The studio responsible for ongoing development of Minecraft is dipping its toes into the games journalism business, Mojang announced this week, re-launching Minecraft.net as a community hub dedicated to all things Minecraft -related. It’s not going to feature the world’s most objective coverage of the popular sandbox game but the new Minecraft site does show some promise.
It’s not clear what led Mojang to make the change, though the recent spate of publisher-owned blogs makes the news significantly less surprising. What is clear is that Microsoft and Mojang are doing what they can centralize discovery and distribution of new Minecraft content, regardless of whether it was created in-house or by a member of the Minecraft community. The new site will include snapshot announcements, patch notes and other developmental news. Mojang says it also plans to use the site to “[dig] into development secrets, inspiration behind our updates, DLC, game mechanics, and more.”
The studio also plans to use Minecraft.net to highlight community creations, including popular YouTube videos, Minecraft mods, new servers and even those who prefer channeling their love of Minecraft into physical art, like cosplay. Of course, seeing as it’s a company-run platform, we’ll also see plenty of Minecraft merch sprinkled into the mix. The studio even brought in Marsh Davies, known for his work at PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun, to run the revamped site. Minecraft fans can currently read up on the inspirations behind the recently added underwater temple and one of the game’s most-popular world-generation tools.
Minecraft is currently available on PlayStation 3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, iOS, Android and PC.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Minecraft news throughout what’s left of 2016 and however long Mojang supports Minecraft in the years ahead.
