Minecraft YouTuber Stampy Cat ends 11-year Lovely World series

By Alvin Wu
Arts and Entertainment
Minecraft YouTuber Stampy Cat ends 11-year Lovely World series

Stampy Cat looks out over his Lovely World in the series finale. @STAMPYLONGHEAD/Video

Nov. 25 (ZFJ) — Minecraft YouTuber Stampy Cat uploaded the finale to his 11-year series, Stampy’s Lovely World, on Saturday, Oct. 21.

The 823rd episode marked the end of the series, which began on May 19, 2012 (only 10 days after Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition released). He was a dominant personality in the Minecraft YouTube scene from 2013 to 2017 and pioneered the video format of storytelling using the blocky game.

The finale begins as usual with Stampy’s cake breakfast and numerous additions to his Love Garden, which he uses to recognize fan contributions.

His subsequent walk with his dog Barnaby then escalates into a confrontation with archnemesis Hit the Target that spans the Nether and the Lovely World.

Our time here has helped make us who we are today, and who knows what’s gonna happen next in our lives.

— Stampy Cat, Lovely World series finale

The episode, having reached two million views in under 24 hours, made it to the top of YouTube’s trending videos. Over 100,000 people watched its live premiere, making it Stampy’s most-watched premiere. It’s also Stampy’s first video to exceed four million views since “Mirror World [658]” did so in 2019.

“In a way, we’ve both grown up together in this place, and we’ve changed in that time,” Stampy said at the end of the finale. “And it is sad to be saying goodbye to my lovely world, but I think it’s the right moment to do it.”

“Our time here has helped make us who we are today, and who knows what’s gonna happen next in our lives.”

A third person view of Stampy’s Lovely World from the series finale. @STAMPYLONGHEAD/Video A third person view of Stampy’s Lovely World from the series finale. @STAMPYLONGHEAD/Video

Stampy posted an FAQ video to his @stampylongnose channel two days after the finale was released, although it’d been recorded before then.

On the point of why he decided to end the series now, he explained that the motivation he gets while working on a new idea (like for a minigame or special) has been decreasing. He also observed that many of his viewers are continuing to watch out of a sense of nostalgia, and he noted that he doesn’t want the rest of his career to be “looking backwards.”

He said that his enjoyment of the game tanked after Minecraft: Bedrock Edition released and old console editions were discontinued, comparing his case to a taxi driver who is abruptly forced to use an inferior car compared to his previous one. Since his console could no longer run his world well, he had to switch to playing on PC.

“I still think Minecraft is an amazing game,” he explained. “I’m just ready to play other games.”

While some people expected him to end at a thousand episodes, Stampy pointed out that doing so would take years, so that was not a concern for him. What mattered instead was that thousands of people still watch the Let’s Play series’ videos, so he decided to end it while they still care.

Stampy Cat answers FAQs about why he ended the Lovely World series now, how he feels, what he plans on doing in the future. @STAMPYLONGNOSE/Video Stampy Cat answers FAQs about why he ended the Lovely World series now, how he feels, what he plans on doing in the future. @STAMPYLONGNOSE/Video

Stampy moved on to explain that he felt nervous about viewers’ reactions to the finale. He wanted it to be a regular Lovely World episode with an old-school, improvised brawl with Hit the Target. He’d also planned for many years to have Stampy walking off into the distance and physically leaving the world.

“One of the things is I’m feeling a little bit nervous that the final will disappoint people, and the fact that it’s a bit of a melancholy ending and it’s me leaving, hopefully people will enjoy that,” he said. “Or if not enjoy it, there will be a satisfying ending.”

“There will always be people that want you to beat the villain and your victory and you put up the Stampy flag and punch the microphone and we go home and have cake. There’s some people that always want that, but those sorts of stories are less interesting to me, and I’ve never been scared to take risks and kill dogs or blow up my bedroom. I think those moments add a lot of drama.”

Stampy expressed that he’s relieved that he no longer has to worry about what the next episode has to be. He did feel sad that the series is ending, but it felt more spread out as there was no single moment that could be definitively considered the end.

“It’s been like a gradual buildup to the thinking of ‘oh no, this is really it now, this is really done,’” he observed. “It is a little bit heavier just because this is kind of accidentally almost turned into my soft retirement from YouTube in general.”

He expressed appreciation for people’s kind messages, describing interactions he’s had with adults in public who’d originally watched his videos as children.

“I have really felt all of the love and good wishes,” Stampy posted on X (formerly Twitter). “It was a fantastic ride, and I’m glad I got to go out in the way I wanted.”

Stampy announced that he plans to release a download of his world and is working on listing it on the Minecraft Marketplace for all Bedrock players (from which someone’ll inevitably port it for Java Edition). It won’t be for a while, though, as he needs to check that every chest, sign, and minigame is in order, and may also add additional features (like easter egg hunts or exclusive minigames) before releasing it.

He will be mostly going offline social media but still keep it for announcements. He has no new plans for Minecraft but does want to do some videos reminiscing on the Lovely World and more streams of prerecorded content soon. He’ll also continue contributing to The Bonus Points, a podcast he made with an old school friend that has no limit to the games it discusses.

He also wants to write novels with Stampy Cat as a character, having gone back to college to improve his writing skills. He hopes to get to the point where he’s satisfied enough with his drafts to one day send it to editors and publish them.

“The Stampy Minecraft chapter of my life is a prominent one, but it is just one chapter, and I’m hoping that I’m gonna from here go forward and hopefully try to find a lot of value and meaning in a lot of other things, and I think this is always gonna be a time I’m gonna look back fondly as always a monumental time in my life, but I don’t want it to define my life,” Stampy concluded. “I don’t want it to be ‘oh yeah, he was the Minecraft YouTube guy for 10 years and then he cruised off that for the rest of his life.’”

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