Minecraft Is The Most Successful Yet Poorly Made Game Of All Time

Minecraft is literally one of the most successful games in history, selling more than 200 MILLION copies! No other game comes close to that number beyond Grand Theft Auto V at 130 million copies. Despite it's popularity, however, Minecraft is horrendously designed.

I'm not talking about any mob, mechanic, biome, survival, or any specific content for that matter. I'm talking about how atrociously Minecraft runs all because of its technical decisions.

The biggest elephant in the room is that Minecraft runs on a single core on a CPU at a time and doesn't take advantage of multithreading. It's the main reason why Minecraft runs poorly and servers are practically capped at around 200 players. Even if you increased the specs of the computer running a server it still couldn't handle more players. It's also the reason why most popular servers from 2017 and beyond (including Wynncraft) are stuck supporting 1.12.2, because newer versions of the game reach the breaking point of the system.



And it's not like these problems aren't fixable either. The Sodium Mod takes advantage of multi-threading and it gives a huge boost to performance.
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/sodium
And others like Optifine are considered mandatory for most people because of just how broken the vanilla game is. People like to give Bethesda shit for having mods carrying them, while Mojang here wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for Optifine and other mods. Heck the creator of Optifine has criticized Minecraft's poor optimization before too: https://www.minecraftforum.net/foru...t-dynamic-lights-shaders-and?page=1570#c43757

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/apgvlm/why_is_minecraft_so_poorly_optimized/

Speaking of mods, that brings me to my next point: a Java modding API. Ever wondered why it takes months or even years for mods to update to newer versions? Or why mod creators have to create entire modpacks to make sure they're compatible? That's the reason. While Forge and others have stepped up to fill in this gap, it still isn't the same if Mojang had done it. It would also be safer too since it would be official and players wouldn't have to go to external, shady websites for mods. And here too, Mojang floundered for almost a decade now and only has plans to add one for Bedrock, not Java. Which I heard wasn't a full modding API anyway since it only allows player's to edit existing content.

A few last things I'd like to mention are chunk sizes. Right now a chunk is 16 by 16 by 256 blocks. The 256 block height limit severely limits building and world generation, especially cave generation. It's especially a shame because other games like Terraria have huge cave systems and there are mods like Cubic Chunks mod that solve this problem! For example, imagine if caves were as large as this:

Or mountains were as tall as Mount Everst:


Just think of the possibilities for mega builds and large underground caves and biomes! Minecraft is about creativity and freedom, and to have enough space to build the Earth 7 times over, but not enough to build a skyscraper is ludicrous!

Is Minecraft a bad game then? No, otherwise it wouldn’t be as popular as it is today. I’m still fond of the game and the memories I have with it. And we obviously wouldn’t have Wynncraft without it.

Though it’s also true that there are simple things that are majorly holding back the game. And Mojang should be criticized more for being carried by mods like Bethesda. Will these things ever change? Probably not.

That’s why I think it’ll be interesting when Hytale comes out because they’re promising to address these and other issues with Minecraft. If so, will they replace Minecraft? Who knows? All we can do now is just wait...

 

God damn, I didn't know this. My dusty five-year-old PC can run The Witcher 3 flawlessly, Shadow of the Tomb Raider with only minor hiccups and NieR:Automata, the terrible PC port, with little to no issues whatsoever, but I get 30 FPS in singleplayer Minecraft. I guess this is why.

Just looked it up: the API was announced during Minecon 2012. No more news after August of 2016 is mentioned. It's such a shame. Imagine all the cool stuff people could make were the API a reality. Maybe Wynncraft itself would be using custom, integrated mods.

A couple years ago I had the idea of making a 1:1 recreation of the Eiffel Tower in Minecraft, but found out it couldn't be done because the Tower is 300 meters tall. Mojang said they'd be revamping the Mountains (Extreme Hills) biome in the future, so I hope they raise the build height in conjunction as otherwise they would just be making pointy hills.

But like you said, aside from these shortcomings, it's still a really good game.

 

I was shocked by this too. I thought Minecraft ran poorly because it was 3D and it had to keep track of hundreds of blocks at a time. But no; it just doesn’t bother to utilize multiple threads or cores.

