Minecraft essay

Minecraft Essay

What is it? What is the game’s history and why has it been a commercial and critical success?

Minecraft is a game developed by the Swedish based Mojang Studios, the game is sandbox themed meaning it involves simple instructions in order to play it which is to ‘explore, mine and build’. Players simply need to log on and create and shape a world around them by building structures from an array of different materials coming in the form of cubes, as there are no specific gaming instructions or objectives like other games for example ‘halo’ which has more specific objectives to fight and kill, as well as instructions on how to specifically perform tasks unlike Minecraft which relies solely on the controller and their own personal creativity, as they are free to explore the games environment. The game come with two modes known as ‘creative’ or ‘survival’, with the creative gameplay mode being arguably more sandbox themed than the survival mode, as in creative gameplay the controller is free to explore the world and craft with extra abilities such as flying, having unlimited weapons and resources compared to survival where you must hunt and mine and gather resources yourself in order to survive with limited lives, as well as craft objects to better your chances of survival. These modes were key to Minecraft’s success as the ‘creative’ mode gives the player ultimate freedom to express their creativity and craft a whole world around them.

The Swedish creator of Minecraft, Markus ‘Notch’ Perrson began creating the game in 2009 after being inspired by other games such as ‘Dwarf Fortress’, a single player construction and management game, however Perrson wanted to create an RPG (role playing game) version. There are some similarities between ‘Dwarf fortress’ and Minecraft as the game has no main objectives and also features two different game play modes ‘fortress mode’ similar to survival mode and ‘adventure’ mode which is similar to creative mode. However, Minecraft features some elements different to ‘Dwarf Fortress’ as it doesn’t include more than one character in survival mode that has certain skills and dislikes and likes, as it solely relies on the opinion and creativity of the controller, making the game a RPG compared to ‘Dwarf Fortress’. After the initial release of Minecraft, it wasn’t commercially viable as it was viewed as a niche and advanced product in the market that was only purchased and played by gamers with expert knowledge of programming and software. Because of the game not having the commercial backing from a mainstream publisher and no money spent on advertising, the game heavily relied on it being spread through word of mouth on gamer websites such as the ‘Penny Arcade’ web comic, which was a success as the beta version of the game by January 2011 had received over one million purchases in a month and by the following April Perrson had made an estimated $33 million in revenue. Later that year in November prior to the games official release Minecraft had over 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases.

The games success and popularity meant it became available across a multitude of platforms including PC, Xbox and PlayStation making the game a commercially viable franchise with increased interactivity. Shortly after its release it then became available as a ‘pocket edition’ on Android and IOS devices with Sony Xperia Play and Xperia phones gaining access to this edition first, making the game highly accessible for players when they were outside the house as it is in their pocket and not at home on their PC or games console. By 2012 the game became available for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live making the game more interactive as it was multiplayer and gamers could play together through the screen and talk through headsets. Furthermore, in 2013 Minecraft Pi edition was released and was a more educational version for new, inexperienced players and programmers, and by 2014 Microsoft acquired $2.5 billion for the game and by 2015 the game had sold 30 million copies across a variety of platforms and formats.

The game has been distributed over the app store and google play store in the form of its pocket edition on tablets and smartphones, or can be purchased online on outlets such as PlayStation Network or Xbox Live Arcade, with the recent additions of the Nintendo Platform which was excluded from the games initial release back in 2012 and instead was available in December 2015, and then as a physical copy later on from June 2016 and then most recently the Nintendo Switch and 3DS in 2017, showing that Mojang is effectively distributing its product by keeping up with new technology and spreading across to newer platforms to reach new, younger gamers as well as their existing market. A new version of the game was recently made available via ‘Steam’ and is known as ‘Story mode’ which is aimed more at younger gamers, to encourage them on to Minecraft and help them learn the fundamentals of the game, which can be overwhelming for novice gamers even though the game has no instructions or objectives, as the player has to take complete control of the world on their own, helping players become independent.

Overall, the launch of the game Minecraft by Mojang was extremely successful as the game has sold over $30 million copies across a variety of platforms and has made over $2.5 billion on Microsoft alone. The game also received many awards on its release which include an innovation award, Best debut game, best downloadable game, audience award and Seumas Mcnelly grand prize.