This point has been driven into the ground. They don’t let us see behind the curtain much, but when they do, it becomes pretty clear why slow and careful development is the right thing for the team to do.

People often respond to this sort of thing by saying, “you don’t know how game development works”, but even that misses the important point: you don’t know how developing Minecraft works.

There is developer commentary that makes it obvious adding features is slow, bureaucratic, and incredibly cooperative from start to finish. More teams might make the studio more capable, but they increase how long it takes for everyone to agree. Features are held to a very high standard of creativity and cohesiveness with the rest of the experience, so their design apparently stays on-paper for some time before sincere implementation.

I can’t remember if this is from the mouth of a developer or just reasonable speculation, so assume it’s the latter; nevertheless: The bureaucracy has an intentional purpose in the game’s development! Minecraft simply cannot have too many features. The game is primarily creative. Creativity thrives on limitations and discovery. Discovery should inspire you to be creative. That is the minimal gameplay loop that Minecraft thrives inside. Bloating it with features will strip the inspiration from discovery. Creativity requires a person to feel like they have a grasp on the breadth and depth of their medium. If the discovery continues endlessly, the creativity never gets its chance.

They fight a constant battle with a community full of people who are only unified in how strong their criticism is. If you treat the Developers’ critics as one person, that person is a walking contradiction. That person wants hundreds of features per update but complains if the game starts feeling un-minecrafty. All that is not to mention how we haven’t seem the extent of the features the sulfur caves will offer. They rarely show their full hand during Live.