Mojang Studios is taking away players’ ability to choose what kind of content they see in the future Minecraft updates, and this could be a really great solution.
This Minecraft The developer announced that it was withdrawing its divisive crowd vote via a blog post on Monday. Started in 2017, Mob Voting was a community event where the developers presented players with a selection of possible creatures to add to the game. During this, people would vote to choose their favorites, and the developers would add them. It sounds cute enough, but the event was ultimately met with massive criticism from fans who felt the practice was abandoning great ideas; in 2023, players organized a Change.org petition was organized to get rid of the crowd vote, which was signed by over 530,000 people.
The canceled event is part of a larger change at Mojang, where the team will be changing the frequency of interactions with fans and the way the team releases updates. Now, instead of hosting one gigantic Minecraft Live per year, the team will be hosting two, with each event being a “more focused” stream featuring updates on what the team is working on and general Minecraft news. In addition to the changes to community events, the team will also be changing the cadence of releasing up-to-date content. Instead of just one free update in the summer, the team will instead be releasing “several free games throughout the year.”
The post also emphasized that the team values player feedback on the game. “Your feedback not only helps inspire what goes into the game, but it also helps us iterate on features throughout development,” the post reads. So while you may no longer be able to vote to add the adorable penguin to the game, there are at least a few ways for players to provide feedback.
