Mojang shuts down community-run Minecraft servers

⚠️ Article status notice: This article has been marked as incomplete

This article needs additional work for its sourcing and verifiability to meet the wiki's Content Guidelines and be in line with our Mission Statement for comprehensive coverage of consumer protection issues.

This notice will be removed once sufficient documentation has been added to establish the systemic nature of these issues. Once you believe the article is ready to have its notice removed, please visit the Moderator's noticeboard, or the discord and post to the #appeals channel.

Learn more ▼

This Article Requires Additional Verification

---

This article has been flagged due to verification concerns. While the topic might have merit, the claims presented lack citations that live up to our standards, or rely on sources that are questionable or unverifiable by our standards. Articles must meet the Moderator Guidelines and Mission statement; factual accuracy and systemic relevance are required for inclusion here!

Why This Article Is In Question

---

Articles in this wiki are required to:

• Provide verifiable & credible evidence to substantiate claims.
• Avoid relying on anecdotal, unsourced, or suspicious citations that lack legitimacy.
• Make sure that all claims are backed by reliable documentation or reporting from reputable sources.

Examples of issues that trigger this notice:

• A topic that heavily relies on forum posts, personal blogs, or other unverifiable sources.
• Unsupported claims with no evidence or citations to back them up.
• Citations to disreputable sources, like non-expert blogs or sites known for spreading misinformation.

How You Can Improve This Article

---

To address verification concerns:

• Replace or supplement weak citations with credible, verifiable sources.
• Make sure that claims are backed by reputable reporting or independent documentation.
• Provide additional evidence to demonstrate systemic relevance and factual accuracy. For example:
  • Avoid: Claims based entirely on personal anecdotes or hearsay without supporting documentation.
  • Include: Corporate policies, internal communications, receipts, repair logs, verifiable video evidence, or credible investigative reports.

If you believe this notice has been placed in error, or once the article has been updated to address these concerns, please visit the Moderator's noticeboard, or the #appeals channel on our Discord server: Join here.

For the past 5-8 years, Mojang, the developers of the title Minecraft, and a subsidiary of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios publishing brand, have enforced countless server shutdowns citing violations of the Minecraft End User License Agreement (EULA). However, said enforcements have been unfairly biased against operators of smaller Minecraft Java Edition servers, abusing vague and often inaccessible community guidelines to shut down these servers.

Examples

An example of this occurred in late 2024 involving the Minecraft server 'McWar', wherein Mojang contacted the developer of the server to shut it down.

Additionally, MinecraftOnline was threatened by Mojang in late 2025 over their freedom of speech policy, stating that they need to repeal it, or risk being blacklisted by Mojang, meaning that players would not be able to access the server.^{[more citations needed - Dead link]}

Background

Minecraft is a voxel-based sandbox game created by Markus "Notch" Persson, and currently maintained by Mojang Studios, a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios, owned by Microsoft. The game achieved an estimated 350M sales, marking it as the world's #1 best-selling game.

Minecraft is split into 2 specific versions of the game: Java Edition (JE) and Bedrock Edition (BE). JE is exclusive to PC platforms, and is traditionally where most 3rd-party multiplayer servers are hosted,^{[citation needed - Check comment]} such as Hypixel, McWar, and DonutSMP. Most of these servers being shut down are on JE as well,^{[citation needed - Check comment]} as BE's multiplayer system is far more compartmentalized and controlled by Microsoft,^{[citation needed - Check comment]} leading to fewer servers being determined as "violating the EULA".

Most shutdowns are currently handled via blacklisting the server URL as a hash, however, its effectiveness has been proven to only work against non-malicious servers, as servers such as Minepot have been jumping domains to circumvent any block from Mojang.

Shutdowns

Server Blacklist - Circa 2016 (Version 1.9.3)

When Minecraft version 1.9.3 pre-release 2 released, the client had an encrypted "server blacklist" which if the user attempted to access a server that was on this blacklist, they would only receive a "connection error". When this list was discovered shortly after the update, the blacklist carried only 31 servers/domains, currently, this list reaches >100 servers.While some of these servers were reasonably determined to be violating the EULA at the time, not all of them received fair punishment, especially as the company refused to transparently communicate with the overall community over these issues.

Notably during this period, the servers known to be blacklisted were primarily ones who were selling cosmetics and "pay to win" content, which violated the EULA at the time, however this enforcement later-on would become lenient enough to leave these previous rulings to be questionable.

Grant Theft Minecart shutdown (May 2023)

During some period in 2023, Mojang updated their EULA to classify "guns and weapons" as "non-compliant features under our Adult Content requirement." There was no prior notification to the EULA change for server owners to capably comply in-time before enforcement could occur.

Shortly after this change, the Grand Theft Minecart (GTM) server was attempted to be shut down by the Mojang Enforcement Team. In a response to Mojang's enforcement email, the server owner called out some key details about the unfairness of this enforcement.

Furthermore, please allow me to ask for clarification when you say “guns and weapons” violate the EULA under this new directive. I am genuinely confused by what is meant by “guns and weapons.” What weapons are not considered adult content? Weapons have been a part of Minecraft since its inception. For example, are swords considered adult content? Are crossbows (which under most municipalities are considered “firearms”) regarded as adult content? How about TNT? Surely bombs can’t be more “kid friendly” than “guns”? To us, this measure feels arbitrary and unnecessary

Moreover, Mojang-endorsed items that are on Minecraft’s marketplace right now clearly contain explicit “firearms”

...

What makes it OK for these items to be available to kids but not our server? Are these items, too, going to be removed?

In summary, the email outlined how Mojang chose to focus its enforcement on the GTM server before focusing on moderating content that infringes these same rules on the BE marketplace, as well as how the rules are too vague for server owners to adequately comply.

Forcing server rules or risking being blacklisted (Oct 2025)

Prior to October 2025, as part of the free speech policy that was enforced for 15 years, nothing a player could say would result in a ban/official reprimand. After these changes, players are required to receive moderation action on JE servers for violations of the Minecraft Usage Guidelines, Minecraft Community Standards, and Xbox Community Standards. This essentially forces all Minecraft servers to enforce these rules, or risk being blacklisted by Mojang's systems.

Mojang's response

If applicable, add the proposed solution to the issues by the company.

---

Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.

Lawsuit

Editor's notice: There is a lawsuit being prepped for this incident at the moment, please check in with the community under the Minecraft: Consequences Edition discord server, or updates within the lawsuit's GoFundMe for details.

If applicable, add any information regarding litigation around the incident here.

Claims

Main claims of the suit.

Rebuttal

The response of the company or counterclaims.

Outcome

The outcome of the suit, if any.

---

Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.

Consumer response

Summary and key issues of prevailing sentiment from the consumers and commentators that can be documented via articles, emails to support, reviews and forum posts.

---

Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.