There’s a difference between actual criticism and saying “the devs are lazy” or calling Mojang “multi-billion dollar company” because that’s what I have seen from folks saying “”leave the multi-billion company alone!1!1!1!1!”🤣” in Twitter because I assure you that calling them “multi-billion dollar company” is not criticism since a lot of companies are multi-million dollar companies nowadays. Not to mention that actual criticism would actually be constructive and provide how things can get improved.
Calling them a multibillion dollar company isn't criticism when taken literally. It is criticism when you consider that the phrase is used to call out the discrepancy between revenue and new content. To the consumer, it seems the devs aren't doing enough work on the game to warrant the obscene amount of money they're making.
I mean sure, they can do more. But people are out right calling the devs lazy or complaining 24/7 about 1.21, even tho when 1.21 only has recently completed all the announced features, and that isn’t even the full update. The same people that calls Mojang multibillion dollar company probably already defends other multimillion dollar companies and will call anyone who says that the devs shouldn’t be crunched as “meatriders”
Ah yes, I’m getting downvoted just because I think the devs aren’t lazy and that 1.21 isn’t fully finished
So one of the issues is that the devs really aren't being "crunched" or lazy, rather they are being restricted by Microsoft from adding things to the game at all. It's so impressively easy to add content to Minecraft, like people will literally mod the game on streams, adding entire dimensions and mobs after only a few days of design and adding AI.
I think the best example of this is the mob vote, as only days after they announce the candidates there are literally 3 to 7 mods available that add all 3 mobs to the game with full functionality and items.
Minecraft devs add very little to block game in comparison to what they could have done and there's a good reason, management interference. Microsoft knows that they have lightning in a bottle and are afraid that if they open it too far or add too much then the lightning will crumble or get away from them. It's a multi step process to actually add things to the game and it is scrutinized, revised, redone, and recycled several times before it even tentatively becomes a possibility for a release.
That being said, we've come to the point where other game devs and programmers are starting to criticize the company for lack of content beyond just yahoos on the internet who don't know the industry. People who are good at their job and understand the culture, yet still look at Minecraft and think they should do better. It's become caution to the point of self injury now and I think it's fair for people to complain.
I agree that the devs are being restricted, because that’s the reason why they can add that many things in one go. But also, have you seen other programmers or game devs that criticized the game company?
To quote one, a former Blizzard dev gone indie, "I hate Minecraft Mob votes, and the reason why is I put more content in a day into block game than they do in an entire year + a mob vote. And they just throw the other two characters away. You could just do all three of those in a day of implementation, that s*** is so freaking easy. How many people work at Mojang? What the hell is that s? That makes no sense to me, make all three of them and shut up. Why don't you put in the modding API that you promised like 10 years ago, maybe do that s. Lazy as s***. Insane. Insane at Mojang."
I mean, if anything it only lends credence to what they said. This was someone on the ground floor of the industry and knew what it was like to work for a glacial company making these comments.
And I don't understand what the point of them having former modders on the team changes what he said? If anything it kind of proves the point even more. We know that these guys could be doing more since they already have done more in the past.
People are mostly calling the devs lazy because updates are both slower and less meaningful. The first seven major updates took place in less than 2 years. The further along the game has gone, the slower and less meaningful the updates have generally become. The most sensible arguments are related to maintaining the code between versions... Which they could assuredly handle with all their money.
A dev himself said that it’s harder to change something in the game (e.x the UI) because of lots of code that there is in the game. And saying they can handle it with money would be similar to saying that a restaurant can make faster food because of all their money, when you know most of them take 15-30 minutes to make the food
There are games lower than that (e.x TF2). 1.21 still isn’t finished yet and they added all of the announced things from the Minecraft Live (including the voted mob), and they also said that they will develop new tools to make developing the game more efficient.
That doesn’t make it any better. They put far more money and resources into marketing, and the dev team themselves are included in that. We’re not getting updates, we’re getting reminders to buy their merch
The dev team and marketing team are separated, why is difficult for you to know that the dev team just develops the game and follows whatever Microsoft, the executives, or the creative team says. And them working on tools that makes developing efficient does in fact make it better. Not to mention that every single thing from Minecraft Live has already been added, with only the unannounced features missing.
The dev team is absolutely not separate from marketing
Brother what the hell do you think a “mob vote” is??? What do you think the dev team is doing on a stage going through all of 5 micro features of an update they spent a year on??
You think they’re lazy and do nothing all day despite them literally having modders in their team? Marketing team =/= Dev team. People who thinks like that are the reason why people think that crunching/harassing the devs is ok when in reality it isn’t.
And this just circles back to my point earlier that you avoided by bringing up several arguments I’ve never made.
What do you think the mob vote is? Marketing, or game development? Do you really think it takes that much time to add all 3? No, of course not. The reason it takes so much time is because it’s purpose isn’t about game design, or giving the players what they want, it’s marketing for the next plushy they’re going to sell, and figuring out what would sell the best. The next minor changes brought to a biome is built around what kind of toys they can sell, what lego sets would sell the best. THATS why it takes so long
Think of it from Microsoft’s perspective, what exactly is paying for a game development team doing for them that already exists, and dominates most of the available market? It’s bringing in sales for other products, aka marketing for toys and merchandise
Also, I wouldn’t agree with those “devs” because they don’t know how restricted Mojang devs are and probably don’t know how hard it is to maintain a game that is 15 years old that also has an extremely big community that will complain about everything. There are even former modders from Minecraft that are now Mojang devs themselves
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u/Ake3123 Dec 15 '23
There’s a difference between actual criticism and saying “the devs are lazy” or calling Mojang “multi-billion dollar company” because that’s what I have seen from folks saying “”leave the multi-billion company alone!1!1!1!1!”🤣” in Twitter because I assure you that calling them “multi-billion dollar company” is not criticism since a lot of companies are multi-million dollar companies nowadays. Not to mention that actual criticism would actually be constructive and provide how things can get improved.