Minecraft Essay
Why do you think Minecraft has been a commercial and critical success?
Minecraft is a sandbox computer game. Sandbox is a company created to be innovative and valuable, it allows the player to be free to play the game without any specific objectives. Instead, they are allowed to create like a child would. The game was created and designed by Swedish programmer Marcus "Notch" Perrson in 2009 and fully developed and published by Mojang.
Within this game, players build structures out of textured cubes in a 3D world. The world is unrealistic and sparse until a player begins to play, which allows them to create as much as possible. he key activities include mining (gathering resources to build structures from) and crafting (making things with these resources such as buildings and landscapes). Players are also able to explore various places and combat at higher levels. They are also able to play and create with other players.
Marcus "Notch" Perrson first started to create the game as a project. He was first influenced by games such as Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper and Infiniminer. To begin with Perrson visualised a 3D game that reflected his inspirations with few prototypes. However, as he continued to become influenced by Infiniminer, he decided that the style of the game would have a first-person aspect. It would also include a "blocky" visual style with block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Perrson wanted the game to include RPG elements (Role-playing game).
As development increased and milestone updates were created, such as survival and indev modes, Minecraft gained huge amounts of praise from critics and has won numerous awards and accolades over the years. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the MineCon convention played large roles in popularizing the game. Players all over the world partake in these conventions to explore Minecraft and become involved within a worldwide phenomenon. It has also been used in educational environments, especially in the realm of computing systems, as virtual computers and hardware devices have been built in it. By early 2018, over 144 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time. In September 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property for $2.5 billion, with the acquisition completed two months later.
Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny arcade webcomic.. By April 2011, Perrson 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. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014[update], the game has sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014[update], the game has sold approximately 60 million copies across all platforms, making it one of the best-selling video game of all time. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. As of January 2018[update], over 144 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time behind Tetris.
