Minecraft Earth is dead… but why?

Recognize this? Probably not, but until about  two years ago this was an official, licensed   Minecraft game with over 10 million downloads.  Today, it doesn’t even exist anymore. So what   happened to Minecraft Earth? Well, that’s a story  that starts all the way back in 2012 with this: 

Minecraft Reality, which almost nobody has heard  of. In fact, it’s probably the most obscure game   Mojang has ever made, and part of that is  because it isn’t really a game. Minecraft   Reality was this weird photo app where you could  place your Minecraft builds into the real world  

For anyone else on the app to see. It was a really  interesting idea, but since it was only on Apple   phones for $1.99, it never really took off and  slowly fell into irrelevance. But it’s still   a very important piece of Minecraft’s history,  because it’s what got Mojang thinking about VR,  

And just a few years later, we got to see its  next evolution. But before we get to that,   I want to talk about games that are still  around, and how you can get them for free.  That’s right baby, this video is sponsored  by Buff, you know em, you love em, I love em,  

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In the comments and the description, thanks  for listening, thanks to Buff for sponsoring,   and thanks to Microsoft for making this: The Minecraft HoloLens. If you were around   playing Minecraft back in 2015, you probably  just got a huge wave of nostalgia, but if the  

Word HoloLens sounds more like a bad sci-fi  movie than real technology, just watch this.  HoloLens Demo Yeah, it’s REALLY   impressive… but a bit misleading. In reality, it  would look something more like this, because the   field of view on this thing was REALLY small, even  smaller than a normal VR headset would be. That,  

Combined with software bugs, reports of nausea and  headaches, and being priced the same as a small   car, meant the HoloLens became Microsoft’s version  of the Virtual Boy, and pulled Minecraft VR down   along with it… at least for a year. In the middle  of 2016, Mojang dropped Minecraft Gear VR Edition,  

And since then, Minecraft Bedrock Edition has  held support for pretty much any VR headset you   can think of. Now, you would think that since  they had finally figured out a successful way   to mix Minecraft and VR, they would just  keep doing that. But Mojang had one more  

Card up their sleeves: Minecraft Earth. The  latest and greatest in Minecraft’s ambitions   to spread into the real world. Unfortunately,  just like the others, it was doomed to fail.  But why? I mean, Pokemon Go but with  Minecraft? Sounds like an easy home run,  

Right? So let’s talk about what exactly this game  was, and maybe you’ll see where the trouble began.  Minecraft Earth’s plan was simple: mix Minecraft  with real life. They started where Minecraft   Reality left off with the building feature, where  instead of importing a build from Minecraft like  

Before, you could build it yourself on your own  personal plot, called a buildplate, which you   could unlock by levelling up or buying them with  rubies, the money of Minecraft Earth. Once you had   a buildplate, it was time to explore, because to  start building you first had to collect materials  

From objects called tappables scattered around the  map. These could contain anything from flowers,   to mobs, to building blocks, to redstone, to new  items called Adventure Crystals which would throw   you into a survival sandbox where you could mine  for resources and fight mobs in the real world.  

Speaking of mobs, Minecraft Earth was super  unique compared to the other Minecraft games,   with about 50 exclusive variants of Minecraft’s  mobs, from custom animals to monsters to NPCs   and more, some of which even had special powers  like zombies that could climb walls, spiders that  

Shot shards of bone, and witches that would cloak  before they attacked. But, if you managed to tough   it out against the baddies, you’d get to collect  your reward: the Adventure Chest, full of weapons,   healing, and rare blocks for your home. Once  you had stacked all the loot you could handle,  

You could head back to your buildplate, smelt  your ore, craft some items, and finish building   a beautiful new world for the players of Minecraft  Earth to discover and survive in. It was a great   idea, really it was, and Minecraft Earth could’ve  been massive… except there were a few problems. 

