Minecraft
Minecraft is a
sandbox video game originally created by Swedish game designer
Markus "Notch" Persson, and later developed and published by
Mojang. The creative and building aspects of
Minecraft enable players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a
3D procedurally generated
world. Other activities in the game include exploration, resource
gathering, crafting, and combat. Multiple gameplay modes are available,
including
survival mode where the player must acquire resources to build the world and maintain health, a
creative mode where players have unlimited resources to build with and the ability to fly, an
adventure mode where players can play custom
maps
created by other players, and a spectator mode where players can fly
around and clip through blocks, but cannot place or destroy any. The PC
version of the game is noted for its
modding scene, where a dedicated community creates new gameplay mechanics, items, and assets for the game.
Minecraft received praise from critics upon release, and won numerous awards and accolades. As of June 2016,
over 106 million copies have been sold across all platforms, with more
than 40 million unique players each month, making it the
best-selling PC game to date and the second
best-selling video game of all time, only behind the various releases of
Tetris. In September 2014,
Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang and the
Minecraft intellectual property for
US$2.5 billion, with the acquisition being completed two months later.
Gameplay
Minecraft is a
three-dimensional sandbox
game that has no specific goals for the player to accomplish, allowing
players a great amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game.
[13] However, there is an
achievement system.
[14] Gameplay by default is first person, but players have the option to play in third person mode.
[15]
The core gameplay revolves around breaking and placing blocks. The game
world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes—arranged in a fixed
grid pattern and representing different materials, such as dirt, stone,
various ores, water, lava, tree trunks, etc. While players can move
freely across the world, objects can only be placed at fixed locations
on the grid. Players can gather these material blocks and place them
elsewhere, thus allowing for various constructions.
[16]
At the start of the game, the player is placed on the surface of a
procedurally generated and virtually infinite game world.
[17] The world is divided into
biomes ranging from deserts to jungles to snowfields.
[18][19] Players can walk across the
terrain consisting of plains, mountains, forests, caves, and various water bodies.
[17] The in-game
time system
follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting 20 real-time
minutes. Throughout the course of the game, players encounter various
non-player characters known as
mobs, including animals, villagers and hostile creatures.
[20] Non-hostile animals—such as cows, pigs, and chickens—can be hunted for food and crafting materials, and
spawn in the daytime. By contrast, hostile mobs—such as large
spiders,
skeletons, and
zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places, such as caves.
[17] Some
Minecraft-unique
creatures have been noted by reviewers, such as the Creeper, an
exploding creature that sneaks up on the player; and the Enderman, a
creature with the ability to
teleport and pick up blocks.
[21]
A few of the hostile monsters displayed in Minecraft from left to right: Zombie, Spider, Enderman, Creeper, Skeleton
The game world is procedurally generated as players explore it, using a
map seed which is obtained from the
system clock at the time of world creation unless manually specified by the player.
[22][23] Although there are limits on movement up and down,
Minecraft
allows for an infinitely large game world to be generated on the
horizontal plane, only running into technical problems when extremely
distant locations are reached.
[nb 1]
The game achieves this by splitting the game world data into smaller
sections called "chunks", which are only created or loaded into memory
when players are nearby.
[22]
The game's physics system has often been described by commentators as unrealistic.
[24]
Most solid blocks are not affected by gravity. Liquids flow from a
source block, which can be removed by placing a solid block in its
place, or by scooping it into a bucket. Complex systems can be built
using primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates
built with an in-game material known as redstone.
[25]
Minecraft features two alternate dimensions besides the main world—the Nether and the End.
[21] The Nether is a
hell-like
dimension accessed via player-built portals that contains many unique
resources and can be used to travel great distances in the overworld.
[26] The End is a barren land in which a
boss dragon called the Ender Dragon dwells.
[27] Killing the dragon cues the game's ending credits, written by Irish author
Julian Gough.
[28]
Players are then allowed to teleport back to their original spawn point
in the overworld, and will receive the "The End" achievement. There is
also a second boss called "The Wither", which upon defeat drops a
specific material needed to build a placeable beacon that can enhance
certain abilities of all nearby players.
The game primarily consists of four game modes: survival, creative,
adventure, and spectator. It also has a changeable difficulty system of
four levels; the easiest difficulty (peaceful) prevents hostile
creatures from spawning.
