Microsoft's Mojang brings pixellated axe down on AR Minecraft game because it's not like folk are going outside Microsoft-owned Mojang is to pull down the shutters on Minecraft Earth, citing the "current global situation" as a factor in the decision to axe the augmented reality game. Launched back in 2019, the game featured heavily in Microsoft's last major in-person event, Ignite 2019, as CEO Satya Nadella took to the stage to deliver …
As a long time minecraft player, knocking on for a decade, I am concerned that Microsoft will turn the account in to a pay-monthly affair, which will turn me off completely.
As far as I'm concerned, running my own server, the costs to Microsoft are down to onward development and bug fixing of the game itself... which is not an insignificant cost, but Microsoft could certainly freeze development for those of us on the Java version, and only provide authentication services.... and lets face it, there will likely be an authentication service which will run locally and only require a host file redirection... it's been done before for other games, and I have little doubt it will be done again.
I'm certainly not signing up to a subscription service, that's for sure. I think Microsoft might end up shooting themselves in the foot if they do it this way. I dare say it would be a major publicity disaster for them.
I do believe that Notch should have kept his promise to give the game to the community when he was fed up with it. I hope his money is keeping him warm at night. It doesn't seem to have done anything to spur his efforts in other ventures as far as I can see.
I have been an avid player ever since I got the hang of it, and I have incited not a few people to play it as well.
I play the Java version, obviously, and when MC Earth came out, I was interested in seeing what it was about.
After viewing a few YouTube videos about how it worked and showing the gameplay, I dropped all interest in it. Playing on the phone is already something I loath, and nothing in it gave my any real incentive to change my views.
I know that there are people who find it a blast, so I feel sorry for them, but I won't miss it.
That said, I doubt Borkzilla will delete the code. Maybe, when this pandemic is finally over, it will be revived and people can play it again.
Plenty of AR games have thrived in the pandemic, albeit with a few tweaks to compensate for people having more limited movement, so I think MS just jumped on the excuse, similar to Ghostbusters which just did not generate enough interest. As the article mentioned, PoGo doing fine, many other AR games from the daddy of them all Ingress through to franchise stuff like Jurassic World Alive doing fine.
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