The annual mob vote has become a staple among the Minecraft community as a big event players can partake in to tell Mojang which of three potential mobs they want to see added to the game next. But ahead of the 2023 installment of the mob vote, which will occur from Oct. 13 to 15, players are demanding an official end to this system.
Players’ frustrations at the mob vote have accumulated into one massive #StopTheMobVote petition that has over 290,000 signatures as of Oct. 10—and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
There are a few reasons why the community is hoping to bring the mob vote to an official end, but the biggest one is that players are sick of great ideas being scrapped. The way the mob vote works is that three potential new additions are presented for the community to then choose between and only one will actually make its way into Minecraft in a later update—or, at least, this is what has happened so far since none of the contenders that have lost have ever made their way into the game.
Previously, some members of Mojang, such as gameplay designer Ulraf, have said that mob vote losers are not scrapped forever and instead hang around as possible ideas. But since the vote has been occurring annually since 2017 and none of the losing contenders have been released, players don’t have any hope that this is true.
The tagline for the movement that is aiming to end the mob vote is to “put an end to the scrapping of great ideas” and this sentiment is one that most players have eagerly rallied behind.
“The Mob Vote generates engagement by tearing the community apart, leaving fantastic ideas on the cutting room floor, and teasing content that will never be seen in the game,” the player who created this movement said.
One of the major reasons why players are tired of the voting system is that it creates a lot of division among the community since every player chooses their favorite mob based on different aspects they view as important. Some players vote for whichever mob they think looks coolest and ignore gameplay entirely, some players think only about what potential gameplay the mob will add to enhance their overall experience, and most other players fall somewhere in between.
Regardless, there’s always a vast majority of the player base that ends up bitterly disappointed.
It’s been three years since the 2020 mob vote, and there are many members of the community who still bring up the Moobloom, which ended up losing to the Glow Squid, quite consistently. And countless players regularly do this for all of the fallen mobs beyond the Moobloom, too.
Since Minecraft rarely receives new content, players feel like Mojang should have no problem giving them all three mobs rather than just one, which is another reason why they have joined together for the #StopTheMobVote petition.
The creator of the petition said players only ever “see minimal content” get added “to the game they love,” and that the mob vote forces them to “watch as possibly the one thing to get them to play again is ripped from them.”
The 2023 mob vote seems to be moving forward for now with the crab, armadillo, and penguin as its contestants, but this movement has been steadily growing since it was founded on Oct. 6, so there’s certainly a decent chance that Mojang will have some kind of response.