[29]
Survival mode
The Minecraft crafting screen, showing the crafting pattern of two stone axes
In this mode, players have to gather
natural resources (such as wood and stone) found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items.
[17]
Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a
certain radius of the character, requiring the player to build a shelter
at night.
[17] The mode also features a
health bar
which is depleted by attacks from monsters, falls, drowning, falling
into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a
hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game,
except in "Peaceful" difficulty, in which the hunger bar does not
drain. If the hunger bar is depleted, automatic healing will stop and
eventually health will deplete. Health replenishes when players have a
nearly full hunger bar, and also regenerates regardless of fullness if
players play on the "Peaceful" difficulty.
There are a wide variety of items that players can craft in
Minecraft.
[30]
Players can craft armour, which can help mitigate damage from attacks,
while weapons such as swords can be crafted to kill enemies and other
animals more easily. Players may acquire resources to craft tools, such
as axes, shovels, or pickaxes, used to chop down trees, dig soil, and
mine ores, respectively; tools made of iron perform their tasks more
quickly than tools made of stone or wood and can be used more heavily
before they break. Players may also trade goods with villager mobs
through a bartering system involving trading
emeralds for different goods.
[31] Villagers often trade with emeralds, wheat or other materials.
[20][31]
The game has an inventory system, and players can carry a limited
number of items. Upon dying, items in the players' inventories are
dropped, and players re-spawn at the current
spawn point, which is set by default where players begin the game, but can be reset if players sleep in a
bed.
[32] Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they
despawn. Players may acquire
experience points by killing
mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores,
breeding animals, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on
enchanting tools, armour and weapons.
[29] Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects.
[29]
Hardcore mode
Players may also play in hardcore mode, this being a variant of
survival mode that differs primarily in the game being locked to the
hardest gameplay setting as well as featuring
permanent death; upon players' death, their world is deleted.
[33] When a player dies on a server set to hardcore mode, the player is banned from that server.
Creative mode
An example of a creation constructed in Minecraft
In creative mode, players have access to all of the resources and
items in the game through the inventory menu, and can place or remove
them instantly.
[34]
Players, who are able to fly freely around the game world, do not take
environmental or mob damage, and are not affected by hunger.
[35][36] The game mode helps players focus on building and creating large projects.
[34]
Adventure mode
Adventure mode was added to
Minecraft in version 1.3; it was designed specifically so that players could experience user crafted custom maps and adventures.
[37][38][39]
Gameplay is similar to survival mode but introduces various player
restrictions, which can be applied to the game world by the creator of
the map. This is so that players can obtain the required items and
experience adventures in the way that the mapmaker intended.
[39]
Another addition designed for custom maps is the command block; this
block allows mapmakers to expand interactions with players through
certain server commands.
[40]
Spectator mode
Spectator mode allows players to fly around through blocks and watch
gameplay without interacting. In this mode, the hotbar becomes a menu
that allows the player to teleport to players in the world. It is also
possible to view from the point of view of another player or creature.
Some things may look different from another creature's point of view.
[41]
Multiplayer
Multiplayer on
Minecraft is available through player-hosted
and business-hosted servers and enables multiple players to interact and
communicate with each other on a single world.
[42] Players can run their own servers or use a hosting provider. Single-player worlds have
local area network support, allowing players to join worlds on locally interconnected computers without a server setup.
[43] Minecraft
multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to
server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players
around. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which
usernames or
IP addresses are allowed to enter the server.
[42] Multiplayer servers offer players a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs.
Player versus player (PvP) can also be enabled to allow fighting between players.
[44]
Many servers today have custom plugins that enable the player and the
server to do many different things that are not normally possible. In
2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service
intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and
safely without the hassle of setting up their own.
[45]
Realms varies from a standard server in that only invited players can
join the server, and that they do not use a server IP. Realms server
owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their realm; however,
the server can only have ten people online at a time, and does not
support user-made plugins. At announced at the
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, Realms will enable
Minecraft to support
cross-platform play
between Windows 10, iOS, and Android versions starting in June 2016,
with Xbox One support to come later in 2016 and eventually support for
virtual reality devices.
[46]
Development
Markus "Notch" Persson began developing the game as a project.
