Minecraft creator excluded from anniversary event due to far-right opinions

Minecraft’s creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson will be excluded from Minecraft’s 10th anniversary event, Microsoft has announced.

While Persson may have created Minecraft, the game has evolved and changed radically since he sold the title to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014. Since then, Minecraft has done nothing but grow. The mobile title, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, reached record revenue last year.

Talking to Variety, Microsoft has announced that Notch will not be included in the game’s anniversary due to his “comments and opinions”. The comments and opinions in question have led the creator to be removed from the game’s title screen messages earlier this year.

Minecraft’s 10th Anniversary will look at the “past, present and exciting future of the decade-old franchise”, but Notch’s unwelcome internet persona will not be a part of that.

Since he sold the game’s IP to Microsoft, Persson has become an unwelcome figure in the game development community thanks to a large number of transphobic and offensive tweets. With nearly 4 million followers on Twitter, Notch’s unforgivable behaviour is a problem for Minecraft’s image. Microsoft is smart for attempting to distance the IP away from him.

Minecraft has been a cultural phenomenon with ports to every platform under the sun. While last-gen support has sadly ended, Minecraft does benefit from cross-platform play on other systems.