As part of LaComparacion's 2019 Computer Games Week, we take a look at the history of Minecraft, from its humble beginnings to becoming the best-selling PC game of all time.
"I don't see myself as a real game developer, I create games because it's fun and because I like games and I love programming."
Markus & # 39; Notch & # 39; PerssonOur story begins in 2009, when many people had serious ideas. One of them was Zach Barth, better known now as the founder of the perennial puzzle innovator Zachtronics, who coded and released Infinim in a multiplayer version within a few months, abandoning the freeware project after the leak. from your source code.
The Swedish coder Markus & # 39; Notch & # 39; Persson, under 30, was previously a developer on the MMO sandbox Wurm Online. In his spare time, Persson was working on a kind of Dungeon Keep / Dwarf Fortress / Rollercoaster Tycoon combo (oddly enough) called RubyDung.
Begin
Trying to introduce a first-person view into the game, he was less than satisfied with his results, and then he found Infiniminer.
The infinimer Zachtronics was the inspiration for Minecraft's block structure
"OMG," Persson wrote on his Tumblr, "I realized this was the game I wanted to make... At first I tried to implement a simple engine." nobody in this style, reusing art and code (but not as much as you might think) RubyDung."
Even its first version, encoded in Java, is immediately identifiable - even if it wasn't called yet, it was Minecraft.
"The response was very positive," Notch wrote a few months later, "and the frame rate blew my mind, and since it worked well in a browser, I decided to go for it." to go."
Taking role models from a previous game idea called Zombie Town, he tested the first alpha version of the game, which now bears that iconic name.
He immediately received a positive response. Players were fascinated by the freedom and creative nature of Minecraft. That's why Notch is quickly set up to add new features.
At the end of a month, Minecraft had sand, water, lava, and rudimentary dynamic lighting. In the space of two months, the first multiplayer tests were in progress and the speed of development accelerated even more.
Go Alpha
The development quickly evolved to a paid Alpha version that requires a premium account to access.
"I thought if I didn't pay, they would never pay me," Notch later explained in an interview given to PC Gamer in 2012. "If I wait until the game is over, it will never be the case because I won't have the money to support development."
Sales of Alpha Minecraft began on June 13, 2009. Less than a month later, it sold more than 1,000 copies and had gained more than 20,000 registered players, enough to allow Persson to reduce the amount of time spent on daily work. and spend more time developing Minecraft under Mojang. Specifications banner.
Later, in 2009, Minecraft's Creeper-toting survival mode began testing, which allowed Minecraft to go from a clean toy to a real game and generate strong enough sales to allow Persson to leave the same day for a game. price reduced in May 2010, one year after the first tests of the game; in June, 20,000 payment accounts were registered.
Creepers. Why did they have to be Creepers?
An explosion in development, which saw a regular schedule of updates on Friday adding features like red stone, mine carts, dungeons and the terrifying underworld The Nether, resulted in a new sales boom and led to Persson increasing the number of brains working in Minecraft.
Mojang's specifications took the form of Mojang AB, founded together with other Swedish coders, within a group that, along with Notch, had been courted by Valve, a company that at the time, was always interested in producing its own games.
"I got a call from Bellevue on Skype," said Jakob game designer JahKob. Porser for PC Gamer. "Notch was like" I met them, they want to hire me, obviously I'm not interested in that, so let's do it. Let's start this business. I thought, well, I'll quit my job tomorrow.
Jakob Porser (left) and Markus Persson, in 2010
The duo was quickly joined by commercial developer Daniel & # 39; Kappische & # 39; Kaplan, followed by CEO Carl Manneh, hired (on his own advice) Persson's former employer JAlbum, artist Markus & Junkboy & # 39; Toivonen and the encoder Jens & # 39; Jeb & # 39; Bergensten: And Minecraft sales continued to grow, the team would continue to grow with it.