The thing that really boggles my mind is why they have never or probably won’t ever fix this. Sure, they definitely have to rewrite huge portions of the code, but it’s definitely doable. And they definitely have the resources to do it too; I mean what, a few modders can do it in a few months, but Mojang can’t in a decade with literally more money than any other game has ever generated? Come on...

IKR? Think how much easier it would be for Wynncraft to add new features or mechanics?

Raising the height limit with cubic chunks would also be perfect for a cave update, which is one of the most requested ones atm. It’s odd how mining is literally in the name of the game, yet mods and Terraria do it so much better. I mean we’ve only had 5, 6 ores for most of Minecraft’s history! 7 if you count the new netherrite ore.

Idk man, I just don’t know what’s the deal with Mojang. It’s hard to have an excuse when you have the best selling game of all time, yet you rely on modders... Triple A studios would kill for that title.

 

Honestly? it doesn't really surprise me; that's basically how most AAA studios work. Looking at employee numbers for Mojang, it's only got 71 workers, and of that only like 40 are directly involved with game development itself. Also, just looking at the way they ship updates, it's pretty clear they seem to be extremely flexible with deadlines, to the point of not really having them at all. It speaks to a very lax work culture (which isn't bad in and of itself IMO considering how most of the industry suffers from the opposite problem) and/or poor management, which the one review on Glassdoor seems to agree with. (also, underpaying employees working on the biggest single game on the planet is a dick move.)

It's also not really a problem unique to Mojang. Game Freak, which makes Pokemon, one of the biggest franchises of all time, also has issues with optimization and QA (and generally sucks at making good games in general). Bethesda games tend to be buggy messes that rely on modders, but were able to coast on their gameplay and stories right up until Fallout 76 crashed and burned. Mojang seems to suffer from poor management in a way similar to most AAA studios; they're just smaller and get to be more lax about development than those studios because Minecraft can survive long content droughts extremely easily, and because its wildfire popularity and tendency to implement player suggestions shield it from criticism.

 

Except for vertical slabs

True. I thought Mojang was above, “let’s not try too hard because they’ll play no matter what,” like Pokemon, but I guess not. Idk; I can think of other games like PvZ 2 that had it worse from it’s developers or publishers. Like I’m glad they never infested Minecraft with micro transactions.

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I hope now that Hytale actually does challenge Mojang because I’m afraid of Mojang and Game Freak for showing that you can set the bar low and still be the most successful. Though Minecraft has had clones before and they all failed because of Minecraft’s inherent popularity. Though then again Hytale isn’t just bootlegging Minecraft either and seems to really want to make a good first impression for delaying the launch.

 

To be honest I kind of doubt it will. Temtem and Ni No Kuni garnered a massive amount of praise and press for being worthy competitors to Pokemon, but neither of them were able to even get close to the kind of numbers Pokemon pulls (which is a shame because Ni No Kuni was a legitimately amazing game). Hytale has had 56 million views on its reveal trailer in two years, but Minecraft regularly pushes 125 million daily players. It's also incredibly likely that the people who get into Hytale already have bought Minecraft, which means that, because (Java) Minecraft doesn't have microtransactions or paid updates, it's unlikely that Mojang will lose out on money even if Hytale is a massive success.

Plus, Minecraft isn't so much of a game as it is a platform, kind of like Unity with Voxels. There's a reason why youtubers such as Sethbling, Mumbo Jumbo, and Fundy ended up becoming so popular; they tend to view minecraft as an engine to experiment with and push the limits on, and their viewers tended to agree. SkyDoesMinecraft also exploded for similar reasons; it's not a coincidence that his channel started to really grow when he began to do mod reviews. It's also why minecraft became so popular in the first place; there was effectively no limit to the kinds of gameplay you could introduce into it, so servers could have a wide variety of games in them.
(It's also why Bethesda gets a lot more shit about mods; their games aren't sandboxes and don't usually encourage the player to get creative like minecraft does, and minecraft's open ended design and lack of story leaves a lot more space for mods to build on than something like Skyrim's story and systems.)

It's also why, even if Hytale is a success, it's probably not going to affect Minecraft. Roblox is another game/platform hybrid that regularly pulls 120 million daily players, but it really hasn't affected minecraft in any significant way. It's much more likely that people will just end up playing both at the same time rather than migrate from one to the other fully. Minecraft is working with upwards of 10 years of growth and development, not just by Mojang but the independent creators who use it.

