Minecraft mod makers are going to sue Mojang because the latter allegedly illegally changed its contract agreement, which could have grievous ramifications for the average user experience.
Mod Makers Are Suing Mojang, the Developers of Minecraft
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Minecraft is amongst the most, if not the most modded game in the world. Various fan-made modifications have been part of the community since the beta days of the popular sandbox title. As such, modders and modded servers are a huge part of the overall Minecraft ecosystem, meaning they are subject to major decisions undertaken by Mojang, the game’s developers.
However, these decisions can sometimes negatively impact mod makers. Such seems to be the case with Kian Brose, a creator from Sweden who announced he will be suing Mojang for, what is according to him, various violations of the End User License Agreement.
Why Is Mojang Being Sued?
Kian Brose posted a detailed video of the reasons why he is taking the Minecraft developers to court, explaining how he thinks Mojang violated EU law. The saga started last summer when Brose and his community were preparing to launch a mod featuring many guns. However, just a day after the mod creator announced the launch date of his mod, Mojang Enforcements threatened to close a server called GTM. That server features many firearms, but according to a new directive from Mojang at the time determined that “guns and weapons are considered non-compliant features under our Adult Content requirement for commercial usage servers.”
Of course, considering firearms are a fundamental feature of Brose’s server, this meant that months of his work had gone to waste. Following the announcement, he and many other owners of commercial Minecraft servers containing guns created a group to discuss the situation and hopefully negotiate with Mojang.
However, here’s where Brose and other members of the community started seeing some major discrepancies. The community asked very valid questions, such as how come servers that have heavily featured guns for more than a decade, are suddenly placed in potential danger of being closed.
This led Brose to investigate the End User License Agreement (EULA) that players must accept before playing Minecraft. According to the mod developer and his associates, Mojang had illegally changed the terms of service in the summer of last year to say that guns are not compliant with the company’s Brand Guidelines (something Brose shows does not exist online) and the EULA.
It’s also interesting to note that these changes happened around the time Mojang was releasing a new Minecraft snapshot. According to Brose and other members of the community, this was done intentionally to divert attention away from the EULA changes.
Why Is This a Problem?
According to Brose and his team, Mojang failed to announce the changes to the public, which is considered a crime under EU law. In addition, the modder’s claim, and that of many of his colleagues, is that Mojang has hidden contract-binding information from the public, which is also considered illegal in all EU jurisdictions.
EU Consumer Protection Laws and Contract Law state that contracts (And the Minecraft EULA is one such) must be fair and transparent. However, according to Brose’s claims, Mojang had made a “Get-out clause”, which allows them to get out of providing a service just because it doesn’t suit them. In addition, Brose and his team claim Mojang has been making various one-sided changes to the contract and also has hidden terms. Both are illegal under EU law and if Mojang is found guilty of this, they could be in for some serious fines.
Fundamentally, if Brose’s claims turn out to be real, these could mean bad things for the end user – the players themselves. If Mojang is left to be able to change its contract agreements one-sidedly, this could set a negative precedent. In this way, the company might be able to force players and modders to do things that might be damaging to the user experience.
What Else Is Mojang Being Accused Of?
All that being said, Mojang also seems to be doing some other questionable practices lately. For example, it seems the company is forcing mod developers into the marketplace. While this is bad in itself, as it limits the distribution options of the developers, it also has a negative impact on their income. This is because Mojang charges a 30% fee on sales, which Brose says is exorbitant. Meanwhile, the company is seemingly trying to block off third-party sites for mod distribution, such as CurseForge and Planet Minecraft.
Another example Brose gave is of many Minecraft servers having “crates” in their in-game shops. These are essentially lootboxes that players buy with real money. A portion of that money goes directly to Mojang. However, the company explicitly states that any form of gambling is prohibited for monetized servers. But lootboxes are often considered gambling, so in this case, Mojang seemingly contradicts itself.
Furthermore, Mojang is based in Sweden, which has quite strict gambling laws, prohibiting anyone aged below 18 from participating. Despite that, the company seemingly allows it to go on.
Back to the whole question about guns, there’s also another major contradiction regarding Mojang’s unclear implementation of its own rules. While the company officially disallows the depiction of firearms in monetized servers, Mojang itself has depicted guns before. This happened in the controversial Minecraft trailer. At one point in it, one can clearly see what looks like a pixellated steampunk-like modded gun wielded by Henry, one of the characters of the film.
What Difficulties Has Brose Encountered So Far?
Of course, the past year and a half have not been easy for Brose and the community of Minecraft modders and players who also want answers from Mojang. For starters, the team has had many difficulties actually discussing the multiple issues with the company. According to Brose, Mojang failed to respond in a timely and concise manner to the concerned modders’ questions regarding guns and other similar content.
When asked why an answer is taking so long, Mojang said that “a couple of key decision makers are on holiday”. Brose and the team received that answer on June 13, but it took more than six months for a proper reply to be sent out.
Of course, if Brose and his team are about to go into a legal battle with a $2.5 billion company, they will need to get adequate lawyers. Unfortunately, the services of such professionals are expensive and the team cannot afford the thousands of work hours such a case would take.
A solution might be found in the EU Charter of Human Rights and Sweden’s Legal Aid Institution. In short, according to both, people who cannot afford lawyers can apply to get such thanks to government aid. However, this aid goes on to no more than 100 hours of work, unless otherwise stated by a court. Brose and his team reached out to the relevant legal organs, but in short, all of them said that the case was not important enough to spend state time and effort on it.
For this reason, Brose has created a GoFundMe campaign to raise resources and afford the lawyer services needed. At the time of writing, the campaign has garnered over kr600, 000 SEK, which equates to over €50,000 (around $54,000).
Conclusions and Our Opinion
While the case is yet to begin, it has to be said that Brose and his team have laid out a lot of very interesting claims. If they turn out to be true, Mojang could face a ton of fines and as much backlash from the Minecraft community.
It has to be said that if Brose’s claims are true, then this would set a precedent for Mojang changing EULA and other contracts agreements on a whim, which could irreversibly damage the user experience of the game. Players, modders, and modded servers could suddenly find themselves unable to create or consume the type of Minecraft content they have been used to. In addition, in the future, Mojang might implement more features into the game that are there more in order to squeeze out as much money from their customers as possible. We certainly don’t need another EA in our lives.
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