"Minecraft has certainly become a huge hit and people tell me their games have changed, I never wanted that to happen."
Markus & # 39; Notch & # 39; PerssonEven with Minecraft still in its infancy (although it is now playable in its own browser-less client), our friends at PC Gamer magazine have made Minecraft their game of the year for 2010.
"Minecraft is one of the best games, just because you can play so many games," said Jaz McDougall. "It's a primary desire, to build a damn strong hill, in game form."
Continued success
The snowball continued to roll down the hill. January 12, 2011 marked one million registered Minecraft accounts; The wave of hype and Minecraft's core of accessibility and simplicity saw 10 million accounts registered just 6 months later. It was a very popular property and it was time for him to expand his network even further.
The collapsed underground world filled with abyssal lava
But Minecraft had a pretty basic problem: Java. Notch's initial choice of programming language was, albeit somewhat delicate, perfect for Minecraft's needs at the time.
It had already helped promote a growing scene of modders modifying Minecraft for their own purposes and facilitating cross-platform play between PC, Mac, and Linux.
These modifications, while not compatible, have often prolonged the game in a very positive way; some (including pistons and horses) impressed Notch and Jeb enough to get into the game itself.
The complex overhead costs of Java, which weren't really designed for games as heavy as Minecraft, were a roadblock on absolutely every other platform.
To truly bring Minecraft to the masses, a completely separate branch of the game has entered development for the growing smartphone market: Minecraft Pocket Edition, now encoded in C ++.
Mobile platforms
Minecraft Pocket Edition quickly stood out - it has always lagged behind the core Minecraft features since its reveal, but it brought Minecraft to Android first (especially the Xperia Play), and then to iOS.
Five days after the introduction of Pocket Edition, another branch of C ++ appeared during a presentation at E3 2011: the console edition. Originally an Xbox 360 exclusive title, it was developed by Scottish developers 4J Studios.
Minecraft formula perfectly translates touch controls
The Java edition was not far behind. Officially coming out of its beta phase at the MineCon convention in Las Vegas in November 2011 (and doubling the price of its first Alpha release), it still had new features. Version 1.0 introduces The End, adding a formal ending to the game.
This also marked the end of Notch's lead role in the project, as he handed over the reign to Jeb, which remains the project to this day.
"I think I'm more interested in developing new games than maintaining a game," Notch told PC Gamer.
"I tend to get bored or frustrated after three or five years. Jeb turned out to be a very good game developer, which was quite compatible with the way I thought Minecraft should be developed."
Notch himself moved on to other development projects, although he cut back on recreational projects and challenges that interested him after the creative block had caused the end of his first major project, 0x10c.
0x10c wasn't really Minecraft in space, but it was an ambitious project
Shortly after the official release of Minecraft, the Bukkit multiplayer mod team joined the Mojang team, helping to improve the multiplayer experience and develop a mod API.
This, and a continuous schedule of regular updates and additions, meant that the official release of Minecraft was not the end of its development.
A growing empire
With its absurd sales figures and growing popularity with kids, Minecraft's extracurricular activities have grown. Toys and branded items invaded the shelves and the first LEGO Minecraft set, created after a successful campaign on the company's Cuusoo (after-ideas) program, was released just a month after the launch of the new "LEGO Minecraft" set. . Xbox Edition.
The latter was (as expected) an immediate success: it transferred a million downloads in five days, sold an average of 17,000 copies a day after its release in May 2012, and recorded more than 4 million sales on Xbox Live alone. Arcadian. 'here October 2012.
Textures like Sphax give Minecraft a new look
In April 2013, shortly after the release of Minecraft, the Raspberry Pi educational edition, Java and Pocket editions each surpassed 10 million sales.
Later in 2013, the game's exclusivity clause with Microsoft expired and versions for PS3, PS4, and PSVita were announced. Minecraft had exceeded its standalone game state. And Persson, as emblematic of the greatest gaming phenomenon the world has ever known, struggled under the weight of pressure online.
