Key Takeaway
Microsoft has made accessing Minecraft and some of its DLC very tedious. Through poor website and app management, this big company is making things that should be easy very difficult and awkward.
Years ago, when the game was available on Mojang’s official website, downloading and playing it was quick, straightforward, and easy. However, when Microsoft took over, they began ruining Minecraft for players in many ways. And they won’t stop.
Table Of Contents
A Poorly Implemented Launcher
First and foremost, the way the Minecraft launcher has been handled is ridiculous. The sheer number of players who have had issues simply downloading the game from the official source is staggering. The community help page on Microsoft’s official website clearly represents the awkward state of the game’s launcher.
Let’s take a look at a thread created by the user LachlanLehmann titled “i cant download Minecraft launcher” to dissect the issue. This issue was posted on December 1, 2021—and it was replied to on the same day. An independent advisor going by the username SammyVS attempted to give instructions on how to resolve LachlanLehmann’s issue, however, the steps listed are less than helpful.
Furthermore, the thread has been locked. This means it now belongs to the ages as a testament to bad customer service as opposed to just being bad customer service.
How to Not Help Gamers Play Minecraft
Here are the steps SammyVS gave LachlannLehmann in an attempt to help them:
1. Logout from Xbox app and Microsoft Store app
2. Look for the Xbox app and Microsoft Store app in the Windows menu, right-click, click app settings and then click terminate, restore and reset.
3. Clear the store cache type ”wsreset” in the Windows bar, run as admin, and wait for the screen to close and open the store automatically.
4. Open the Microsoft Store app, click on the 3 dots in the upper right corner>downloads updates>get updates and update everything.
5. Restart your PC, log in to both apps and see if that solves the problem.
Why These Steps Point Out Major Issues
The first step makes sense, as closing and re-opening apps can reset processes and allow requests and tasks to get a fresh start. In that regard, the second step also makes sense.
However, the third step is where massive problems with the website become obvious. Manually having to clear the store cache and running the program as an admin is something that is not required to play any other popular mainstream game these days.
There’s no reason this should be the fix for the issue. The only reason this is a suggestion is due to the launcher simply not being as accessible as intended. The store interface is terribly flawed and no one is fixing it—instead, players are told to fix it themselves.
Next, let’s look at the fourth step. Here, SammyVS suggests that users then “click on the 3 dots in the upper right corner” and then “update everything”. Unfortunately, many players could not find this button. This is due to the button simply not appearing unless players brute-force click through all the available options and manage to click the right ones via trial and error.
When looking at the “Was this reply helpful?” section at the bottom of each message on this page, you can see that only four people thought SammyVS’s advice was helpful. If you look a bit lower at a user complaining that they could not find the three-dotted button, 24 people found that this user’s comment was helpful.
Lastly, the fifth step ends with “and see if that solves the problem.” This is the equivalent of saying “I don’t know if what I said will help, but try it anyways.” Someone offering technical support should know what will and won’t work. There should be no guessing involved.
The Lack of Professional Help is Sad
At this point, if you’re wondering what an independent advisor even is, they are “freelancers in the community who use their proven skills and experience to answer technical questions in defined categories.” That is the exact text explaining this role on the Microsoft Community FAQ page.
Why is it that only a freelancer bothered to try and help instead of an actual employee or someone related to the development of the Minecraft launcher? It’s because Microsoft doesn’t care. They’re making money from Minecraft, and that’s all that matters to them.
Customer service doesn’t make money, so it doesn’t get proper resources—simple as that. Big companies only care about their net income, which is a crucial problem in the industry. Not dedicating staff to dealing with major issues is ruining Minecraft.
Why the Microsoft Store App Such a Mess
There’s no reason why things should be this difficult. You should be able to open the Microsoft Store App, click a download button, pay the price, and then play the game. But it’s not that simple.
Paying is the easy part. There are absolutely no issues with the financial transaction. And that happens first in the process. After payment comes the issue: you can’t download the launcher for the game. If this was a smaller company, this would have resulted in legal disputes due to players playing money for something they cannot access.
However, Microsoft has a ton of lawyers and money, which makes them virtually untouchable for normal people. Instead, gamers who can’t launch Minecraft are doomed to stew angrily in front of their computers for eternity. Or at least until they decide to play another game.
All of the buttons that you’d think to click to remedy the issue do nothing besides cause error messages to pop up. The only way to proceed is to click on the fabled three-doted button and click on one of the options there. Although, this button does not show up most of the time, making the solution nearly unreachable.
