[fnord123]

Eh, aside from making java and bedrock incompatible, requiring Xbox live accounts to play, deleting customer accounts in the transition to Xbox live, making realms which are different somehow from java and bedrock (many parents had a devil if a time figuring out how to setup a server for kids playing on all the platforms during lockdown)... Aside from this they didn't ruin it.

[wolrah]

> Eh, aside from making java and bedrock incompatible

The "Minecraft Pocket Edition" (MCPE) code that became Bedrock predates Microsoft's involvement by over three years. Bedrock is actually Microsoft's effort to unify versions, eliminating the separate legacy console editions and providing cross-play with PC, mobile, and other console users.

Java remains separate because the consoles will never run Java and the modding community that exists around the Java version just can't be replicated on the Bedrock codebase. If it weren't for mods I guarantee Java edition would be dead.

[xcjs]

Not to mention, there's no official way to self-host Minecraft servers for Bedrock. I think that's another factor to consider when it comes to the Java edition's survival.

[ZoomerCretin]

There are a number of custom Bedrock-edition Minecraft servers, as well as an official release from Mojang/Microsoft.

[xcjs]

You're right, there is an official release now! This might change a few things about my opinion.

[aceazzameen]

Yeah, I'm a parent that was new to Minecraft during lockdown. It didn't take me long to figure out Bedrock and Java are incompatible, but I did have to explain it to other parents with kids that wanted to play with my kids (my kids play on Bedrock to be most compatible).

My biggest issue is the amount of friction when creating a new Microsoft account for a child. I have to walk through other parents in creating a MS account for themselves (if they don't have one), then how to make a child account with a username, then finding and ticking a bunch of checkboxes to allow online play, then launching Minecraft and signing in with the new child account. It's way too many steps with email verifications. It's >30 minutes. In just my circle there's several parents who gave up and sadly their kid can't play with their group of friends. People outside of tech don't have patience for that crap. This is all outside the fact that each console has their own form of friction in allowing kids to play online.

C'mon Microsoft, you can improve the new user process. Just make an optional in-game wizard asking parents a bunch of questions so kids can play ASAP. And if the issue is that it wouldn't fit in with the one-size-fits-all MS accounts used for everything else, then flag the "wizard-built" accounts as incomplete so parents can go through making a 360 account another day. Damn metrics.

[elzbardico]

Frankly, this is the kind of friction that I would like to see more in all things involving minors in the internet. If people can’t be bothered to jump through the hopes required to create a somewhat safe online identity for their kids, one that they should be supervising, maybe it is best their kids stay offline for their own safety, because their parents can’t be bothered to make sure they are safe.

[goblin89]

IMO the worst among the things Microsoft is doing to Minecraft is introducing an in-game currency (to an already paid game!).

They target Bedrock for this, and I strongly suspect once it starts bringing in extra money they will essentially kill further Java edition development.

[eropple]

IMO, the Java edition doesn't really need additional development, though. It's absolutely nice to have, but the reason (for me) to play the Java version is the community.

[goblin89]

The problem in this scenario will be feature disparity. If they want, they can add cool stuff to Bedrock, and make vanilla Java version feel old and obsolete just the way 1.12 (which probably has the most mods) looks now when compared with fresh 1.18.

Then, by making Bedrock available to people who paid for Java, they would give a hassle-free way for players and modders to try it, and many will probably stick to the latest version.

I do hope, if this scenario comes about, the community will keep the Java version alive by maintaining feature parity, but there’re fundamental issues where some features might not be easily backported on Java due to performance limitations, plus community fragmentation as different modders try to backport same new features in different mutually incompatible ways.

[xboxnolifes]

> Then, by making Bedrock available to people who paid for Java, they would give a hassle-free way for players and modders to try it

It would be hassle free for vanilla players, but certainly not for modders. There are years of community support built around the Java version that would need to be moved to bedrock to make moving the modding scene hassle free.

[bombcar]

Correct - many modpacks are still on 1.7 or 1.12 anyway.

[mimimi31]

Also mass locking Microsoft accounts that were created without providing a phone number[1].

For some reason they locked my completely unused Microsoft account, that was created for the sole purpose of migrating my Minecraft account to, due to "unusual behavior" (or "activity that violates our Microsoft Services Agreement" if you go by the error message instead of the corresponding knowledge base article).

The reasonable thing to do in such a case if of course to require users to "[verify] [they] are the account owner" by receiving an SMS verification code on an arbitrary phone number (they explicitly mention the possibility of "asking a trusted friend or family member" for this).

[1] https://github.com/MultiMC/Launcher/issues/4093

[CrazyStat]

Java and Bedrock were already incompatible before Microsoft for involved, that wasn't their doing.

Realms are obviously different because the two versions are incompatible.

[CursedUrn]

Also they added microtransactions on many platforms. I did expect them to ruin it more by now though.