Recently, Reddit has been introducing changes to how its API works that have made it more difficult (and expensive) for third-party apps to access the site. This has made it much more difficult for moderators to manage their subreddits and has led to subs going dark for days at a time in protest. Now, the official Minecraft subreddit has, in some ways, taken things a step further. A Minecraft developer has announced on the r/Minecraft subreddit that the team will no longer post official content there or refer players to the subreddit for assistance.
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The announcement comes from the Minecraft Java tech lead, who goes by u/sliced_lemon on Reddit. In their post, they specifically pointed to how Reddit’s management has made changes that have affected moderation across several subreddits. They then say, “Because of these changes, we no longer feel that Reddit is an appropriate place to post official content or refer our players to.” Effectively, they are saying that, in its current state, Reddit is not worth using for Minecraft‘s official posts anymore. Instead, they’re pointing to their official feedback site at minecraft.net or asking users to contact them on one of their other social media channels.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the Minecraft subreddit is shutting down completely. In fact, sliced_lemon reminds users that they are “welcome to post unofficial update threads going forward.” However, players won’t see anything official from the team until something changes on Reddit’s end. Given how things have been going over the past few weeks, that seems unlikely, meaning that Reddit will likely no longer be a source that Minecraft players can use moving forward.
It’s interesting to see a team as large as Minecraft take a stand against Reddit’s API changes. Obviously, the changes haven’t been popular with users since they were announced and now we’re seeing them directly affect the useability of a popular subreddit. Of course, players will still have ways to find out the latest info about Minecraft, but losing Reddit as a source will certainly have an impact on how many users continue to frequent r/Minecraft.
