From the depths of its scorching lava lakes, Minecraft took back its throne in the gaming universe after years of anxious gamers awaiting its legendary comeback. Ever since the release of 2017’s PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (PUBG), the battle royale genre finds itself king of the gaming industry, best shown in the popularity of games like battle royales such as Fortnite and Apex Legends. Fortunately, this battle royale formula now finds itself fading away because of game developers overusing it. This era of battle royale games dominating the industry only lasted a matter of time before it hit Bedrock. Thankfully, the simple gameplay that Minecraft offers proved an essential foundation for the gaming world. 

Various developers created Minecraft, including Mojang, 4J Studios, Other Ocean Interactive, Xbox Game Studios, and most notably Marcus “Notch Persson: the renowned mastermind behind the making, transpired to become a revolutionary game. Minecraft revealed its unique gameplay to the public on November 18, 2011. On its release, Minecraft sold over 5 million copies in the first five weeks. This sudden growth made Minecraft one of the fastest selling video games in history.

 Minecraft offered unlimited potential and infinite room for creativity by including “Creative Mode”, which gives a player the ability to create anything their heart desires. The survival approach for Minecraft compelled the most attention from gamers. This game mode, known as “Survival Mode”, consists of mining in the dark labyrinth of caves in hopes of finding diamonds, farming and hunting to stave off starvation, fighting vicious monsters that lurk in the nighttime, and killing the Ender Dragon to end its terrors over the player’s world.

Due to all of its interesting features, Minecraft earned its membership to the unofficial “Gaming Hall of Fame,” a recognition endorsed by gamers and popularized through memes on the internet. Sadly, even after its prime years, that reign came to a temporary end. One can still find conspiracy videos from YouTubers debating why its fame died out. A well-known Youtuber, “Junky Janker”, with roughly 300,000 subscribers, managed to obtain 1.6 million views on his most popular video, “The Minecraft Revival of 2019” which explains its downfall and its revival. Multiple gamers agree with his explanation and reasoning, specifying how this fall and rise came to be.

Junky discusses a huge factor to blame for why Minecraft fell, which he called “The Microsoft Purchase.” This “purchase” saw Microsoft buy the Minecraft makers for $2.5 billion. This angered a significant portion of Minecraft fans and provoked them to leave the game. “The Microsoft Purchase,” in simple terms, began making two versions of Minecraft: Java edition (original), and the Bedrock edition; they then abandoned the Java edition. This meant that Minecraft on the IOS or Android platforms would receive updates faster than Minecraft on console and PC programs. The fatal mistake of leaving a colossal community behind lead to their hiatus. 

The motive behind this play from Microsoft ultimately meant to restrict the freedoms of creating mods that give players the opportunities to place creative additions to the game for a personalized experience, and skins which propose a custom-made design for the appearance of your character. However, in order to maintain the unique gaming style of Minecraft, the company implemented a system-known as “Minecoins”: gained by using real money to earn those opportunities back in the Bedrock edition. Gamers displayed angry feelings on the topic that Junky summed up concisely. 

“I will dig straight down before I buy a skin pack using Minecoin,” said Junky.

Deemed a forbidden action by the Minecraft gaming community, Junky displays his disgust with Minecoin by threatening to commit this Minecraft faux pas. Minecoin acts as a colossal act of greed and selfishness on Microsoft’s part. 

Taking all previously mentioned complaints into consideration, Minecraft’s comeback remains a mystery to gamers. Lately, Minecraft memes exploded in popularity: Minecraft music parodies earn back recognition for their artistic merit, and multiple popular YouTubers attempted to hop on the bandwagon by posting new series or other videos about Minecraft. One of the most influential YouTubers, Pewdiepie, caught the eyes of multiple viewers wanting to stay updated on this popularity growth by regularly posting his survival gameplay series, still continuing to this day. A huge influence to this expansion involves ultimately one of the most appreciated aspects to Minecraft: the music. This music made gamers reminisce on previous times; wanting to return to them, so they did. 

Just like aging liquor, after years of remaining preserved, Minecraft turned out to become a game with quality and renowned taste. Through the unity of gamers and the nostalgic gameplay, Minecraft assumed its destined place. In only a matter of months, Minecraft gained back the reputation to compete with the headlining games previously mentioned. This game reveals that with the power of the people and the motivation to position games to their rightful thrones, gamers can seriously influence the gaming landscape.