Minecraft Realms service restored after nearly one-week-long outage

Minecraft Realms lets players host their games on Mojang’s servers, allowing them to play with multiple people. It comes with many convenience options that are missing in personal game server hosting. But August 14 to 20, 2024, was perhaps the worst time to be a Realms Plus subscriber. The servers were completely down worldwide, and despite the developers trying hard to get things back up, it seemed there was no solution.

Finally, after a six-day-long wait and countless complaints, Minecraft Realms service has been restored. But players aren't very happy with the late resolution. Here’s everything about the Realms debacle and players' response to it.

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Minecraft Realms is back, finally

On August 14, 2024, players all around the globe started reporting issues with their Realms server. Some complaints were about slow or laggy connections, while others said Realms cannot connect to the game, completely barring access to their world. Soon, this issue turned into a worldwide outage with nearly every player using Realms services unable to access it.

There were many times when Mojang said that Minecraft Realms was back and running, but it turned out to be false as players reported the game stopped working after a few minutes. Thankfully, the studio finally confirmed that Realms is working properly. Other players also confirmed that it is functional.

The issue might persist in some areas, but that should be fixed in one or two days. So if everything is finally fixed, why are players unhappy with it? Well, there’s the issue of compensation.

Players want compensation

Many games that have an online service go through similar issues with servers. Maxing out of server capacity, connection errors, and slow and laggy servers are unfortunately common in many cases. But Minecraft Realms is a different case. This is not a free service, rather players have to pay a monthly fee to get access to the servers which host their world and their game progress.

So, if the game’s servers are completely non-functional for more than six days, it is natural for players to be upset about it. They have paid for a limited period of access, and if this time is shortened due to server errors, players will ask for compensation for the days lost. Six days is a lot of time for a monthly subscription service.

As of now, Mojang hasn't announced any compensation to the Minecraft Realms subscribers. We will have to wait and see what they come up with, and whether it would be enough for the frustrated players. One also might ask whether Realms is worth buying.