Easily one of the most popular games ever created, Minecraft is a fun romp through procedurally generated worlds that is the definition of fun for all ages.

At least, that’s the general consensus – unless you’re in Turkey, where the game is now banned because of its depiction of “violence.”

You read that correctly. Minecraft might be too edgy for some in Turkey and its appeal to children has brought particular attention to it as a potential source of questionable content.

Anyone who has played Mojang’s 2011 masterpiece will tell you that this assessment is quite curious, indeed, and a little bit out there.

But what, exactly is drawing the ire of Turkish authorities, so much so that the game is banned?

The Minecraft Delight

Particularly the Turkish government investigated Minecraft for claims of “isolation” and “violence.” We can’t really imagine what isolation might entail but it might be something to do with promoting antisocial behavior. Again, anyone who has played Minecraft knows that there is a huge cooperative element to the whole thing. Though, like any platform, Minecraft could probably be used for bullying or other activities as well.

Mojang, for their part, has responded to the controversy by pointing out the game’s creative mode and relative lack of violence outside of the survival mode.

The company said in a press release: “Minecraft is enjoyed by many players in a wide variety of ways. Many enjoy the creative freedom that’s presented by Minecraft and its tools, some are more interested by the opportunity to explore a landscape without boundaries and to go on exciting adventures with friends. We encourage players to cooperate in order to succeed, whether they’re building, exploring, or adventuring. The world of Minecraft can be a dangerous place: it’s inhabited by scary, genderless monsters that come out at night. It might be necessary to defend against them to survive. If people find this level of fantasy conflict upsetting, we would encourage them to play in Creative Mode, or to enable the Peaceful setting. Both of these options will prevent monsters from appearing in the world.”

Is Minecraft too violent?

The Family and Social Policy Ministry disagreed with Mojang’s assessment of the game and banned the game from the Turkish market.

Having already sold 60 million copies worldwide, Turkish players are probably only a very small part of what is a global community. And they might be an even smaller component in the future as their only option to play the game now includes pirated software.

Mojang has increasingly pushed Minecraft as a kind of platform for multiple types of gaming, among them social elements and tons of co-op. This requires registration as a user and logging into the game as that user. With Turkey’s ban, many users there won’t be able to play the latest editions of Minecraft for the PC because of their need to log in to the game. This probably explains how some of the older builds are still out there in the wild.