[47] He was inspired to create
Minecraft by several other games such as
Dwarf Fortress,
Dungeon Keeper, and later
Infiniminer.
At the time, he had visualised an isometric 3D building game that would
be a cross between his inspirations and had made some early prototypes.
[47] Infiniminer
heavily influenced the style of gameplay, including the first-person
aspect of the game, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building
fundamentals. However, unlike
Infiniminer, Persson wanted
Minecraft to have
RPG elements.
[48]
Minecraft was first released to the public on 17 May 2009, as a developmental release on
TIGSource forums,
[49] later becoming known as the
Classic version. Further milestones dubbed as
Survival Test,
Indev and
Infdev
were released between September 2009 and February 2010, although the
game saw updates in-between. The first major update, dubbed
alpha
version, was released on 28 June 2010. Although Persson maintained a
day job with Jalbum.net at first, he later quit in order to work on
Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version of the game expanded.
[50]
Persson continued to update the game with releases distributed to users
automatically. These updates included features such as new items, new
blocks, new mobs, survival mode, and changes to the game's behaviour
(e.g., how water flows).
[50]
To back the development of
Minecraft, Persson set up a video game company,
Mojang, with the money earned from the game.
[51][52][53] On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that
Minecraft was entering its beta testing phase on 20 December 2010.
[54]
He further stated that users who bought the game after this date would
no longer be guaranteed to receive all future content free of charge as
it "scared both the lawyers and the board." However, bug fixes and all
updates leading up to and including the release would still be free.
Over the course of the development, Mojang hired several new employees
to work on the project.
[55]
Mojang moved the game out of beta and released the full version on 18 November 2011.
[56] The game has been continuously updated since the release, with changes ranging from new game content to new server hosts.
[57] On 1 December 2011,
Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over
Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead developer.
[58] On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced that they had hired the developers of the popular server platform "CraftBukkit"
[44] to improve
Minecraft's support of
server modifications.
[59] This acquisition also included Mojang apparently taking full ownership of the CraftBukkit modification,
[60] although the validity of this claim was questioned due to its status as an
open-source project with many contributors, licensed under the
GNU General Public License and
Lesser General Public License.
[61] On 15 September 2014,
Microsoft announced a $2.5 billion deal to buy Mojang, along with the ownership of the
Minecraft intellectual property.
The deal was suggested by Persson when he posted a tweet asking a
corporation to buy his share of the game after receiving criticism for
"trying to do the right thing." It was completed on 6 November 2014, and
led to Persson becoming one of
Forbes' "World's Billionaires".
[62][63][64][65][66]
Audio
Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German sound designer
Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld.
[67] The
background music in
Minecraft is non-lyrical
ambient music. On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a
soundtrack, titled
Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in
Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game.
[68] The video game blog
Kotaku chose the music in
Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011.
[69] On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled
Minecraft – Volume Beta, which includes the music that was added in later versions of the game.
[70][71] A physical release of
Volume Alpha,
consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green
vinyl LPs, was issued by acclaimed indie electronic label
Ghostly International on 21 August 2015.
[72][73]
Release
Personal computer versions
The game runs on multiple
operating systems, including
Microsoft Windows,
OS X, and
Linux.
[42][74] Apart from the main version, there are other versions of
Minecraft available for PC, including
Minecraft Classic and
Minecraft 4k.
Minecraft Classic is an older version of
Minecraft, available online for players. Unlike newer versions of
Minecraft,
the classic version is free to play, though it is no longer updated. It
functions much the same as creative mode, allowing players to build and
destroy any and all parts of the world either alone or in a multiplayer
server. There are no computer creatures in this mode, and environmental
hazards such as lava will not damage players. Some blocks function
differently since their behaviour was later changed during development.
Minecraft 4k is a simplified version of
Minecraft similar to the classic version that was developed for the
Java 4K game programming contest "in way less than 4 kilobytes".
[75]
The map itself is finite—composed of 64×64×64 blocks—and the same world
is generated every time. Players are restricted to placing or
destroying blocks, which consist of grass, dirt, stone, wood, leaves,
and brick.
[76]
Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition is a version exclusive to Microsoft's
Windows 10 operating system. The
beta for it launched on the
Windows Store on 29 July 2015.
