Update: After reaching out to Mojang questioning the removal of the main menu messages related to original Minecraft Creator Notch we heard back that they are not providing any comment on the situation
Mojang's monolithic survival game Minecraft has revealed the latest version snapshot, and one of the most noticeable changes is the removal of references to the games original creator Notch. Several splash screen messages which show when a player boots the PC version of the game have been changed to remove Notch's name and references to the person himself. Now when players boot the latest version of the game the screen messages "Made by Notch!", "The Work of Notch", and "110813!" no longer have a chance of showing up. The first two removals are obvious enough, they were removed because they contained Notch's name. The last splash screen message is actually a reference to the day that Notch got married, 13th August 2011, as made clear by this wiki page.
In the years since Mojang was sold to Microsoft Notch has become something of a controversial figure online for some of the things he posts to his twitter page. He has been accused of homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny in the past and has also been criticized for posts he has made about his political opinions. While it is not yet known if Notch's behavior on social media is linked to his removal from the splash screens, especially considering that his name still appears in the game's credits. Though since it's only a snapshot it is possible that his name could still be removed from the credits before the full update.
A similar update with the change to the splash screen is expected on consoles in the wake of a 4J Studios (the company that handles Minecraft on consoles) tweet:
https://twitter.com/4JStudios/status/1107990101974487040
Although there is no confirmation of the reasons why Notch has been removed from the game we have reached out to both Mojang and Notch himself for comment on the situation and hopefully we'll be able to bring you confirmation in the near future.
What do you think about removing Notch from Minecraft's splash screens? Do you think Mojang was in the right? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.
