Mojang has named Katie Scott its new head of Minecraft Vanilla, and she begins the role in February 2026. The hire follows Scott’s departure from Ubisoft in November 2025, where she worked as vice president in the global creative game office.
Scott’s LinkedIn description and previous job listings emphasize work on live service strategies, retention, and monetization across franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six. She also had a role at The Coalition where monetization was among her responsibilities, and earlier work at EA was as a game designer rather than an executive.
Katie Scott as new "Head of Vanilla Minecraft"
byu/LesionPulse inMinecraft
That background has some players worried. Vanilla Minecraft is the unmodded, core game many treat as the baseline experience, and hiring an executive with deep experience in monetization makes people wonder whether new paid systems could arrive in the unaltered game.
Mojang already runs multiple commercial lines around Minecraft, so adding staff with live service experience is not out of character for the studio. Still, Scott’s resume makes the possibility of further commercial features in the vanilla client a point of attention for the community heading into 2026. Watch for more reporting as Scott settles into the role and Mojang outlines any changes to the vanilla experience.
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Minecraft
Developed by Mojang Studios
Minecraft focuses on allowing the player to explore, interact with, and modify a dynamically-generated map made of one-cubic-meter-sized blocks. In addition to blocks, the environment features plants, mobs, and items. Some activities in the game include mining for ore, fighting hostile mobs, and crafting new blocks and tools by gathering various resources found in the game. The game's open-ended model allows players to create structures, creations, and artwork on various multiplayer servers or their single-player maps. Other features include redstone circuits for logic computations and remote actions, minecarts and tracks, and a mysterious underworld called the Nether. A designated but completely optional goal of the game is to travel to a dimension called the End, and defeat the ender dragon.
- Genre: Simulator, Adventure, Arcade
- Platforms: Amazon Fire TV, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Linux, Gear VR, Windows Phone, Android, PC (Microsoft Windows), iOS, PlayStation 5, Mac, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
- Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative, Split screen, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)
- Release: 2016-12-19
- Publisher: Mojang Studios
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Age Rating:
ESRB E10+ / USK 6 / ACB PG / CERO A / GRAC 12+ / PEGI 7 / CLASS_IND L
- IGDB Rating: 80.7/100
