Mojang Studios is taking away players’ ability to choose the type of content they want to see in the future Minecraft Updates, and that could actually be a great thing.
The Minecraft Developer announced he is withdrawing his divisive mob vote about a blog post on Monday. Mob voting began in 2017 and was a community event where developers presented players with a selection of possible creatures that could be added to the game. People would choose their favorite and the developers would add it. This sounds cute enough, but the event eventually received massive criticism from fans who argued that the practice was killing off great ideas; in 2023, players organized a organized a Change.org petition to get rid of the mass vote signed by more than 530,000 supporters.
The canceled event is part of a larger change at Mojang, where the team will change the frequency of interaction with fans and the way the team releases updates. Now, instead of hosting one big old Minecraft Live a year, the team will host two, and each event will be a more “focused” broadcast with information about what the team is working on and general Minecraft news. In addition to changes to community events, the team will also change the cadence for releasing new content. In addition to providing a free update in the summer, the team will release “a series of free game drops throughout the year.”
The post also emphasized that the team values players’ opinions on the game. “Your feedback not only inspires players, but also helps us work on features during development,” the post said. While you may no longer be able to vote to add a cute penguin to the game, there are at least some ways for players to provide feedback.
