Talk:Minecraft

1. Sourcing

First, foremost, and arguably the worst part about the article: the sourcing stands on stilts, to say the least. By my (admittedly rudimentary) count, at least 93 of the article's 431 citations are flat-out unreliable or have questionable reliability. Of those, many of them are from minecraft.net, or are otherwise known as primary sources—sources that, while able to provide information not available by secondary sources, we would prefer secondary sources over.

Other sources of those questionable citations include the Minecraft Wiki (citation 4), "Minecraft for Dummies" (citation 21), "The Big Book of Hacks for Minecrafters: The Biggest Unofficial Guide to Tips and Tricks That Other Guides Won't Teach You" (citation 23), Gamevironments (citation 47), literally just archive.org (citation 144), games.on.net (citation 160), Nintendo Everything (citation 183), DualShockers (several citations), OnMSFT.com (citation 204), PlayStation themselves (citation 212), Bandcamp (citations 219 and 221), the Valve Corporation (citation 264), Gaming Trend (citation 274), Vooks (citation 275), SK Gaming (citation 284), Farshore (citation 289), Indie DB (citation 311), IndieGames (citation 314), Spike TV (citations 320 and 321), SlashGear (citation 345), GAMING (citation 352), Iowa State Daily (citation 354), The UMass Lowell Connector (citation 357), www.teamfortress.com (citation 375), ReadWrite (citation 385), and Block by Block (citation 386), among others I definitely missed.

Not to mention the marginally reliable sources I discounted, like Forbes or GameRant, which we would probably be better off without in a Wikipedia article.

How do I suppose we fix this? It seems simple (if a bit tedious), but I suggest we identify passages using weak sources, search for stronger sources that cover the same information, and depending on our yield, either 1) replace the source, 2) remove the information entirely, or, if a primary source is justified, 3) leave it as-is. The only reason I haven't done it myself is that it seems like a big change, and I would like community consensus before enacting it. Also, it just seems like a lot of work, and I would much rather it be distributed among several willing participants.

2. Repeated information

Second, what do we do about the superfluity of repeated information in the top-level section of "Development" and the "Java Edition" section under "Editions"? I noticed this a while ago, but haven't been able to figure out how to incorporate changes that would preserve the information but do so in a way that makes the article readable. Let me illustrate my point:

The first sentence of the third paragraph in "Development" currently states:

The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource.

And the second sentence of the second paragraph in "Java Edition" states:

The first public release followed on 17 May 2009 as a developmental version shared on the TIGSource forums.

Those convey the exact same information with different words.

One more example I found:

Shortly after [the game was officially released], Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten.

And:

On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer.

We even repeat the nickname!

It makes sense, considering Java Edition was the first edition of Minecraft—and the only one, for a long time—and there ought to be considerable overlap in the early general development of Minecraft and the development of Java. However, one of Wikipedia's core prose pillars is concision, which includes not blatantly repeating information in different sections. The information is crucial to both Java and Minecraft as a whole, so it would feel weird to remove it from a section and keep it in the other. We can't merge the sections, as they do both present some unique information.

I propose we incorporate information from the article Development of Minecraft: Java Edition, whose citations are much higher-quality than this article's and whose information we can build on to structure how we present the development of Minecraft as a whole and the development of Java Edition in particular.

3. So many images

Being illustrated with images is one of the best traits a Wikipedia article can have. I mean, how does the reader know what we are talking about if we don't show them visually? However, in the Gameplay section of this particular article, there are a lot of images that I don't want to say we would be better without but that could definitely use some paring. We have:

1. an image of Steve overlooking the procedurally generated terrain,
2. five separate images of different mobs,
3. an image of the Nether,
4. an image of the End,
5. an image of the crafting menu,
6. an image of an item within a mod, and
7. the Minecraft Marketplace logo.

I can admit that all of these contribute at least some semblance of encyclopedic value, but it seems excessive, for instance, to display five separate images of mobs or images of both the Nether and the End. Also, is it pertinent that we show the Minecraft Marketplace logo? In my opinion, it adds little visual value to the information we provide about Minecraft Marketplace.

It makes the article seem cluttered—especially considering the section's proximity to the infobox—and overrepresents some aspects of the gameplay. Thus, I propose we remove some of the images in the Gameplay section.