[77] This version features the ability to play with
Xbox Live friends (but not with those who have the Xbox One version), and to play local multiplayer with owners of the
Pocket Edition.
Other features include the ability to use multiple control schemes,
such as a controller (preferably an Xbox controller), keyboard, or
touchscreen (for Windows Phone and
Microsoft Surface), and to record and take screenshots in-game via the built-in GameDVR.
[78]
Console versions
The
Xbox 360 version of the game, developed by
4J Studios, was released on 9 May 2012.
[79][80] On 22 March 2012, it was announced that
Minecraft would be the flagship game in a new Xbox Live promotion called
Arcade NEXT.
[80]
The game differs from the home computer versions in a number of ways,
including a newly designed crafting system, the control interface,
in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and the ability to play
with friends via
Xbox Live.
[81]
The version's crafting interface does not require players to place
items in the correct place in a crafting menu, however, this option was
added in a later update. The interface shows the blocks required to
craft the selected item, and crafts it if the players have enough
blocks.
[82] The worlds in the Xbox 360 version are also not "infinite", and are essentially barricaded by invisible walls.
[82]
The Xbox 360 version was originally similar in content to older PC
versions, but is being gradually updated to bring it closer to the
current PC version.
[79][83][84]
At
Gamescom 2013,
Sony announced that
Minecraft would be released as a
PlayStation 4 launch title, and would later be released as for the
PlayStation Vita and
PlayStation 3.
[85] However, the game was later delayed and the PlayStation 4 version did not launch alongside the console.
[86] It was released on the PlayStation 3 on 17 December 2013, on the PlayStation 4 on 4 September 2014,
[6] and on the PlayStation Vita on 14 October 2014 in North America, and in Europe the next day.
[87]
Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation versions were developed by 4J
Studios, and are nearly identical to the Xbox 360 version.
[88]
During their
E3 2013 press conference Microsoft showed a trailer for
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition.
[89] It is similar to
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition but features larger worlds, expanded multiplayer features, and other enhancements. This version released on 5 September 2014.
[90]
On 17 December 2015,
Minecraft: Wii U Edition was released. The Wii U version received a physical release on 17 June 2016 in North America,
[91] in Japan on 23 June 2016,
[92] and in Europe on 30 June 2016.
[93]
Pocket Edition
On 16 August 2011,
Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released for the
Xperia Play on the
Android Market as an early alpha version. It was then released for several other compatible devices on 8 October 2011.
[94][95] An iOS version of
Minecraft was released on 17 November 2011,
[96] at the price of $6.99 per download.
[97]
A port was made available for
Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang.
[98]
The port concentrates on the creative building and the primitive
survival aspect of the game, and does not contain all the features of
the PC release. On his Twitter account, Jens Bergensten noted that the
Pocket Edition of
Minecraft is written in
C++ and not Java, due to iOS not being able to support Java.
[99] Gradual updates are periodically released to bring the port closer to the PC version.
[100] On 10 December 2014, in observance of Mojang's acquisition by Microsoft, a port of
Pocket Edition was released for
Windows Phone 8.1.
[101]
On 2 April 2014, a version of
Minecraft based on the
Pocket Edition was released for the
Amazon Fire.
[102] On 29 July 2015, a version of
Minecraft based on the
Pocket Edition was released for
Windows 10.
[103]On 19 December 2016, the full version of
Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released on
iOS,
Android,
Windows Phone and
Windows 10, along with the release of the game based on the
Pocket Edition for the
Apple TV.
[12]
Raspberry Pi
A version of
Minecraft for the
Raspberry Pi was officially revealed at MineCon 2012. Mojang stated that the Pi Edition is similar to the
Pocket Edition
except that it is downgraded to an older version, and with the added
ability of using text commands to edit the game world. Players can open
the game code and use programming language to manipulate things in the
game world.
[104] The game was leaked on 20 December 2012, but was quickly pulled off.
[105] It was officially released on 11 February 2013.
[106]
Virtual reality
A modification known as
Minecraft VR was developed to provide virtual reality support to the original Java version of
Minecraft oriented towards
Oculus Rift hardware. A
fork of
Minecraft known as
Vivecraft ported the mod to
OpenVR, and is oriented towards supporting
HTC Vive hardware.
