Minecraft Bukkit team lead tries to end development, but Mojang steps in

The team lead on Bukkit , a Minecraft mod designed to simplify the job of maintaining heavily-modded servers, wrote a lengthy message this morning declaring that development of the mod was being brought to an end. He said changes to the Minecraft EULA, and Mojang's sudden enthusiasm for enforcing its terms , means that "there is little motivation for us to continue limping on across various aspects of the project."

"This is the end, it's time to say goodbye," Warren "EvilSeph" Loo wrote in his heartfelt farewell . "It's been an amazing run and we achieved much more than anyone thought was possible, even ultimately culminating in Mojang hiring our original core team. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and the Bukkit project has run its course, leaving me to make one final - incredibly difficult - decision to shut down the project I've poured 3 and a half years of my life into."

The end of support for Bukkit, he explained, meant that it would be placed under a "code freeze" and not updated to support Minecraft 1.8, nor would the development team help anyone else make the updates. The project, he wrote, "will essentially be no more."

Yet as it turns out, Loo overlooked one rather important factor. "Warren over at bukkit seems to have forgotten that the project was bought by Mojang over two years ago, and isn't his to discontinue," Jens Bergensten of Mojang tweeted shortly after the announcement went up. "That means bukkit always had a special relationship in regards to things such as the EULA, and if Warren is bored, we need to do something."

This is not a joke, we dug up the receipt to be sure. August 21, 2014

Bergensten confirmed that he was being entirely serious—"We dug up the receipt to be sure," he said—and Loo quickly acknowledged that Bergensten was in the right. "Yes, Mojang does own Bukkit. Them acquiring us was a condition to being hired," he tweeted . "If Mojang want to continue Bukkit, I'm all for it. :)"

The header for Loo's farewell post has since been updated. "There's more to come on this," it now says. "Please stand by."

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.