The question many people ask themselves before loading the all to familiar launcher. "Should I bother looking to see if that cool server finally got new members so I can play?" I am going to attempt to offer an observation to the lead question - Is Minecraft still growing, or is it dead?

Well, I opened my launcher for the first time this week, to see big established servers with 500 members online, only to find the cool and innovative servers with 0/50 online. It seems very much so that the very best servers are; those small communities with great staff, great game modes and a customized EULA compliant server. Yet those large communities with over 100 members online at once, who usually break the EULA to get donations, offer free trial ranks to reel in new players that cannot purchase the EULA breaching ranks, and then there are the usually terribly biased staff who don't like anyone who is actually good at the game.

Then I grab my phone, jump in to Minecraft PE, and see the same; large servers that offer no real progression, and those unique fun filled servers with only 1 or 2 members. The same can be said for the console editions, with the added 13 year old kids hosting servers claiming they are mature when they just want to get money from you for items in game, or worst of all, asking if you are an owner and would hire them for your own server.

Using these sources and experience, I can safely say that Minecraft is growing, but not in the way the original devs intended; massive servers who make thousands per month now safely rule a majority of the player's minds, with only a select few medium size communities who break the EULA to get new pay to win players. The small innovative servers, the ones that players would love to see getting a large community, slowly decay and die out even as I type this blog on the biggest Minecraft community website going.

To summarize, Minecraft isn't dead. It's just the small, great servers that are.