[107]
On 15 August 2016, Microsoft launched official Oculus Rift support for the
Windows 10 Edition of the game.
[107] Upon its release, the
Minecraft VR mod was discontinued by its developer due to
trademark notices issued by Microsoft, and
Vivecraft was endorsed due to its Rift support and being superior to the original mod.
[107]
User-generated content
A wide variety of user-generated content for
Minecraft, such as modifications,
texture packs and custom maps, are available for download from the Internet. Modifications of the
Minecraft
code, called "mods," add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from
new blocks, new items, new mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms to craft.
[108][109] The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as
minimaps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from
Pokémon,
Portal, and
The Hunger Games. To make mods easier to create and install, Mojang announced in November 2012 that it planned to add an official modding
application programming interface (API).
[44]
Texture packs that alter the game's textures and
HUD are also available, as created by the community.
[110]
In July 2013, texture packs were replaced with "resource packs", which
have the same role as texture packs, but allow custom audio as well.
[111]
Players are also create their own maps, which often contain specific
rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to
play.
[37] In version 1.3,
[when?] Mojang added "adventure mode"
[38] for custom maps and in 1.4,
[when?] Mojang added command blocks,
[40] which were created specially for custom maps. In 1.9,
[when?]
Mojang added 2 new versions (Repeat, and Chain) of the classic command
block, which were also created specifically for custom maps.
The
Xbox 360 Edition supports
downloadable content, which is available to purchase via the
Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contain additional character skins.
[112]
It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update
while introducing "mash-up packs", which combines texture packs with
skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface.
[113] The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the
Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and is themed after the
Mass Effect franchise.
[114] Unlike the PC version, however, the
Xbox 360 Edition does not support player-made mods or custom maps.
[115] A cross-promotional resource pack based on the
Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released for the
Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016.
[116] A mash-up pack based on
Fallout was announced for release on the
Wii U Edition.
[117]
Reception
Commercial
On 12 January 2011,
Minecraft passed 1 million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase.
[118][119] At the same time, the game had no
publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through
word of mouth,
[120] and various unpaid references in popular media such as the
Penny Arcade webcomic.
[121] 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, and over 1 million sales of the beta
version.
[122] In November 2011, prior to the game's full release,
Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases.
[123] By March 2012,
Minecraft had become the 6th
best-selling PC game of all time.
[124] As of 10 October 2014, the game has sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time.
[125] As of 10 October 2014, the game has sold approximately 60 million copies across all platforms, making it one of the
best-selling video games of all time.
[125][126] On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users.
[127]As of June 2016, over 106 million copies had been sold,
[128] making it the
best-selling PC game to date and the second
best-selling video game of all time behind
Tetris.
The Xbox 360 version of
Minecraft became profitable within the
first 24 hours of the game's release in 2012, when the game broke the
Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online.
[129] Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace,
Minecraft sold upwards of 1 million copies.
[130] GameSpot announced in December 2012 that
Minecraft sold over 4.48 million copies since the game debuted on
Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012.
[131] In 2012,
Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most played title on Xbox Live based on average
unique users per day.
[132] As of 4 April 2014, the Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies.
[133] In addition,
Minecraft: Pocket Edition has reached a figure of 21 million in sales.
[134] The PlayStation 3 version sold one million copies in five weeks.
[135] The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted
Minecraft sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest
Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console.
[136]
The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies in Japan within the
first two months of release, according to an announcement by SCE Japan
Asia.
[137] By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of
Minecraft were sold in Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children purchasing the PS Vita version.
[138] Minecraft helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second quarter.
[139]
Critical reception
Minecraft has been praised for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling
emergent gameplay.
[159][160][161] Critics have praised
Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay.
[151] Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with
IGN describing them as "instantly memorable".
[13] Reviewers also liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance between exploring and building.
[151]
The game's multiplayer feature has been generally received favourably,
with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with friends."
[13] Jaz McDougall of
PC Gamer commended
Minecraft,
deeming it "intuitively interesting and contagiously fun, with an
unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences".
[158] It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world, insofar as its basic
game mechanics are logically analogous to computer commands.
[162]
Reviewers have criticised the game's lack of in-game tutorials and
instructions, making it difficult for new players to learn how to play
the game. IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set
up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle".
[13] Critics also noted visual glitches that occur periodically.
