For the better part of the last five years the 35-year-old Swede was that guy, a man who constantly stressed about his creation, Minecraft, the bestselling computer game of all time. Even calling it a game is too limiting. Minecraft became, with 100 million downloads and counting, a canvas for human expression. Players start out in an empty virtual space where they use Lego-like blocks and bricks (which they can actually “mineâ€) to build whatever they fancy, with the notable feature that other players can then interact with it. Most players are little kids who build basic houses or villages and then host parties in what they’ve constructed or dodge marauding zombies.
Truly obsessed adults, though, have spent hundreds of hours creating full-scale replicas of the Death Star, the Empire State Building and cities from Game of Thrones. The word “Minecraft” is Googled more often than the Bible, Harry Potter and Justin Bieber. And this single game has grossed more than $700 million in its lifetime, the large majority of which is pure profit.
Rare interview with Persson.
There is a looong way to go for minecraft to be the best selling game of all time.
Snake and Tetris holds the crowns in a league of their own with billions of copies sold.
Example: One single phone model (the Nokia 3210) was responsible for getting “Snake” into 160 million consumer hands, next model (3310) also included the game and sold more than a 100 million phones as well and so did most phones from motorola, Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens (and many others certainly) in the 90’s.
Minecraft is not an original idea, it started as a clone of Infiniminer.
When Minecraft only started as project, on its website there was a statement that “Notch” will open source of Minecraft when profits decrease.
Most ideas are borrowed from somewhere else so few things are really “original”.
So what?
Edited 2015-03-04 16:28 UTC
Indeed programmers frequently borrow ideas, but when a game is a clone it is not borrowing at all. Even though ideas can be borrowed, a complex, of all ideas used, makes program original, but in case of Minecraft all ideas were borrowed at the beginning.
As to open sourcing Minecraft we all know what happened. It wasn’t done. I thought it was interesting to know what “end” was reserved by its author from start.
The author of Infiniminer himself said that game was based on ideas from a couple of other games. It was discontinued so Notch picked up the idea of the game and expanded it. Someone else could have done it but he did it. Almost everything is created this way so even if Minecraft was not totally original, what was the crime again?
Yes, so? When he made that statement Minecraft was not the success it is today. The profits from the game had not decreased yet but he wanted out. Nobody in their right mind is just going to walk away from $2.5 billion to “open source” something.
He didn’t sell out the cure for cancer… I hate Minecraft is owned by Microsoft but it’s a freaking game!
You do realize you just come off as jealous of Notch’s success and money?
No, crime at all, but fact is: it was a clone.
Everyone has right to change his mind on what to do and “Notch” did it. Can you point me where I was accusing him or being jealous in my comments? Since when truth is bad? Why are you so aggressive?
If you really want to discuss my first comment : read it AGAIN and STOP inventing things.
P.S. Seems like you are out of arguments that is why you started “attack” on my person. Maybe you should grow up.
then what exactly was your point?
Any reasonable person would interpret both of your statements as criticisms.
1) Profits never decreased, so he did not lie.
2) It doesn’t sound to me that this fits the definition of “clone”. Heavy inspiration, maybe. Either way, I’ll ask again: So what?
Forbes article is not clear about how Minecraft was started, even though it refers to existence of other similar games at that time. But similar and “95%” same experience are different things, which Minecraft was in comparison to Infiniminer.
As to the statement of open sourcing, it was and there is no mention in article about it. Who said he lied?
Interpret this : 1 + 1 = ? . You are pro to invent things, have fun
what did I invent?
Are you thinking two people are one person? I only made one post before this one. Maybe your “pro-inventor” comment is aimed at someone else because it makes no sense when directing at me.
now, let’s accept your clarification that Minecraft is not a clone, it only started as a clone of Infimine. I *still* don’t get what your point is. I will assume what you stated is a fact — so what is the conclusion?
Minecraft started out as an infiminer clone, but calling it an infiminer clone today feels very unfair. It started out as a clone but grew into it’s own thing.
And where did I stated it is a clone? It was started as clone.
What amaze me about Minecraft is its ecosystem.
Adult building servers with mods to mimic games like GTA or counterstrike.
My two sons are crazies about Minecraft, requesting me to build them a server for their birthday…
And since then, happily playing with other kids from around the entire world ?!?
There are people who are doing story telling thought Minecraft or comment news with it on Youtube ?!?
The only limit seems the imagination of human being.
… And its good like that, for better or for worse…
Minecraft is much much more than a SimCity for the kids. 🙂