Bad Website Design
If you’ve been to minecraft.net in the past few years, you’ve likely noticed that it sometimes automatically redirects you to the Spanish version of the website. It doesn’t matter where in North America you are, you’ll possibly get sent to the Spanish version depending on your computer and browser.
There’s nothing wrong with such a thing happening for Mexican players or those in Spanish-speaking countries. However, this is an issue for the majority of players in the US and Canada, as the primary language of these countries is English.
The weirdest part is that this is automatic. No matter what you do, or how you access the site, you’ll get redirected to the Spanish version for seemingly no reason. That is if you’re one of the unlucky ones. Some players don’t have this issue, which makes the problem even odder.
This is clearly a web design error…that hasn’t been fixed in years. It wouldn’t even be that hard to fix, as you’d just need to make the English version the primary landing page through the website’s back end for all US and Canadian users. But no one’s doing it because no one seems to care.
Microsoft is racking in millions of dollars from Minecraft every single year and they won’t even spend a few bucks to get a web designer to click a few buttons for less than five minutes. Something about this seems strange…but more on that later.
How to Get Minecraft.net to Be in English
Since no one at Microsoft is likely to do anything about this language issue, gamers will (yet again) have to fix things themselves. Thankfully, this odd problem can be solved very easily from your end.
In the URL at the top of the page, change the “es-es” at the end of the web address to “en-us”. This will bring you to the US-English version of minecraft.net.
The “es-es” stands for “Español-España”, which is “Spanish-Spain” in Spanish. As such, changing this part of the web address to “en-us” redirects you to the “English-USA” version of the website.
Bad Website Design is Also Ruining Minecraft DLC
Are you ready kids?! If you answered “yes” to that, you’re wrong. You’re not ready, and neither is Microsoft.
In late July of 2022, the SpongeBob DLC was released for Minecraft. While a great idea, the way minecraft.net is handling the promising DLC pack is very disappointing.
If you head to the article that goes into detail about this DLC, there’s a clear link to the marketplace page that should let you download the DLC. When you click the link, you’ll possibly end up at the Spanish version of the web page. Although awkward, this isn’t the main issue.
After changing the web page to the English version, you’ll see the “GET THIS ITEM” button. Logically, you’d think this will let you get the desired item. However, instead, it leads to a broken web page for most people.
Whoever is in charge of designing and maintaining minecraft.net should be relieved of their duties in favor of someone more competent. Creating a destination for a button is as easy as web designing tasks go. If you can’t manage that, then you’re in the wrong industry.
Thankfully, this isn’t an issue for console gamers—only those who play Minecraft on PC. As such, you can watch many of your favorite streamers playing the SpongeBob DLC. You can enjoy the gameplay through them…or seethe about it. It’s not like Microsoft is going to help you. All they care about is your money—not how you feel.
Why Did Things Have to Change?
There was a time when the game was easy to download and play. Before Microsoft started ruining Minecraft, Mojang had a beautifully simple website. You could download and begin playing the game in a few minutes. There were no headaches, awkwardness, or errors.
However, in 2014, Mojang became a subsidiary of Microsoft. Markus Persson, better known as Notch, became tired of the ownership duties relating to Minecraft. Seeing an opportunity to make a ton of money, a few companies tried to snatch up Mojang. Such companies included Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft.
The Bottom Line
In the end, Microsoft won the bidding war and acquired Mojang for a whopping $2.5 billion. Currently, according to businessofapps.com, Minecraft makes an average of $351 million every year since 2012. And that’s not even including the sales of mobile versions of the game.
Since Minecraft is by far Mojang’s most successful title, we can do a bit of math to see just how things ended up for Microsoft from a financial perspective. If we assume Minecraft‘s profits make up the majority of Mojang’s net income, it would mean that Microsoft would need about seven years’ worth of Minecraft income just to make up the purchasing cost of acquiring Mojang.
As of 2022, it’s been eight years since Microsoft bought Mojang. This means that Microsoft has probably just recently begun making a net profit from their 2014 acquisition.
No wonder Microsoft has been putting so few resources into maintaining Minecraft. This tech giant was somehow struggling to turn a profit from a game that basically prints money.
Microsoft wanted a piece of the pumpkin pie but ended up choking on the crust for nearly a decade. It didn’t have to be this way, but it is now. Commercialism-based greed is ruining Minecraft for everyone, partially even for the company that owns the game.
Hopefully, since Microsoft is actually getting net positive income from Minecraft now, things will change for the better in terms of management and customer service. However, only time will tell.