[151] In 2009,
GameSpot
maintained that the game has an "unfinished feel", adding that "some
game elements seem incomplete or thrown together in haste."
[151]
A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the
Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it.
[163] Jim Rossignol of
Rock, Paper, Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit
Lego Stalker".
[164] On 17 September 2010, gaming
webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game.
[165]
The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics,
but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers
were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and
content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a
tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make
the game more user-friendly.
[115]
Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews
from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive
controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability
in the game to collect resources and craft items, as well as the game's
lack of hostile mobs and limited types of blocks, were especially
criticised.
[153][166][167] Recently,
[when?]
though, it has started receiving positive reviews, due to the game's
updates adding more content. In addition to the controls, reviewers have
complimented the graphics, though still note the lack of content.
[153] In update 0.9.0, the
Pocket Edition received an update with an unlimited world size, alleviating some of the reviewer's concerns.
[168]
Awards
In July 2010,
PC Gamer listed
Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work.
[169] In December of that year,
Good Game selected
Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010,
[170] Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year,
[171][172] and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year".
[173] Indie DB
awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters,
in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most
Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie.
[174] It was also awarded Game of the Year by
PC Gamer UK.
[175]
The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical
Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011
Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize along with community-voted Audience Award.
[176][177] At
Game Developers Choice Awards 2011,
Minecraft
won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable
Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was
nominated.
[178][179] It also won
GameCity's video game arts award.
[180] On 5 May 2011,
Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the
Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of
The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012.
[181][182] At the 2011
Spike Video Game Awards,
Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category.
[183][184] In 2012, at the
British Academy Video Games Awards,
Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Notch received The Special Award.
[185] In 2012,
Minecraft XBLA was awarded a
Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category,
[186] and a
TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category.
[187] In 2013 it was nominated as the family game of the year at the
British Academy Video Games Awards.
[188] Minecraft Console Edition won the award for
TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014.
[189] In 2015, the game placed 6th on
USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list.
[190] In 2016,
Minecraft placed 6th on
Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list.
[191]
Minecraft was nominated for the
2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to
Temple Run.
[citation needed] It was nominated for the
2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to
Just Dance 2014.
[citation needed] The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the
2015 Kids' Choice Awards.
[citation needed]
Spin-off games
Minecraft: Story Mode
Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic spin-off game developed by
Telltale Games
in collaboration with Mojang, was announced in December 2014.
Consisting of five episodes plus three additional downloadable episodes,
the standalone game will be narrative and player choice-driven, and it
was released on Microsoft Windows, OS X, iOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation
4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One via download on 13 October 2015.
[192][193][194] A physical disc that grants access to all episodes was released for the aforementioned four consoles on 27 October.
[194] A
Wii U version was also confirmed in an August 2015 interview with
The Verge.
[195] The first trailer for the game was shown at MineCon on 4 July 2015, revealing some of the game's features. In
Minecraft: Story Mode, players control Jesse (voiced by
Patton Oswalt and
Catherine Taber),
[194]
who sets out on a journey with his or her friends to find The Order of
the Stone—four adventurers who slayed an Ender Dragon—in order to save
their world.
Brian Posehn,
Ashley Johnson,
Scott Porter,
Martha Plimpton,
Dave Fennoy,
Corey Feldman,
Billy West and
Paul Reubens portray the rest of the cast.
[196]
Minecraft: Education Edition
In January 2016, Microsoft announced a new tool for education, called
Minecraft: Education Edition or
MinecraftEDU, planned to be released in 2016.
Minecraft has already been used in classrooms around the world to teach subjects ranging from core
STEM topics to arts and poetry.
Minecraft: Education Edition will be designed specifically for classroom use. The Education Edition gives teachers the tools they need to use
Minecraft on an everyday basis.
There are few differences between
Minecraft and
MinecraftEDU. The main concept is the same, an open sandbox world. The student’s characters in
MinecraftEDU
will be able to retain characteristics. Students will also be able to
download the game at home, without having to buy their own version of
the game. Finally the last large difference is that students can take
in-game photos. These photos will be stored in an online notebook with
the students online notes. These online notebooks will be shareable with
other students.
[197]
Cultural impact
Social media sites such as
YouTube,
Facebook, and
Reddit played a significant role in popularising
Minecraft.
