On Aug. 2, Mojang quietly made huge changes to its end-user license agreement (EULA) for Minecraft and players are furious with the amendments. The changes even saw one player deem them “full 1984” as a reference to George Orwell’s novel and exceptionally strict content guidelines.
Mojang announced the EULA update in a blog, but it didn’t share it anywhere else, which is why some players aren’t even aware of these changes yet. This update to the EULA is the first one in three years, with the last one being launched on April 17, 2020.
The changes are being called out as “concerning,” especially by players who run Minecraft servers. In a Reddit post breaking down what all of the prominent EULA updates mean for the future of Minecraft, one player and server owner said the changes “discourage existing server owners and upcoming server owners” from wanting to play Minecraft anymore since the new guidelines give “Mojang full control over shutting down years of hard work for any reason whatsoever.”
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There are a lot of specific changes included in the updated EULA and the overarching theme of them is that Mojang now basically has total control over all online forms of Minecraft content, which is the primary reason players are expressing their concerns. The line in the EULA that addresses this reads, “All permissions and consents are given by us at our discretion and may be revoked at any time if we think that it is appropriate to do so, or we don’t like what you are doing.”
Any server that has some form of a player queue, such as the highly popular 2builders2tools (2b2t) server, no longer complies with Minecraft’s EULA rules. According to the EULA, access to any server “can’t be limited to or controlled, directly or indirectly, by a player owning or having access to out-of-game content, products, or services.”
How you use the term Minecraft in the content you create is now quite regulated, too. Players cannot “use the Minecraft name as the primary or dominant name or title” in their creative work. Since this is a bit confusing and vague, Mojang provided a few examples.
- Titles like “Kotoba Miners: A Minecraft server for Redstone builds” or “The Shaft – a Minecrafter’s podcast” are approved under the EULA’s terms.
- Titles like “Minecraft – the ultimate Kotoba server for Redstone” or “Minecraft – the ultimate help app” are not approved under the EULA’s terms.
All Minecraft servers now must be suitable for “all ages” with no exceptions. There was recently a controversy involving the server Grand Theft Minecraft (GTM) where Mojang rules against allowing guns on servers, and this now seems to apply to any content it deems unacceptable for all ages moving forward.
There are a lot of other new rules under the updated EULA and players who are aware of them have been asking Mojang to reverse them since they were implemented due to how vague and restive they seem to be. The general consensus among players is that Minecraft is meant to be an endless sandbox for creativity and the new rules are imposing harsh limits that go against what players believe the game is about.
Despite players’ protests, no response has been shared by Mojang so far. For now, you’ll want to review the EULA carefully and watch what kind of Minecraft content you’re putting out.
