Minecraft Developer Mojang Quits Reddit Citing API Change, Protests
Reddit’s controversial API change and the resulting protests have caused one high-profile game developer to bail from the platform: Minecraft developer Mojang Studios.
A Java developer for Mojang Studios posted(Opens in a new window) the news on the Minecraft subreddit, which has over 7 million followers. "As you have no doubt heard by now, Reddit management introduced changes recently that have led to rule and moderation changes across many subreddits,” Sliced_lime wrote, who is likely Minecraft Java tech lead Mikael Hedberg(Opens in a new window).
“Because of these changes, we no longer feel that Reddit is an appropriate place to post official content or refer our players to,” he added.
The Mojang developer didn’t elaborate on the decision. But the Minecraft subreddit was among the thousands that participated in the Reddit “blackout” earlier this month to protest the platform’s plan to charge for API access, which risks shutting down several third-party apps and tools.
Although the protests have somewhat died down, the Microsoft-owned Mojang appears to be the first software developer team to quit Reddit in response. In a separate post, Sliced_lime added: “The moderators (of the Minecraft subreddit) did not cause this.”
On whether Mojang could return to the platform, the developer wrote(Opens in a new window): “We haven't really decided or discussed anything. This decision is based on the current situation, if the situation was to change we'd have to discuss that then."
The decision to bail from Reddit is more of a symbolic move; the Minecraft subreddit will to live on, but without official updates from the Mojang team. Nevertheless, it occurs as other subreddits are considering another round of protests against
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