Seriously though, I remember MC before it was a kids game. It was already becoming one by the time Microsoft bought it, but since then almost every update has been gimmicks for kids. The world generation is still ridiculous (jungles next to arctics), the weather patterns are binary (hard rain, or nothing), and proximity chat is practically impossible.
They've made a lot of money off making it into a kids game, but I personally haven't been delighted by any updates since they took it over.
If it's any consolation, there are really good mods for proximity voice chat and jungles next to arctics is being fixed in the next major update.
I don’t quite agree that every update has been gimmicks for kids - I can’t really point to a “childish” new mechanic added. Maybe your perception of the game has changed?
Sounds like the attention of those properties' users is worth more in some other metric than the maintenance/improvements cost in engineer time. I wonder what.
Minecraft drives actual profits on consoles - you have to subscribe to play with your friends. Some of these consoles (XBox) are even directly owned by MS.
Github is a massive piece in the developer ecosystem. It drives adoption of other MS products that can integrate with it, and generates a lot of goodwill towards MS.
LinkedIn, eh, that's probably the weakest property. On the other hand, it's massive in the enterprise space - again lots of goodwill, this time from "suits", and maybe some cool metrics about hiring.
