A scenario in any game's development stating that, if a modder is to outperform game developers in any fashion, or when modders reserve ideas from developers and mod them, there is nothing that the developers can do to compete with said modders without a hit to their reputation.

The term originates from when the Minecraft game developer, Notch, wanted to add horses into the game. However, horses were already featured in a popular mod for the game. Notch's dilemma had but three possible solutions and all of them would result in varying anger from the community:

1. Notch may have opted to create the horses himself. Though, due to the highly complex mod, they would likely be seen as inferior. To not seem inferior, he would need to add some of the good features already claimed by the mod, but in such a case, he would be seen as copying.

2. Alternatively, Notch may have decided to simply drop the idea of ever adding horses. Due to the excellence of the horse mod, it effectively reserved ideas that the official developers could never use without the modder's permission. This option would result in less overall outcry from the community but disappoint many who hoped for horses.

3. As Notch did officially, he decided to add the mod to the game with the developer's permission. In the process, many saw Notch as lazy and he created a hefty hit on the prestige of the Minecraft development team. All this despite the fact that adding the excelling mod was the simplest solution

I really wish they would just fix the unit models in-game, but after that modder made such a great redesign, they're facing Notch's Dilemma. The bar was just set too high for them, and they cannot possibly pass it.

Notch's Dilemma by this handle is not in use June 3, 2021