(No TL;DR, either read it or don’t)

Minecraft, the large indie success title and it’s developing studio Mojang, have been purchase by the giant Microsoft. That is the big headline of the day. And while I don’t think this move will really have much of an impact on the game, it’s development, and the mod community; I do think it gives us a chance to realistically think about the future of Minecraft.

To date Minecraft already has a pretty long history for a game in today’s market. It began back in late 2009 as a small side project that Notch was working on. Over time it just kept growing one feature at a time and became an absolute hit, truly defining the term indie darling.

Things really took off for Minecraft though when mod communities began to build up around the game. All sorts of add-ons began to spring up, giving the game new life and complexity. The age of Minecraft mods was slow to start, but began to run at a swift pace with the introduction of modpacks, the first major one being Tekkit. Modded Minecraft continued to evolve through a series of different custom made launchers that cut out manual mod installation, including FTB and the AT launcher. All the while Minecraft continued to update on the vanilla side, which encouraged and forced mod makers to both update and improve their mods with each new iteration. This symbiotic process is what has kept Minecraft alive and well for so long, at least on the PC side of things. However, everything has a life and has to see a decline eventually.

With today’s announcement of Mojang and Minecraft being sold to Microsoft for 2.5 billion dollars, we are seeing a fantastic game finally move into it’s early winter of life. There are many tell-tale signs of this being the case, including the slowing of development for vanilla Minecraft (the 1.8 update took about 11 months to bake), and the unwieldy size that modpacks have grown to today (Yogscast Complete alone has 246 mods installed).

When a game is new it has to do very little to be fun and different. This was epically true for Minecraft, which upon release was so radically different to other games before it, it created a paradigm shift in gaming by just existing. In games today it is no longer enough to just run in circles and shoot guys. Nearly all games need some sort of crafting system, a way to build and mine, or a procedurally generated world. Minecraft has had a profound effect on games, how they’re made (early access anyone?), what mechanics go into them, and what their goal is (in many cases there are no goals other than to build and have fun).

However, as a game ages it has to continue changing to remain relevant, and over time the improvements to Minecraft have become fewer and further between. Likewise the mod community is beginning to run out of ideas for new ways to mix up the traditional formula of Minecraft. This is clearly shown by the efforts on Modpack makers in the creation of large packs containing 200+ mods, or packs with increased difficulty and an emphasis on survival, which is part of an attempt to keep things interesting.

Ultimately Minecraft has seen massive growth since it’s creation back in 2009, and it’s popular lifespan is lasting longer than anyone could have imagined. All good things must come to an end though, and while I believe there is still a decent amount of good time on MInecraft’s clock, I think we are now entering the end stages of it’s life.

From here on out we will see a slow decline, with fewer updates, fewer new and radical changing mods, and a shrinking community interested in the game. It’s not that Minecraft is going away, it’s just past its peak. We’re at the stage where it will only remain popular with smaller dedicated communities, instead of being what everyone is playing.