.
Fast forward six or so years, and I pick the game back up circa 2019, and have a blast. 1.13 was one of the best updates I had ever seen. Sure, there were problems even then, (more on that later) but there was simply so much new stuff that the game was still probably at the top of my list.
Now, we fast forward to the current day. Minecraft's servers are (at best) 90% P2W, Minecraft chat is censored in singleplayer worlds, you can get banned from playing singleplayer in Bedrock (effectively voiding your purchase without cancelling of Realms), and the game has boiled down to triviality. But wait, there's more! Java Edition optimization is so bad that mods like Sodium and Optifine are required to run the game, and the Minecraft Marketplace gets money by scamming kids. Let's go over these points one by one.
1. Minecraft Servers and the MCUG (Minecraft Commercial Usage Guidelines).
Fun fact: Did you know that P2W servers are actually against Minecraft's MCUG? If you don't know what the MCUG is, it is basically the rules about selling Minecraft products: like: *merchandise *videos of Minecraft Content *and you guessed it, servers!
On the topic of Servers, the MCUG says that you CAN: *ask for donations (as opposed to direct charges) IF you do not offer the individual donor something in exchange that only he or she can use. You may offer server wide rewards if donation goals are achieved though.
*sell entitlements that affect gameplay provided that they do not adversely or negatively another player's experience and provided they do not give a competitive gameplay advantage. A competitive gameplay advantage is something that, given identical skill levels, time investment, and circumstances, can cause one player or group to perform better than another."
In short, you CAN make money from Minecraft servers, BUT you cannot give players the ability to purchase something that gives them any form of advantage. Minecraft simply fails to punish for the rules that they set, which is ironic considering my second point:
2. Banned From Singleplayer
Yup, you can get banned from singleplayer on Bedrock Edition. All you have to do is join a Minecraft Realm, start swearing, get reported, and there you are! Your purchase has thus been voided, and there is no refund. Also: fun fact: getting banned from singleplayer doesn't cancel your Realms subscription, so it will still charge you per month for a game you now effectively do not own. Mojang can't even seem to tell you why you were banned, leaving only a generic message and no clear way to appeal. Combine this with exploits that still exist that allow you to report someone for messages they did not send, or other methods of inducing sampling bias, and it has been easier than ever to ban anyone you want! The only way to counter this is to use anti-report mods, which have become essential to even think about playing Multiplayer of any type.
Speaking of reliance on mods:
3. 30 Seconds Per Frame. (Java)
Minecraft is headed by one of the largest companies, period. Microsoft easily makes US$200B/year, so you think they could use even a tiny amount of that money to make Minecraft run efficiently, but no. Minecraft 1.19 can't even start on low end computers, but 1.8 can run silky smooth 30fps with medium chunk render distance. To even think about running later versions, you need at least 5 mods. It's much more of a challenge to install the game than to beat it.
Speaking of:
4. Don't Mine, Don't Craft.
Minecraft is now absolutely *trivial* to beat. Mending and Unbreaking make armor and tools, well, unbreakable, Villagers print armor faster than should even be physically possible, totems can be found within ~2 hr into a game, trivializing the remainder of the game, Endermen are no longer necessary to beat the game, and diamonds have been added to so many loot tables and have so few uses that it is often best to chuck diamonds out of your inventory. This, mixed with the addition of Phantoms force it such that the only mobs you are likely to see many of in a run are in the Nether, and most of these can easily be avoided by either pillaring, wearing gold, or simply listening to the audio in the game and bringing a bow. Mojang clearly tried to fix this by adding the Warden, but it can only be found underground, strengthening this 'Don't mine, don't craft' playstyle thousandfold.
5. Minecraft and Money.
Minecraft's monetization is horrible, to say the least. With the Marketplace often scamming small children for things they could have gotten for free, Minecraft is on a streak of giving less for more money. Combine this with the anti-LGBTQ sentiment often expressed on the Marketplace, and we begin to realize that Minecraft's shop is many times more dangerous to small children than swearing in a Minecraft server ever was or will be.
6. Finale
Keep in mind that the things listed above are just the tip of the tip of the mountainous iceberg that are Minecraft's many issues. Minecraft has become a game that you often cannot and often should not play, and if you do manage to load in a game, you are either disappointed by the lack of features, or the lack of balancing. Even Mojang and Microsoft seem to dissuade you from playing, by banning your accounts for seemingly no reason. I loved Minecraft as a game, and now not only has it failed as a game, but it has also failed as a service.
TL/DR: Minecraft has failed as both a game, and a service.
