After recent controversy, I would like to give a full analysis on Cubecraft cosmetic pack: 'Devil - Opening Pack'.
Please note this analysis may include things you don't want to hear as I will argue for both sides here in order to get the best understanding.
Also note this comes from a (mostly) unbiased view as I am not religious but also believe that these are not correct.
To begin, we will look at the pack's problems that caused the controversy:
The pack is first of all called 'Devil - Opening Pack' which is definitely a rocky start, and it's description says: 'Open your lucky blocks in a hellish style!' (See first image providing it's ordered in the order I attached the images)
The pack also contains 2 cosmetics, one called 'binding' which represents a ritual, and a cosmetic called 'exorcise' and I think you can imagine the problems that one causes...
This has caused some players to become annoyed at Cubecraft for being a 'kid friendly server' and advertising these cosmetics. To which I will immediately say that they are correct due to references to the devil and rituals etc.
Cubecraft's leading arguments for this are:
1. There are already countless of marketplace items advertised with things such as 'devil' or 'demon'.
2. These terms are also popular in other games with such as Roblox
3. There have already been cosmetics such as 'Devil Egg Skin' and 'Demon Dragon Buddy'.
4. Minecraft itself advertises hell with the nether which is shown in f3 on java as the 'hell biome'
My response to these 3 arguments:
1 and 2. while a fair point, it is still in a morally grey area, so while you CAN post things like this, whether or not they are correct is debateable and the backlash for this reason is a representation of that. (Also I would like to say for cases like this while I'm ok with the term 'Demon', advertising things as 'Devil' to a young demographic isn't something I personally approve of).
3. These cosmetics are in a similar boat to the previous, but it seems like it just so happened that no one really noticed.
4. On the most recent version of the game at least (may have been that way in old versions) this is untrue.
There are also smaller reasons Cubecraft have used, such as the creator seeing the amount of Hell/Demons/Devil related cosmetics on the marketplace, decided to base it off that thinking it would be cool. This is understandable as oversights can easily be made especially with a small team working on cosmetics. So while yes, it is morally grey, it is a good market that would make Cubecraft money, which is the designer's job basically, make cool things to release and make Cubecraft money.
As for player arguments, one of the largest is the advertisement of the devil and hell, which was stated earlier but just as a reminder we have established that it's a strong market in the marketplace and overall is morally grey.
Another big argument is the inclusion of cosmetics 'Binding' and 'Exorcise'. Exorcises is completely fair for the community to be annoyed about as that is something that SHOULD NOT be advertised on a kids Minecraft server. As for Binding, the symbol in the ritual is actually the Cubecraft Logo in red, and the creator of the pack described the book as 'some kind of haunted item or ritual'. In a similar sense to the Devil, with the description from the admin and knowing the symbol is the Cubecraft logo, this is also morally grey. However without this knowledge (something a younger demographic won't likely have) this is not something that should be advertised to a young audience.
The final thing I'd like to talk about is the staff response to this. Which has been a mixed bag, as some responses have been good like Camezonda's Response (should be 2nd image but not certain of how it's put in order) and Mitgobla's response when I asked questions via a private ticket in the Cubecraft discord server (maybe 3rd image). However some mods have noticeably not handled this well in the discord server public chat and even one admin responding to my original forum post on the drama with 'hell no' (4th image) which isn't very professional for a long time mod on the largest bedrock edition server.
(This section is being added after the writing of the rest of this thread as I have just received more information)
Camezonda also responded to some questions I asked them, that being the fact there is a team around making the cosmetics (so while the idea of a controversy was less likely to cross someone's mind I still believe that was the case) and the Devil Egg Skin was the most sold egg skin. And as previously mentioned, the team specifically made the Cubecraft logo on the bottom to not have an even more controversial pentagram. You can see the response below with the other images.
To conclude, I believe that the exorcise cosmetic should get a name change and the binding cosmetic should be redone slightly to be less sketchy and the pack name and description is a matter of opinion however I personally believe that it should be changed. However members of the team have specifically stated they will not change anything with the cosmetics or bundle so this seems to be case closed for this controversy.
As for creators leaving, I believe that that is completely valid and you should keep watching them. Personally I'm going to continue making Cubecraft content on my new channel Tenth bean so go over there if you want more over-analysing!
I would also like to commend the admins who responded formally and politely, so thank you to Camezonda and Mitgobla.
As a TLDR for those of you who watch Tiktok/Youtube Shorts: Cubecraft should 100% change part of the bundle and maybe change part of it depending on your opinion. And keep watching youtubers who are leaving Cubecraft.
If you feel differently to others about this, please debate in a respectful way rather than being overly aggressive.