Overall

Overall, it's a fine article. It's just long, quite poorly sourced, redundant in some places, and over-illustrated. Thus, I turn it over to you dandy folks to oversee its improvement. I will try to help as much as I can, but ultimately it's a consensus-based decision. Or perhaps this talk-page discussion will not turn into a discussion and this thread will fall into ignominy. In any case, I appreciate any feedback! Thanks ya! nub :) 02:10, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

1. Those references are somewhat fine. Many are linking to very specific historical information. A date of release is not controversial content so a secondary source isnt required. The only problem with primary sources for these cases is notability of the fact in question. The primary sources can definitely be removed if there is also a secondary source for it.
2. Seems fair enough, maybe we shouldn't talk about 'Java Edition' before other editions came to be, as anything before 2012 is one and the same.
3. I don't think there's a crazy number of images present, they only point out the core parts of the game and give a feel for its environments and style.

 Nixinova  T ⁄ C  04:03, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Release dates is definitely something that can be contested and needs to be sourced. As a matter of fact, almost everything should be to meet WP:V or establish why said content is relevant. The vast majority of those sources are not fine; multiple are listed as unreliable at WP:VG/S or are otherwise not high quality.

Anyways, I agree with every single comment from Nub, and I'd like to also discuss my own gripes with the article. I view this article as super skewed towards a more recentist perspective of Minecraft rather than an all-around, balanced one. Too many things from the game's history are overlooked, and weight is given to recent phenomenon or attributes.

For one, C418 is the game's main composer on almost all versions of the game historically and for eleven years of its development, yet we for some reason treat Kumi Tanioka and Amos Roddy as significant composers, and Coker even though he only made music for specific ports of the game. Though he's probably more qualified to be there as a significant contributor than Tanioka and Roddy, who only did a few tracks each. I'd even consider Lena Raine to be recentist; she only started contributing to the game in 2020, opposed to C418's contributions to every version of the game starting in 2009. The infobox artwork is only used on newer physical releases of the Bedrock Edition; it does not represent the vast majority of the game's releases or history. I wanted to replace it with simply the logo at one point, which would've resolved all of those concerns, but for some reason this was controversial.

And on that note, the article also lacks information on almost all of the differences between the game's console ports. The article mix-matches between all of the game's versions, acting they all are the same. I'm sure at this point we don't need to give a ton of info on the legacy console ports, but since they're what most of Minecraft's historical popularity stemmed from in the 2010s, there should be a note of version differences somewhere. Even if just a paragraph or an explanatory footnote on certain claims. It should be important to note somewhere that the legacy console editions, which were very significant versions, did not have infinite worlds. So did the original Pocket Editions, the 3DS edition, etc. The minigames that the old console ports had, which were the main multiplayer modes for tens of millions of players, are not covered at all. Also, Piglins are only referred to as that throughout the article, with absolutely no mention of how they were called Zombified Pigmen for the vast majority of the game's history and regular Piglins did not exist.

I do plan on creating articles about the development history of Legacy console editions and a "List of Minecraft editions" that can go more into depth on specific versions. Maybe that can be a solution up to a point. But seriously, I view a lot of this article as historical-Minecraft erasure, and that's something that should be dealt with. I'm not saying be stuck in the past or not document more recent updates to the game, because Minecraft is an ever-evolving game. But you can document the latest and greatest while also acknowledging the game's history and not having recency bias. λ NegativeMP1 04:51, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

To explain myself a little better on the infobox in a manner that's easier to read: I think it should only cover what's universal across all versions. Defining traits, the purpose of one in the first place.

Mojang developing the game? Obviously includes all versions. Defining trait. Persson creating the game and Bergensten serving as the lead designer since release? Yep, something that influences all versions. Defining trait. C418's music? Present in all versions of the game. Defining trait. But, the other composers? Relatively recent, and Coker only worked on DLC. Likewise, Toivonen only designed the logo, Zetterstrand only the paintings. Boerstra's contributions are also recent though I could see an exception being made for him simply because he designed almost all textures currently present in the game. Likewise, the cover art should be replaced with a logo because the logo is present on all versions of the game. It is truly "representative" of the game. The current infobox image is not.

Template:Infobox video game actually says to only list people who are specifically credited as lead artists and significant soundtrack contributors. Toivonen and Zetterstrand are not lead artists, and compared to C418, the contributions of all other artists are very little and a bit recentist to list as "significant" contributors. This is not to say that they can't be present in the infobox, but like how we handle the "Developers" field now (list Mojang, explanatory footnote listing 4J Studios and Microsoft and the like), we could easily credit C418 and just put the other composers in a footnote. I don't think any artist would warrant being in the infobox if we strictly follow the infobox documentation, but I'm sure Boerstra can be discussed. λ NegativeMP1 08:32, 9 March 2026 (UTC)