[198] Research conducted by the
University of Pennsylvania's
Annenberg School of Communication showed that one-third of
Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos.
[199] In 2010,
Minecraft-related
videos began to gain affluence on YouTube, often made by commentators.
The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and
voice-overs.
[200] Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players,
walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over 4 million
Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded.
[201] Some popular commentators have received employment at
Machinima, a gaming video company that owns a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube.
[200] The Yogscast is a British organisation that regularly produces
Minecraft videos; their YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at MineCon 2011 had the highest attendance.
[200][202] Other well known YouTube personnel include
Jordan Maron, who has created many
Minecraft parodies, including "Minecraft Style", a parody of the internationally successful single "
Gangnam Style" by South Korean rapper
PSY.
[203] Herobrine is a major community icon of
Minecraft, who first appeared as a single image on
4chan's /v/ board. According to rumours, Herobrine appears in players' worlds and builds strange constructions.
[204] However, Mojang has confirmed that Herobrine has never existed in
Minecraft, and there are no plans to add Herobrine.
[205]
Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as
RuneScape,
Torchlight II,
Borderlands 2,
Choplifter HD,
Super Meat Boy,
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,
The Binding of Isaac,
Team Fortress 2, and
FTL: Faster Than Light.
[206] It was also referenced by electronic music artist
deadmau5 in his performances.
[207] A simulation of the game was featured in
Lady Gaga's "
G.U.Y." music video.
[208] After the release of
Minecraft, some video games were released with various similarities with
Minecraft, and some were called "
clones" of the game. Examples include
Ace of Spades,
CastleMiner,
CraftWorld,
FortressCraft,
Terraria, and
Total Miner.
[209] David Frampton, designer of
The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in
Minecraft which resulted in "some resistance" from fans.
[210]
Minecraft clones
Additionally, in response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their
Minecraft
IP, various developers suddenly announced even further clone titles
that were being developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they
were the only major platforms to not officially receive
Minecraft at the time.
[211] These clone titles include
UCraft (Nexis Games),
[212] Cube Life: Island Survival (
Cypronia),
[213] Discovery (noowanda),
[214] Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games),
[215] Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games),
[216] and
Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games).
[217] In 2014,
Nintendo's
Shigeru Miyamoto stated in an interview that the
Wii U GamePad was a "good fit" for the title, and that Nintendo could have popularised the game in Japan.
[218] In a July 2015 interview with Mojang
COO
Vu Bui, it was revealed that the company was still interested in
releasing the game on more platforms, and declared that Microsoft's
acquisition would not hinder that prospect. According to Bui, he has
"never heard a reason why [they] haven't ended up on Wii U or 3DS. It
just hasn't happened yet."
[219] In August 2015,
Telltale Games confirmed that the spin-off title
Minecraft: Story Mode would be coming to Wii U, making it the first game in the franchise on a Nintendo console.
[195] A Wii U version of
Minecraft was released on 17 December 2015.
[11]
Adaptations
In 2012, Mojang received offers from Hollywood producers who wanted to produce
Minecraft-related TV shows; however, Mojang stated that they would only engage in such projects when "the right idea comes along."
[201] A documentary about the development of Mojang and
Minecraft was released in December 2012. Titled
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, the film was produced by
2 Player Productions.
[220] The second episode of the
seventeenth season of the animated television series
South Park titled "
Informative Murder Porn", features the boys distracting their parents from fighting each other with
Minecraft.
[221] In the
South Park episode, gruff character Corey Lanskin explained the
Minecraft game by noting, "Minecraft, it don't got no winner, it don't got no objective. You're just f****in' buildin' s***!"
[222] On 27 February 2014, Notch revealed that Mojang is in talks with
Warner Bros. regarding a Minecraft film to be produced by
Roy Lee and Jill Messick.
[223][224]
On 8 October 2014, Mojang COO Vu Bui stated that the movie was "in its
early days of development", saying that it was a "large-budget"
production, and also said that it might not be released until 2018.
[225][226] The film will be released on 24 May 2019, and is being co-directed by
Shawn Levy and
Rob McElhenney and written by
Jason Fuchs.
[227][228][229][230]
Merchandise
A physical prop of a diamond sword
A Lego set based on
Minecraft called
Lego Minecraft was released on 6 June 2012.