On a more personal note, I feel like Hytale's art style is kind of really bad, and is definitely going to push people away from it. It just generally feels too cluttered and uninspired.

 

I'd love to see Mojang do some optimizing. It runs so poorly right now, it takes a beefier computer than almost any game I own to run well. It's honestly impressive. A new, AAA game from 2019? Runs fine at max settings. Minecraft, but with a lot of particles? 15 fps. It's absurd. I was recently asked by a friend what's required to run Minecraft. As best I can tell, it involves breaking into NASA and borrowing one of their computers. That being said, they have been making a few steps in the right direction. 1.16 runs better than 1.15, which runs better than 1.14. I'm also inclined to overlook the rarity of updates; not many games still get updated a decade after release, especially games with no DLC or micro-transactions. Certainly only a very few get semi-regular major updates. It'd just be nice if those updates included some more optimization.

 

Is it that the colors are more faded or something? It reminds me of the Sphax PureBDCraft texture pack, the one that the Yogscast used a lot. Hytale has better models and animations though, so maybe it won’t turn off that many.

 

just thought i'd mention that bedrock edition utilizes all cores of your cpu (you probably know this already).

 

If they just added a mod API, think about all the content that would become accessible? Some of my favorite mods like the Aether, Twilight Forest, Dynamic Trees, and Little Tiles are all stuck in 1.12.2.

 

I personally still hold that 1.4.6 had the best mods. It feels like in order for a good mod to run nowadays, it takes so much processing power, I can't have more than one or two big ones loaded without performance issues. Running a half dozen or so mods in a server seems to be the effective limit without compromising on performance. Even older versions can be a bit ghastly; try running a LOTR mod server sometime.

 

It's rather unfortunate, actually...
They seem to be focusing on bedrock when tbh Java needs more attention in the performance department
(I get that both versions have separate teams, but Java has had this issue for longer than bedrock has even been around...)

 

my pc:
the newest call of duty? Sure
Minecraft with shaders? Lol no

 

Does Minecraft RTX take advantage of multi threading and cores?

 

uh probably not idk but that makes me realize it's actually a gpu problem and that minecraft rtx is just so demanding compared to cod

 

since rtx is only for the windows 10 bedrock version, yes it will make use of multi threading and all your cores.
but as kahsol mentioned, rtx is very taxing on your graphics card.

 

Not going to lie, while enemies and equipment in general look REALLY good, I have to admit humanoid models look off and the world textures just don't work that well, and I think it is because of a similar issue I have with HD packs in Minecraft:
When will people learn that high resolution textures just don't work in a voxel game, it just doesn't, like I swear to god who the hell genuinely thinks this looks good?
Because I sure don't
And I think that's why Hytale's artstyle for blocks and humanoid entities bugs me soo much, the resolution just feels soo off
This thing? Oh I think it looks amazing honestly, I like it a lot
This thing? I really don't like how detailed that face and hair is, it just looks soo out of place
It is overall an issue with texture resolutions in my opinion, big entities like that golem thing looks really good but the player entity just looks very off, I really hope they redesign stuff like that
I don't know, some stuff looks outstanding like that golem and then some other things look like the player entity
It might also have to do with the fact some of these things don't even look blocky (cough, the player's hair), and honestly even the golem has some slight issues
Don't know about you but this part of the golem looks really bad in my opinion, the textures here connect incredibly poorly (crack that ends out of nowhere, sudden blur that nobody asked for, the cut block at the top of the last picture just doesn't connect, at all, the stone parts' lighting looks weird...)

I think what they should do is just do fixes to texture connections and avoid at all costs going wild with texture resolutions, along with changing some artstyle decisions such as the player faces

 

I think they are working on multithreading, and its partially implemented in chunk loading and graphics. Still have a long way to go

 

I think the players look a bit off because everything else has detailed or more rounded models while the player model still uses the oversized gingerbread model that Minecraft uses. So stuff like the eyes are really out of proportion.

That’s why I would love to see a voxel game with actually detailed characters. Like imagine if a character looked like this at the player’s scale:

Or like this:

 

I believe that minecraft was intentionally meant to be a non-humanoid looking game that sort of got put into a niche where people expected it to look realistic, hence shaders, texture packs and the what not