Wait, how did Lego beat Minecraft to making a city builder?

Lego announced a city builder called Lego Skylines last month and we all collectively said: "Oh yeah, duh." A landscape of colorful bricks snapping together into a metropolis from the godlike perspective we already view our real life Legos just makes sense.

Hold on, what about the brand I affectionately refer to as "digital Legos"? Minecraft should by rights have spawned a city building spinoff by now. How were Lego and Mojang not competing over this category of PC players years ago?

Minecraft as a city builder:

It makes sense

• Templated structures like villages, temples, and fortresses are already a staple in vanilla Minecraft
• Villagers: we love to exploit 'em and give them jobs
• Minecraft players love to build, why not cities?
• The first generation of Minecraft players (me) are Old™ now and we can appreciate slower, strategic games
• There are Minecraft mods for this, so players definitely like the idea
• Minecraft already has several spinoffs in other genres (Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft Legends)

Maybe it doesn't?

• This is so obvious that maybe Mojang has prototyped one internally and it just wasn't great
• Maybe it's on the to-do list but Mojang hasn't found a partner studio to work on it
• Minecraft spinoffs have a mixed track record. Minecraft Dungeons is good but Minecraft Legends is not.