All Networks Official Private Game Status / API for Java & Bedrock Communities

[mohd-i7]

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Hello CubeCrafters!
I would like to suggest an improvement to the current Private Games experience across both Java and Bedrock, especially for communities that organize competitive games through Discord..
Private Games have become really useful for players who want to organize games with specific groups of players. In several Discord communities, players share Private Game codes so that competitive players can join the same games instead of relying on public matchmaking.
Because of this, some communities have started creating Discord systems that display Private Games in a list, including information such as:

• Host
• Map
• Private Game code
• Time when the game was posted

However, there is currently a major problem: all of this information is manually maintained by the community.
This creates several issues.
Sometimes the host information doesn't display correctly and may show a long numeric ID instead of the player's name, making it difficult to know who actually created the game.
More importantly, Discord users currently cannot reliably know:

• How many players are currently in the Private Game
• Whether the game is full
• Whether the game has already started
• How many players are still waiting
• When the game actually started
• Whether the game has ended
• Whether the Private Game was cancelled
• Which map is actually being played
• And other similar information

The map is another problem. The host can manually tell the Discord community which map their Private Game is using, but there is no guarantee that the information remains accurate. The host could change the map afterwards without the Discord listing being updated.
Communities have tried solving this themselves by manually updating the status and player count. For example, when a game reaches 16/16, someone changes the Discord post to "FULL".
Unfortunately, this requires constant human maintenance. After a few days or weeks, people naturally stop updating everything, and the system becomes inaccurate again.
This creates the main problem: there is no reliable source of truth for Private Games outside the Minecraft client.

My suggestion​

I think CubeCraft could provide an official way for external community tools to retrieve limited, non-sensitive information about Private Games.
For example, an official API or another supported integration could expose something similar to:

Private Game:
├── Platform
├── Game Code
├── Host
├── Game mode
├── Map
├── Current players
├── Maximum players
├── Status
├── Created at
└── Started at

The API would not need to expose anything sensitive. It could simply provide information that is already visible to players inside the Private Game.
This would allow Discord bots and community websites to automatically display something like:

Private Game

Host: PlayerName
Game type: GameType
Map: [Map Name]
Players: 12/16
Status: Waiting
Code: pg <code> (676767 for exapmle)
Created: 14:32 (12 minutes ago)

And once the game starts:

Private Game

Host: PlayerName
Game type: EggWars
Map: [Map Name]
Players: 16/16
Status: In Game
Started: 14:41 (x mins ago)

When the game ends, the listing could automatically disappear or change to "Ended".

Why I think this would be useful​

This would make Private Games significantly easier to organize for competitive communities, tournaments, scrims, and Discord groups.
It would also remove the need for communities to manually maintain information that CubeCraft already knows internally.
Most importantly, it would make community-made Discord tools more accurate instead of relying on players to constantly update them manually.
I don't think this necessarily needs to be a completely public API with unrestricted access. CubeCraft could provide authentication, rate limits, permissions, or even a dedicated system specifically for approved community bots.
The important part is having an official source of truth for Private Game information.
A unified solution for both Java and Bedrock would be especially useful, since many communities have players from both platforms.
I would also be interested in hearing whether something like this is technically possible within CubeCrafts current infrastructure, or whether there is already an official way for community tools to retrieve this information.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Lyroce]

Hm, maybe it would be even better if the host also had an option when creating the game, such as "Make my Private Game public?" with a Yes/No choice.

If the host chooses Yes, the Private Game would appear in an in-game list while also allowing the Discord systems you mentioned to automatically display and update the game information. If they choose No, it would remain private and only players with the code could join.

It would be soo fun if any player could make their own games public!! A lot of players love the Private Games hosted by mods, but they are rarely hosted anymore. I’d love to see more of this happening again and letting any player make their game public could take some work off the mods while still giving us what we miss. :D