Minecraft Reportedly Banning Guns In Custom Servers

Telling the Internet it can't do something usually makes them do it more.

Minecraft, the fun pixelated building and fighting game, has come under fire for its enforcement of custom game modifications with firearm representation by the player base, calling into question just how free the players are to do as they wish, in a world where politics and virtual social gatherings are no longer mutually exclusive.

While modding the game via game files is one way to enhance a personal experience, players also liked the ability to simply join a public custom server, hosting a plethora of newly coded items, events, and mini games. One such server to host these games is called “Grand Theft Minecraft” (GTM). The group was recently approached by the Minecraft EULA enforcement team and told that their custom use of weapons and firearms for their games violates Mojang's brand and commercial guidelines.

The hypocrisy is that servers with these features still exist, and continue to run, even as I write this post. Furthermore, the base un-modified game features TNT, gunpowder, and crossbows. Even hell is in the game, showcasing large, undead creatures, screaming tentacle monsters, and literal rotting pig people with their faces falling off.

But firearms are the thing they can't support?

This is what they look like. Pixelated, blocky, and clearly not real.

Minecraft is used to weapons already anyhow, guns pose nothing new to children who have been playing the game for years.

The game, while centered around exploration and building, also is very combat heavy to survive the monsters of the night. While the base game offers many ways to deal with these monsters, from swords and axes to the previously mentioned dynamite and crossbows, many players took it upon themselves to add in firearms to defend their dwellings with greater ease. This of course, carried over to large multiplayer servers, where many people can come together with their guns, be it realistic or laser blaster-looking, to defend themselves. But now this is under attack.

Minecraft, the game where you are free to do anything you want, is now limiting what you can do.

Prohibiting wild online degeneracy is one thing; firearms is an odd inclusion to the list. Furthermore, these decisions are happening inappropriately late. The server that got “attacked” first, GTM, received its notice from Mojang demanding it remove or redesign the guns that feature in its custom games or that the developers and the server will be blacklisted and banned. This server has been around for over a decade and only now does the Minecraft Management team find an issue.

Other servers like Hypixel have not received any notable backlash for featuring various firearms in their games, with some claiming that its status as the number one server in Minecraft gives it immunity to such scrutiny.

If the Hypixel server does get attacked for its fire-arm representation players may revolt. Their access to modifications may be limited.

The team posted a screenshot of the emails that were sent to them [bold my emphasis]:

“It is incredibly unfair to us, and many other communities like us of gun-servers, mod-makers, and plug-in makers…” - SkylixMC

This type of suppression has increased in recent years. Microsoft bought Minecraft in 2014 and the more left-leaning ideologies of the Mojang workforce became more present. During the 10th anniversary Minecraft celebration, Notch (the original creator of the game) was banned from attending for merely stating his belief in the biological differences between men and women and rejecting the cultural Marxism promoted by professional groups like BLM. Mojang’s reaction to his positions openly reflect what they have become: invested in progressive politics, to the point where the game openly supports the alphabet mafia’s Pride Month. This mixture of left leaning ideologies mixed with their new terms and conditions for how players privately enjoy a configurable game makes you wonder where they will draw the line.

Will it stop with Minecraft? Why are they choosing to do this now? Will Minecraft ever be the same? The future for gaming, the onetime last-refuge, often looks bleak. There is a clear need for game creators with more interest in gaming than ideologies to recover the medium. Gaming is a medium too much to lose.

The CCP-owned Tencent, which already has a tentacle in nearly every piece of media on the planet, is already affiliated with multiple gaming companies, as well as Microsoft. Tencent has previously censored media that challenged CCP guidelines — one of the biggest, most recent examples being the Japanese and Taiwanese flags on the flight jacket of Tom Cruise in the “TopGun” sequel. Initially producers removed the flags post-production but then reinstated them, resulting in Tencent pulling out of the project and China banning the film.

Meanwhile Minecraft squeezes freedom of expression from its serves little by little.

The only counteraction is for more independent creators to challenge control of the medium by bringing new content into the fold.

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L. Grey is a researcher and Chapter and Verse contributor.