Now, why did I start a negative Minecraft review with one of my best experiences with the game? Easy. To show you what Minecraft used to fufill. It was a game so fun, it (and Roblox) easily took over a huge share in the Simple-Casual market.
Fast forward six or so years, and I pick the game back up circa 2019, and have a blast. 1.13 was one of the best updates I had ever seen. Sure, there were problems even then, (more on that later) but there was simply so much new stuff that the game was still probably at the top of my list.
Now, we fast forward to the current day. Minecraft's servers are (at best) 90% P2W, Minecraft chat is censored in singleplayer worlds, you can get banned from playing singleplayer in Bedrock (effectively voiding your purchase without cancelling of Realms), and the game has boiled down to triviality. But wait, there's more! Java Edition optimization is so bad that mods like Sodium and Optifine are required to run the game, and the Minecraft Marketplace gets money by scamming kids. Let's go over these points one by one.
1. Minecraft Servers and the MCUG (Minecraft Commercial Usage Guidelines).
Fun fact: Did you know that P2W servers are actually against Minecraft's MCUG? If you don't know what the MCUG is, it is basically the rules about selling Minecraft products: like: *merchandise *videos of Minecraft Content *and you guessed it, servers!
On the topic of Servers, the MCUG says that you CAN: *ask for donations (as opposed to direct charges) IF you do not offer the individual donor something in exchange that only he or she can use. You may offer server wide rewards if donation goals are achieved though.
*sell entitlements that affect gameplay provided that they do not adversely or negatively another player's experience and provided they do not give a competitive gameplay advantage. A competitive gameplay advantage is something that, given identical skill levels, time investment, and circumstances, can cause one player or group to perform better than another."
In short, you CAN make money from Minecraft servers, BUT you cannot give players the ability to purchase something that gives them any form of advantage. Minecraft simply fails to punish for the rules that they set, which is ironic considering my second point:
2. Banned From Singleplayer
Yup, you can get banned from singleplayer on Bedrock Edition. All you have to do is join a Minecraft Realm, start swearing, get reported, and there you are! Your purchase has thus been voided, and there is no refund. Also: fun fact: getting banned from singleplayer doesn't cancel your Realms subscription, so it will still charge you per month for a game you now effectively do not own. Mojang can't even seem to tell you why you were banned, leaving only a generic message and no clear way to appeal. Combine this with exploits that still exist that allow you to report someone for messages they did not send, or other methods of inducing sampling bias, and it has been easier than ever to ban anyone you want! The only way to counter this is to use anti-report mods, which have become essential to even think about playing Multiplayer of any type.
Speaking of reliance on mods:
3. 30 Seconds Per Frame. (Java)
Minecraft is headed by one of the largest companies, period. Microsoft easily makes US$200B/year, so you think they could use even a tiny amount of that money to make Minecraft run efficiently, but no. Minecraft 1.19 can't even start on low end computers, but 1.8 can run silky smooth 30fps with medium chunk render distance. To even think about running later versions, you need at least 5 mods. It's much more of a challenge to install the game than to beat it.
Speaking of:
4. Don't Mine, Don't Craft.
Minecraft is now absolutely *trivial* to beat. Mending and Unbreaking make armor and tools, well, unbreakable, Villagers print armor faster than should even be physically possible, totems can be found within ~2 hr into a game, trivializing the remainder of the game, Endermen are no longer necessary to beat the game, and diamonds have been added to so many loot tables and have so few uses that it is often best to chuck diamonds out of your inventory. This, mixed with the addition of Phantoms force it such that the only mobs you are likely to see many of in a run are in the Nether, and most of these can easily be avoided by either pillaring, wearing gold, or simply listening to the audio in the game and bringing a bow. Mojang clearly tried to fix this by adding the Warden, but it can only be found underground, strengthening this 'Don't mine, don't craft' playstyle thousandfold.
5. Minecraft and Money.
Minecraft's monetization is horrible, to say the least. With the Marketplace often scamming small children for things they could have gotten for free, Minecraft is on a streak of giving less for more money. Combine this with the anti-LGBTQ sentiment often expressed on the Marketplace, and we begin to realize that Minecraft's shop is many times more dangerous to small children than swearing in a Minecraft server ever was or will be.
6. Finale
Keep in mind that the things listed above are just the tip of the tip of the mountainous iceberg that are Minecraft's many issues. Minecraft has become a game that you often cannot and often should not play, and if you do manage to load in a game, you are either disappointed by the lack of features, or the lack of balancing. Even Mojang and Microsoft seem to dissuade you from playing, by banning your accounts for seemingly no reason. I loved Minecraft as a game, and now not only has it failed as a game, but it has also failed as a service.
TL/DR: Minecraft has failed as both a game, and a service.