Minecraft

About

Minecraft is an indie Java video game created by Markus Persson (aka “Notch”). It is a sandbox mining/building game where you gather resources to create new objects by combining them in various ways. It has developed a significant following online with popular player-run servers, YouTube videos, and image derivatives. As of June 2011, the game is currently still in Beta.
(See also: Minecraft Creeper, Herobrine, Punching Trees Gives Me Wood)

History

Classic

The first version, Minecraft Classic, was released on May 17th, 2009. This version of the game does not have dangers, and the player has an infinite amount of blocks at their disposable to build what they wish. The official software for the Classic server is not updated and can be downloaded on the Minecraft website, but there are also several custom servers created by users that have added functionality.

Beta

Minecraft Beta was released on December 20th, 2010 and has been continuously updated. In this version, the player is thrown into a randomly generated game world where they start with no items and must build everything from scratch. Typically a player will scramble to make some sort of shelter before the sun goes down, and dangerous enemies will come out and attempt to kill the player. Players call this gameplay style “Survival” Mode.

Creative Mode

Creative Mode is a part of Minecraft Beta. Creative mode was released as a part of the Minecraft 1.8 Adventure update. Players may choose this mode when creating a new world, instead of the default “Survival” mode talked about above. In this mode, players can fly by jouble tapping their jump key, have unlimited materials to build with, and can break any block instantly.

Hardcore Mode

Hardcore mode is also a part of minecraft beta. It has been confirmed to be released in the upcoming Minecraft 1.9 update. Players may choose this game mode while creating a new world. Hardcore mode is the same thing is survival mode, except for one detail. If the player dies, then the player’s world file gets deleted, and he/she can not recover it.

Adventure Update

On September 14th, 2011, Minecraft 1.8, also known as the “Adventure Update”, was released by Team Mojang with several new features including a food system, experience bars, sprinting, and the Slenderman inspired Enderman mob.

Notch has confirmed that this update is only Part 1 on the adventure update. They have said “Part 2” is to be released as Minecraft 1.9. It is confirmed that Minecraft 1.9 will be released during Minecon.

Part 2 of the minecraft adventure update has been conformed to add the following features:
Potions and Potion Brewing, enchanting tools and armor, Nether (Minecraft Hell) Updates such as generated towns, New “Records” to play on the game’s record player block, A round Moon and Sun, Lunar Phases, Dragons, a new Dimension Called the End, and much more.

Reception

The game has seen overwhelmingly positive reviews from PC Gamer^[1], Good Game^[2], Gamasutra^[3], and Rock, Paper, Shotgun.^[4] The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s “The Art of Video Games”^[5] exhibit opening on March 16th, 2012, will be displaying Minecraft as one of the 80 games that were selected for the exhibit.

Sales

According to Wikipedia, Minecraft sales began to soar in September of 2010:

In September 2010, after an impromptu “free to play” weekend, the game had a spike in sales of over 25,000 purchases in 24 hours. On January 12, 2011, Minecraft passed 1,000,000 purchases, less than a month after reaching Beta. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game at €9.95, and over 1 million sales of the beta version at €14.95. As of June 13, 2011, Minecraft had over 9 million registered users, and over 2.5 million purchases.

Enderman

On July 26th, 2011, Notch posted an update on Google+^[6] saying “The new mob I’ve been working on is a bit creepy..” with an attached Minecraft screenshot showing several creepy dark characters off in the distance.

When the image was posted to Reddit^[4] the same day, Notch replied to the thread saying he would be officially naming them “Endermen”, referencing the mythical Slenderman creature.
In a blog post^[5], Notch revealed that the mob would have some interesting AI mechanics:

I made the Endermen freeze and turn towards you when you look at them. As long as you look straight at them, they stand perfectly still and look straight at you. As soon as you look away, they will run (very fast) towards you.

And they teleport. If they’re too far away to reach you in a short period of time, they will teleport about once per second. They try to make sure they always teleport to somewhere you can see, as I don’t want to confuse the player as to what is happening.

Endermen have since been released as part of the minecraft 1.8 adventure update.

MineCon

Mojang AB announced that MineCon, a convention for all Minecraft players, would be held on the 18th and 19th of November at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The official website^[17] for event announced that they would be celebrating the official launch of the game:

Celebrate the official launch of Minecraft with your friends from around the world and the Mojang Team. Get ready for a fun weekend of everything Minecraft. The first MineCon is sure to blow away all of your expectations. Set in the fantastic city of Las Vegas, we are ready to have the ultimate “block” party.

Minecraft in Education

To celebrate the opening of a Learning Commons inside their library in October 2011, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia created an exact replica in Minecraft.^[14]^[15]

Also that month, a group called TeacherGaming LLC announced MinecraftEdu^[16], a custom mod of the game built specifically for teachers to use in the classroom. Working with Mojang, they have secured educational discounts on the game and organized workshops for teachers to learn how to use the game in their classroom. The project was spearheaded by New York teacher Joel Levin^[17] who runs a YouTube channel^[18] featuring Minecraft instructional videos, which receives about 1700 views a day.

Derivatives

3D Recreations

One common practice in Minecraft is to build 3D versions of objects and characters using different colored blocks. Internet memes have often been the subject of these recreations:

Fan Art

Machinima

For more, browse the Minecraft machinima video gallery.

Virtual Engineering

For more, browse the Minecraft virtual engineering video gallery.

Parodies

More can be found in the minecraft parody video gallery.

Let’s Play

More can be found in the minecraft let’s play video gallery.

Search

Search queries for “minecraft” saw a significant increase around the same time as the “free to play” weekend of September 2010, which also marked a significant increase in sales. As of June 2011, search queries still appear to be rising in volume.