Open source Minecraft mod platform Modrinth goes indie, returns funds to investors

Well, this isn't something you read every day, a platform actually taking steps to be sustainable and not chase constant growth backed by investors.

More about Modrinth: designed as the place to go for Minecraft modding, trying to pull people away from the likes of CurseForge and other platforms with it's fully open source model. They have their own official modding launcher, but their API can (and is) used by multiple other launchers. Basically, it makes modding Minecraft real easy and their open model is great.

In a blog post by the Modrinth Founder, Jai, they mentioned how about a "year and a half ago" they raised $1.2 million in a pre-seed round of investor capital. They used it to hire more people which allowed them to launch features like "creator monetization, authentication, analytics, organizations, collections, the Modrinth App, and support for more project types, growing Modrinth’s user base fifteen-fold".

Pictured - Minecraft with Iris, Sodium and Complementary Shaders v4

Now though? They're going indie again and they've returned "$800k in remaining investor capital back to our investors". Why? The focus on "hyper-growth over maintenance" was causing issues for them, and "as we looked more into the future, we saw that the venture-backed cycle wouldn’t be the right path for Modrinth" due to investors naturally wanting a return and we all know how this goes. Growth at all costs, just look at the issues the game industry is facing as a whole with so many companies just firing staff to cut costs to ensure big profits continue.

As Jai said, "In short, forgoing the venture route would allow us to build Modrinth independently at a sustainable pace and put our creators, community, open-source nature, and values first, without having to worry about expectations of profit or growth".