the developers of minecraft are no
strangers to removing controversial
features if you've played it even once
then you've likely seen messages written
in yellow on the title screen these are
known as splashes and consist of pop
culture references easter eggs and other
jokes about the game out of 500 of these
potential messages
30 of them have quietly been removed by
mojang due to controversy legal issues
and in some cases there was no reason at
all
this is something that's gone unnoticed
by a lot of the player base and
considering just how many splashes have
been added over the past 12 years the
fact that only these select few were
removed is a really interesting story so
today i'll be showing you every single
removed splash text in chronological
order from the earliest to the most
recent we'll examine the context and see
what exactly was so controversial about
some of these messages it's clear that
the developers have slowly made the game
more family friendly by sending some of
these splashes into hiding speaking of
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sponsoring today's video so which
splashes were removed and why
well we're going to go in chronological
order and the removals get more
controversial as time goes on while the
majority of these splashes were taken
out of both versions of the game the
bedrock edition does have some unique
ones taken out that we'll talk about
near the end since splashes have been in
the game since its creation the first
five removals happened in 2011.
none of them were controversial but they
all had a reason for being removed after
minecraft went from the alpha version to
the beta version all splashes related to
alpha were removed this included two of
them that referenced the price of the
game the alpha version was nine euros
which at the time was around 11 us
dollars but upon moving to beta the
price increased the phrase check it out
was removed because it was actually on
the splash list twice in different
positions while it can still be found in
the game the duplicate technically
counts as a removal for many years after
this though none of the splashes were
removed but that would change in 2015
since the creator of minecraft notch had
sold the game to microsoft the previous
year
three splashes related to him were
removed happy birthday notch happy
birthday easy and notch loves easy easy
was notch's ex-wife so even if the game
hadn't been sold to microsoft it makes
sense that these splashes would be
removed possibly as a courtesy the
following year in 2016 only one splash
was removed sopa means loser in swedish
not only was it a play on words but it
was a reference to the stop online
piracy act which was a proposed bill in
the united states it would have made
internet piracy a severe crime when it
was first drafted in 2011 tons of
websites at the time protested the bill
saying it would have made life on the
internet miserable but luckily the
outrage was enough to effectively kill
the bill since five years had passed at
this point the developers felt the
splash was no longer relevant and
removed it now from here on out this is
where the removals start to get more
controversial and in some cases splashes
were deleted for no reason at all the
next year in 2017 the phrase better than
prey was removed and this was mainly
because mojang feared a lawsuit from
bethesda the studio behind skyrim
fallout and other titles you see in 2012
mojing had a game called scrolls which
was an interactive card game bethesda
actually filed a lawsuit claiming the
name scrolls infringed on their
trademark for the series the elder
scrolls eventually the two companies
settled and mojing was allowed to
continue using the name but the entire
ordeal was not pretty while the splash
better than prey was a reference to a
2006 game of the same name it just so
happened that bethesda was releasing
their own game called prey wanting to
avoid a massive headache the splash text
was removed to prevent any legal issues
in 2019 with the release of the village
and pillage update five more splashes
were removed during this time the game's
creator notch found himself surrounded
by controversy by comments he had made
on twitter and mojing decided they no
longer wanted to have any association
with him all references to notch in the
game were eventually removed including
these three splashes made by notch the
work of notch and 110813
which was a reference to his wedding day
unrelated the splash hobo humping slobo
babe which is a song by the band whale
was also removed this was because it was
considered too inappropriate it
definitely was not a copyright issue
because there are plenty of other
splashes that reference song titles and
lyrics the final splash removed from
this update was woo minecraft forum
which was a shout out to the website of
the same name
this splash was removed because
minecraft forum was planning on shutting
down
even though they were eventually
purchased by a third party the splash
has not been brought back in 2020 the
nether update saw the removal of 13
splashes the most ever in a single
update some of these were no longer
considered appropriate to have in the
game the message switches and oars was
removed because even though it
referenced in-game items the developers
thought the joke was too demeaning
towards women for this same reason the
phrase huge tracks of land was also
taken out which is a quote from monty
python in the holy grail she's got huge
tracks of land because the same update
added a different monty python reference
we know the removal was not a copyright
or ip issue the phrase undocumented was
taken out with no reason given so feel
free to speculate about that one the
rest of the removals were all related to
songs hip-hop references to dr dre and
the group naughty by nature were deleted
possibly due to being too provocative in
their lyrics a flight of the concord
splash was removed because the song in
question jokingly referred to sexual
situations popping tags which was a
reference to macklemore's thrift shop
was removed and six splashes about the
song skeletons by stevie wonder were
deleted no reason was given for these
removals so it's possible the developers
felt six messages was a lot for just a
single song but as mentioned earlier the
sheer amount of song references still in
the splash texts makes it unlikely that
this was a copyright issue so who knows
the following year in 2021 only a single
splash was removed woo v
now v is a video game discussion board
on the website 4chan which has a very
toxic reputation but the reason it had a
splash in minecraft is because v played
a huge role in the early success of the
game notch used to advertise minecraft
there himself and would receive feedback
from users a lot of the early viral
marketing took place here and if you
were one of the first 100 000 minecraft
players there's a good chance you had
heard about it from 4chan but in the
present it's likely that mojang wanted
to remove the reference to it as even
though it was a big part of the game's
early success the website's politically
incorrect nature made it too risky to
reference it's also possible that once
again they felt the splash was too
related to notch but regardless this
falls in line with the removal of other
splashes considered to be inappropriate
one of the more recent removals was 2022
a russian phrase which translates to
hello russia was deleted due to the
ongoing war in the ukraine microsoft is
one of many tech companies that have
stopped selling its products in russia
so even though the text has been in the
game for over 10 years alongside other
shout outs to different countries it was
just too controversial given current
events
while that covers all of them in the
java edition the bedrock edition does
have a few unique removals that have
happened over the years you add toilet
friendly which was a reference to the
fact that pocket edition can be played
in the bathroom there's no stopping the
troll meso a callback to an old tweet by
jeb
bacon which is just a weird spelling of
the food of the same name
the letter d
yeah just the letter d
all references to the old pocket
edition's lack of features and another
notch reference was removed which at
this point is probably unsurprising so
now that you've seen all the removals my
question for you is how do you feel
about them were they justified or are
they going overboard and trying to make
the game more family friendly let me
know down in the comments and make sure
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fit fam and we'll see you next time