There are a lot of apps and services that have shut down the past few months or will shut down in the next few. A lot have found it hard to sustain operations in the midst of the pandemic and some are directly affected by the fact that people can’t go around as freely as before. While Minecraft in itself is still going strong, Minecraft Earth isn’t doing too well as they’re dependent on free movement and collaborative play. So they’ve made the “difficult decision” to shut down the app by June 2021.
Location-based apps and games have been having a hard time with people staying indoors and not traveling due to the pandemic. The real-world augmented reality game Minecraft Earth has been one of those that were basically paralyzed and so now the company has decided to just re-allocate their resources to the other areas of their Minecraft Empire. But before totally letting go of the game and its players, they have some final tricks up their sleeves.
They will be releasing one final update that will allow players to enjoy the game even if they’re indoors. The update will remove all real-money transactions and also drastically reduce the ruby costs. Players will also get all completed and unreleased content that they were planning to release. The time requirements for crafting and smelting have been reduced. For players who sign in between January 5 and June 30, they will get a set of Character Creator items.
If you’ve spent money in Minecraft Earth, you’ll get a free copy of the Minecraft Bedrock version. If you have unused paid rubies, you’ll also get an unspecified amount of Minecoins which you can use in the marketplace of the main Minecraft game. By June 30, the game will officially shut down and even if you’ve installed it already, it won’t work by then. All player data will be erased by July 1, 2021.
When it first launched in 2019, it was an exciting game for Minecraft players as they could take the game to the streets and even collaborate with other players nearby. Sad to say, they were not able to adapt like what Pokemon Go was able to do. So goodbye Minecraft Earth, thanks for the memories however brief they were.