"Anyone who wants to buy my share of Mojang," he tweeted in June 2014, "so I can get on with my life? Having hatred for trying to do the right thing is not my job."
CEO Carl Manneh's phone is immediately cleared to find out if Persson was serious. Activision Blizzard and EA expressed interest in taking over Mojang, but the company's previous relationship with Microsoft (and presumably a larger money supply) resulted in a deal.
Microsoft supports
"I'm not an entrepreneur, I'm not a CEO, I'm a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter."
Markus & # 39; Notch & # 39; PerssonRedmond wasn't always particularly interested in Minecraft, at least if you think that Microsoft's Peter Molyneux was hired in a contract with Microsoft.
"I remember coming to things like (Gamescom) in the Microsoft era and talking to Microsoft," he told GamesRadar. "They thought it was crap. You know, there were no characters, no stories, no tutorials, the graphics were, you know, like 1980s graphics... totally, totally missed that."
They didn't miss it in late 2014. After the release of Realms, Minecraft's paid online server option, and ten days after the release of Minecraft on Xbox One, it was announced that Notch et al. had to sell Mojang to Microsoft for € 2.5 billion.
The completion of the transaction on November 5, 2014 marked the end of the commitment of the company's founders: Persson, Porser and Carl Manneh left Mojang.
Under new management, while retaining the same team of developers that powered it from Notch's first step in 2011, the expansion of Minecraft has continued.
MineCon 2015, at the Excel Center in London, broke the Guinness World Record for the largest convention for a single video game. The pocket edition has carried over to Wii U, Windows 10, Samsung's GearVR, Apple TV, and more. In 2016, total Minecraft sales across all platforms reached 100 million.
A key to the Windows 10 edition of Minecraft is free if you buy the Java version
And Microsoft is not done with Minecraft. An educational edition, based on the creative and problem-solving aspects of Minecraft that made it a popular game for young people and adults, was released in November 2016.
Meanwhile, Pocket Edition finally reached (after five years) version 1.0. A Chinese beta followed in 2017, preceding the most important behind-the-scenes update in Minecraft history: the Bedrock engine.
Released as part of the "Better Together" update, the Bedrock Engine has been able to align all platforms running a Pocket Edition, from mobile to console, via the Windows 10 console, under the hood.
Cross-platform multiplatform mode and downloadable content item unification, as well as 4K graphics and planned Minecraft non-Java updates (now ditching the 'Pocket Edition' tag and going simply "Minecraft") would occur simultaneously.
There is still a division within Minecraft: Minecraft Java Edition, which now has an explicit name, continues to grow under its own internal team at Mojang.
Mods extend the gameplay of the Java edition in several fun ways
The future is block
"In a sense, it now depends on Microsoft, and it's much broader, everything belongs to you for a long time and will never change."
Marcus & # 39; Notch & # 39; PerssonSo what's next for Minecraft? With 144 million paid accounts and a record 74 million concurrent players as of January 2018, and on the verge of making Tetris the best-selling video game of all time, Minecraft shows no signs of going anywhere.
The mod scene, bolstered by integration with the Twitch launcher, continues to thrive. The game is still a huge draw on YouTube.
Meanwhile, merchandise sales have not declined; Minecraft has become an essential part of Lego's marketing efforts. What we know is this: there is an infinite world. The idea of one man and the experience of another man became something that delighted a generation of children and changed the way we think about games.
Minecraft is not a graphic masterpiece, and it is not a fantasy game, a game with an AAA story. It's an experience that's as relevant today as it was nine years ago, and how many games can say the same?
Welcome to LaComparacion 2019 Computer Gaming Week. We celebrate the world's most powerful gaming platform with in-depth articles, exclusive interviews, and essential buying guides that showcase all of those PC games you can offer. Visit our Computer Game Week 2019 page to see all of our coverage in one place.