Nearly two weeks after popular Mineplex was shut down, we have news that an Overwatch professional player has acquired the Minecraft server.
As we had noted in the report of its shutdown, Mineplex was one of the most popular and important servers. It had helped make Minecraft popular, and thanks to its minigames, inspired a few generations of players and even developers.
Mineplex management did not explain the reasons for its shutdown, but it did seem reasonable to assume that money was a factor.
Enter Sam “Samito” Dawahare, a former professional Overwatch player. Liquipedia has created an entry for Samito’s career, indicating he had been playing professionally since at least 2018, and was a coach since last year.
As reported by Comic Book, Sam made the announcement that he made this acquisition on Twitter:
“As of today I have acquired 100% of @Mineplex and am fully committed to bringing the passion that changed the lives of tens of millions of players around the world.
I’ve got no further information at this point, but I’m very excited to bring the heat for you guys.
MUCH LOVE!”
Sam has added more updates since then, tweeting that he is giving up his Overwatch activities to focus on running Mineplex:
“Goodbye Overwatch!
I’ll be around part time, but I’ve gotta give Mineplex everything I have
I haven’t been the man I wanna be the last few years and I want to step back and enjoy it on the side
Never accept the world as it appears to be, dare to see it for what it could be!”
In this video, Sam is also trying to temper expectations, explaining that the devs haven’t started work yet, as he is still assembling the team. However, he did also reveal that he has already contacted Microsoft about getting support again for Mineplex to be on Minecraft Bedrock Edition.
On the Mineplex Twitter account, interestingly enough, they put out a server to see if fans preferred Java or Bedrock, and Java came out the overwhelming winner, 82.4 % of 21,974 votes. The Mineplex Twitter also confirmed that one of the server’s founding members, Chiss, was being brought back to onboard the incoming team.
Even people who didn’t play Mineplex, like yours truly, can’t help but feel the infectious passion that Sam and Mineplex fans are spreading from this news. We hope to see Mineplex return to Minecraft Bedrock Edition, and maybe even get added to Minecraft on consoles in some form, sometime in the future.