Thank you for reading.
Please note that some info here is subject to change.
Please note this analysis may include things you don't want to hear as I will argue for both sides here in order to get the best understanding.
Also note this comes from a (mostly) unbiased view as I am not religious but also believe that these are not correct.
To begin, we will look at the pack's problems that caused the controversy:
The pack is first of all called 'Devil - Opening Pack' which is definitely a rocky start, and it's description says: 'Open your lucky blocks in a hellish style!' (See first image providing it's ordered in the order I attached the images)
The pack also contains 2 cosmetics, one called 'binding' which represents a ritual, and a cosmetic called 'exorcise' and I think you can imagine the problems that one causes...
This has caused some players to become annoyed at Cubecraft for being a 'kid friendly server' and advertising these cosmetics. To which I will immediately say that they are correct due to references to the devil and rituals etc.
Cubecraft's leading arguments for this are:
1. There are already countless of marketplace items advertised with things such as 'devil' or 'demon'.
2. These terms are also popular in other games with such as Roblox
3. There have already been cosmetics such as 'Devil Egg Skin' and 'Demon Dragon Buddy'.
4. Minecraft itself advertises hell with the nether which is shown in f3 on java as the 'hell biome'
My response to these 3 arguments:
1 and 2. while a fair point, it is still in a morally grey area, so while you CAN post things like this, whether or not they are correct is debateable and the backlash for this reason is a representation of that. (Also I would like to say for cases like this while I'm ok with the term 'Demon', advertising things as 'Devil' to a young demographic isn't something I personally approve of).
3. These cosmetics are in a similar boat to the previous, but it seems like it just so happened that no one really noticed.
4. On the most recent version of the game at least (may have been that way in old versions) this is untrue.
There are also smaller reasons Cubecraft have used, such as the creator seeing the amount of Hell/Demons/Devil related cosmetics on the marketplace, decided to base it off that thinking it would be cool. This is understandable as oversights can easily be made especially with a small team working on cosmetics. So while yes, it is morally grey, it is a good market that would make Cubecraft money, which is the designer's job basically, make cool things to release and make Cubecraft money.
As for player arguments, one of the largest is the advertisement of the devil and hell, which was stated earlier but just as a reminder we have established that it's a strong market in the marketplace and overall is morally grey.
Another big argument is the inclusion of cosmetics 'Binding' and 'Exorcise'. Exorcises is completely fair for the community to be annoyed about as that is something that SHOULD NOT be advertised on a kids Minecraft server. As for Binding, the symbol in the ritual is actually the Cubecraft Logo in red, and the creator of the pack described the book as 'some kind of haunted item or ritual'. In a similar sense to the Devil, with the description from the admin and knowing the symbol is the Cubecraft logo, this is also morally grey. However without this knowledge (something a younger demographic won't likely have) this is not something that should be advertised to a young audience.
The final thing I'd like to talk about is the staff response to this. Which has been a mixed bag, as some responses have been good like Camezonda's Response (should be 2nd image but not certain of how it's put in order) and Mitgobla's response when I asked questions via a private ticket in the Cubecraft discord server (maybe 3rd image). However some mods have noticeably not handled this well in the discord server public chat and even one admin responding to my original forum post on the drama with 'hell no' (4th image) which isn't very professional for a long time mod on the largest bedrock edition server.
(This section is being added after the writing of the rest of this thread as I have just received more information)
Camezonda also responded to some questions I asked them, that being the fact there is a team around making the cosmetics (so while the idea of a controversy was less likely to cross someone's mind I still believe that was the case) and the Devil Egg Skin was the most sold egg skin. And as previously mentioned, the team specifically made the Cubecraft logo on the bottom to not have an even more controversial pentagram. You can see the response below with the other images.
To conclude, I believe that the exorcise cosmetic should get a name change and the binding cosmetic should be redone slightly to be less sketchy and the pack name and description is a matter of opinion however I personally believe that it should be changed. However members of the team have specifically stated they will not change anything with the cosmetics or bundle so this seems to be case closed for this controversy.
As for creators leaving, I believe that that is completely valid and you should keep watching them. Personally I'm going to continue making Cubecraft content on my new channel Tenth bean so go over there if you want more over-analysing!
I would also like to commend the admins who responded formally and politely, so thank you to Camezonda and Mitgobla.
As a TLDR for those of you who watch Tiktok/Youtube Shorts: Cubecraft should 100% change part of the bundle and maybe change part of it depending on your opinion. And keep watching youtubers who are leaving Cubecraft.
If you feel differently to others about this, please debate in a respectful way rather than being overly aggressive.
Thank you for reading.
Please note that some info here is subject to change.
