Minecraft Earth is Shutting Down Later This Year

Minecraft Earth, Microsoft's attempt to combine the popularity of Minecraft with the outdoor manic fun of Pokemon Go, launched in October of 2019 with a little fanfare and a lot of potential. It was downloaded 1.4 million times, and there were lots of plans to expand the game and help it really embrace the possibilities of a Minecraft AR experience.

Then some dude in China ate a bat, and a year and some change later, Microsoft has announced that their AR ambitions are unfortunately coming to an end. As Microsoft announced the other day:
 

"Minecraft Earth was designed around free movement and collaborative play – two things that have become near impossible in the current global situation. As a result, we have made the difficult decision to re-allocate our resources to other areas that provide value to the Minecraft community and to end support for Minecraft Earth in June 2021."

It might seem a little silly to shut down a game due to COVID-19 when a vaccine has just been produced, but remember: people actually have to take the vaccine for the pandemic to end, and there are a lot of stupid people out there who would rather die and kill each other than trust a medical professional with a needle, so, here we are.

Anyway, they've released the final update for the game the other day as well, which removed all in-game purchases, reduced the price of rubies, reduced the time requirements of a lot of activities, like smelting and crafting, and generally made the game more playable in one location... like, say, your house. Giving people plenty more time to enjoy the game before it shuts down in six months.

It's a shame it couldn't work out, but this is Microsoft we're dealing with here: they can probably survive a failure or two.