Latest Minecraft snapshot quietly scrubs references to Notch

The latest Minecraft Java snapshot release, 19w13a, adds a few new features like a status effect called "Hero of the Village" and an accessibility button on the title screen. It fixes 22 bugs, according to the official patch notes, and adds a number of new quotes to the splash screen, like "Don't worry, be happy!" and "Go to the dentist." It also scrubs two splash screen messages that referenced original Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson.

As spotted by Twitter user decrepitlab, the Minecraft wiki lists the removal of the text "Made by Notch!" and "The Work of Notch!" in the March 27 snapshot. I downloaded the snapshot and compared it to the previous build, 19w12b, from March 21. You can see them side-by-side in the image below, with a search run against both files. The Notch references are indeed gone.

Left: Snapshot 19w13a. Right: Snapshot 19w12b.

Notch sold Mojang to Microsoft in September 2014 for $2.5 billion, five years after the game went public in May 2009 and hasn't been involved in the game's development since the sale. At the time, Mojang's statement on the sale said that Notch "decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. Over the past few years he’s made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle."

Since selling Minecraft, Notch has made multiple widely criticized posts on social media, including debating the definition of gender, using the word "feminist" as an insult, calling a female game developer "a fucking cunt" and promoting the hashtag "#HeterosexualPrideDay." He also stated that "mansplaining is a sexist term designed to silence men via gender shaming."

Notch's social media presence inspired a popular joke disassociating him from the game he created. That joke now seems to have come true (though Persson is still listed as the creator of Minecraft in build 19w13a's credits).

son: this minecraft game is great daddad: it is indeed sonson: who made it?dad: no one. it came from spaceDecember 6, 2018

For the latest on what's going on in Minecraft, check out our Minecraft update hub.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).