Let’s start with the obvious: fighting Minecraft  mobs in real life sounds really cool on paper,   but the reality of it – get it – is pretty  disappointing. Who knew that awkwardly   shuffling around while manically tapping your  phone screen wouldn’t be a winner? Not to  

Mention that trying to aim at tiny monsters  on an already tiny screen was frustrating,   to say the least. But it was all worth it, because  once you killed those mobs you’d have enough loot   to build the perfect world!… right? Well, not  exactly. Yes, you could build in Minecraft Earth,  

But you could only build the clean, basic,  state-sanctioned templates they would provide for   you. All the freedom and creativity of Minecraft  was lost in the transition to the real world,   which I suppose was unavoidable considering how  much pixel PP would be littering the streets  

Otherwise, but it also severely limited how  enjoyable building could be. But building,   along with just about everything else in the  game, was already bad enough because of just how   complicated everything was! Look, normal Minecraft  isn’t exactly the simplest game there is – I won’t  

Pretend that I can keep up with all the new mobs,  new crafting recipes, new biomes and mechanics,   man, I had to look up how to craft a shield not  even a month ago. But at least in Minecraft, you  

Learn as you go. When you drop into a world, you  aren’t required to do anything. It was complete   freedom. But in Minecraft Earth, you couldn’t  build until you had resources, and you couldn’t   get resources until you completed an adventure,  and you couldn’t complete an adventure until you  

Had gear, and you couldn’t get that gear until you  opened tappables, which you couldn’t find until   you explored, and you wouldn’t want to start  exploring when literally every feature of the   game is unavailable to you until later. In a game  like Pokemon Go, its as simple as throw the ball,  

Catch ‘em all. In Minecraft Earth, there were so  many aspects and mechanics, you didn’t know where   to begin, if you even could begin because of how  long it took to unlock the base aspects of the  

Game. But that’s okay, because for the small price  of $80, you could pick up a whole trove of rubies,   and rubies were the only true way to do anything  you wanted. Want to pay to look cool? Why not buy  

Some self-insert NPCs for your world! Maybe you’re  more of a pay-to-win type of guy, in which case   why not pick up some multipliers to make your  crafting and smelting pass by a little quicker,   because unlike in Minecraft, every single item you  want to make is going to make that clock tick for  

Another few seconds, another few minutes, another  few hours until you can play again – unless you   pay to stop that, of course. And then you  can finally start building your very own,   or rather Mojang’s very own special little builds,  but only six of them, and only if you had played  

For the hundreds of hours it would take to unlock  them all – if you want the other 41 builds,   time to pay up, buddy, because there couldn’t  possibly be anything wrong with paywalling nearly   every part of the most basic feature of your  game! Besides, it’s not like anyone would play  

Long enough to unlock all of the game anyways,  seeing as after two full years it never made   it out of Early Access and was completely riddled  with lag, bugs and crashes, that is, if you could  

Even download the game at all, because any phone  more than a few years old or a few OS versions   behind at the time was completely incompatible. So yeah, Minecraft Earth was a mess, a good idea   ruined by poor planning, microtransactions, bugs  and more. But besides the game itself, Mojang made  

One other critical mistake: bad timing. Now, to be  fair, Mojang probably didn’t realize just how long   a game like Minecraft Earth would take when they  started. We don’t know for sure, since info on   Minecraft Earth’s development is uh, non-existent,  but they were probably working on it for a few  

Years, and I imagine they started soon after they  saw the success of Pokemon Go. Only issue is,   by late 2019, Pokemon Go was already at less than  half of its peak, and despite Minecraft Monday’s   reviving the game over the summer, Minecraft  wasn’t doing too good either by the end of the  

Year. So off to a bad start, sure, but they could  make up for it! Just keep pushing out updates and   getting new players, it would take off eventually,  just give it a few mo- oh, oh, yeah, Covid, uh…   oops. Yeah, not even a year after Minecraft  Earth launched, the world was in lockdown,  

And at that point, Minecraft Earth was done  for. I mean, I don’t think Mojang cared, since   quarantine also made normal Minecraft the biggest  it had been in 5 years, but it did mean that new   Minecraft Earth players were few and far between,  and the small community they did have slowly  

Became more and more tempted to tap the uninstall  button. By January 2021, Minecraft Earth received   its very last update, and by June, the game  disappeared from the internet, never to return.  Minecraft Earth could’ve been one of the greatest  mobile games of all time. Instead, it’s nothing  

More than a bad memory. Thanks for watching, thank  you to my Patrons, and have a good one, peace.