[231] The set, called "Micro World", centres around the game's default
player character and a Creeper.
[232] Mojang submitted the concept of
Minecraft merchandise to Lego in December 2011 for the
Lego Cuusoo program, from which it quickly received 10,000 votes by users, prompting Lego to review the concept.
[233] Lego Cuusoo approved the concept in January 2012 and began developing sets based on
Minecraft.
[233]
Two more sets based on the Nether and village areas of the game were
released on 1 September 2013. A fourth Micro World set, the End, was
released in June 2014. Six more sets will be available November 2014.
[234]
Mojang collaborates with
Jinx, an online game merchandise store, to sell
Minecraft merchandise, such as clothing, foam pickaxes, and toys of creatures in the game.
[51] By May 2012, over 1 million dollars were made from
Minecraft merchandise sales. T-shirts and socks were the most popular products.
[201] In March 2013 Mojang signed a deal with the
Egmont Group, a children's book publisher, to create
Minecraft handbooks,
annuals, poster books, and magazines.
[235][236][237]
MineCon
MineCon is an official
convention dedicated to
Minecraft. The first one was held in November 2011 at the
Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in
Las Vegas. All 4,500 tickets for MineCon 2011 were sold out by 31 October.
[238] The event included the official launch of
Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests;
Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and
Minecraft-related
companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times
with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the
Minecraft community.
[239] After MineCon, there was an
Into The Nether after-party with deadmau5.
[240] Free codes were given to every attendee of MineCon that unlocked alpha versions of Mojang's
Scrolls, as well as an additional non-Mojang game,
Cobalt, developed by Oxeye Game Studios.
[241] Similar events occurred in MineCon 2012, which took place in
Disneyland Paris from in November.
[242] The tickets for the 2012 event sold out in less than two hours.
[243] MineCon 2013 was held in
Orlando in November as well.
[244][245] MineCon 2015 was held in
London in July.
[246] MineCon 2016 was held in
Anaheim in September.
[247]
Applications
The possible applications of
Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of
computer-aided design and
education.
In a panel at MineCon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the
possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks,
stating that rendering using
Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks.
[200] In 2012, a member of the
Human Dynamics group at the
MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said that "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a
CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional
3D printers or personal printers such as
MakerBot and
RepRap.
[248]
In September 2012, Mojang began the
Block By Block project in cooperation with
UN Habitat to create real-world environments in
Minecraft.
[249]
The project allows young people who live in those environments to
participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using
Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the
Minecraft
servers and modify their own neighbourhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's
managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this
process," adding that "the three-year partnership will support
UN-Habitat's
Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed
Minecraft building community,
FyreUK, to help render the environments into
Minecraft. The first pilot project began in
Kibera, one of
Nairobi's informal settlements, and is in the planning phase. The
Block By Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011,
Mina Kvarter
(My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to
visualise how they wanted to change their part of town. According to
Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualise urban planning ideas
without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas
presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions.
[250]
In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in
Minecraft based on their own geodata.
[251] This is possible because Denmark is
one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the
30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default
Minecraft is around 192 meters above in-game sea level.
Minecraft has also been used in educational settings.
[252] In 2011, an educational organisation named MinecraftEdu was formed with the goal of introducing
Minecraft
into schools. The group works with Mojang to make the game affordable
and accessible to schools. In September 2012, MinecraftEdu said that
approximately 250,000 students around the world have access to
Minecraft through the company.
[253]
A wide variety of educational activities involving the game have been
developed to teach students various subjects, including history,
language arts and science. For an example, one teacher built a world
consisting of various historical landmarks for students to learn and
explore.
[253]
With the introduction of redstone blocks to represent electrical
circuits, users have been able to build functional virtual computers
within
Minecraft.
[254] Such virtual creations include a working
hard drive,
[255] an 8-bit virtual computer,
[256] and
emulators for the
Atari 2600[257] and
Game Boy Advance.
[258]
In at least one instance, a mod has been created to use this feature to
teach younger players how to program within a language set by the
virtual computer within a
Minecraft world.
[259]
In September 2014, the
British Museum in London announced plans to recreate its building along with all exhibits in
Minecraft in conjunction with members of the public.
[260]
