Case Study – Minecraft

The popular block-based beast of an indie game, Minecraft, has made waves since its creation within the gaming community. The game continues to grow and expand with no view in sight of slowing, with its high level of replayability and its low skill level entry requirement. But to whom does Minecraft owe this continuing boom? Its players, surely, but also, its creator and those who tend to the game. Especially as the game, just in 2012, had a recorded revenue of $240 million, which Notch actually does not enjoy having so much of. Who in the world is this Notch guy?

Enter Markus Persson, a man from Stockholm known to the Minecraft community at large as “Notch”. He was the sole creator of the game, although in 2011, he handed over creative control to Jens Bergensten, known to Minecrafters as “Jeb”. Minecraft’s creation began during Notch’s time working at King.com. He continued working on it while he was working for jAlbum. He was heavily influenced by a number of games, including Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, and Infiniminer. On May 17th, 2009, Minecraft was released in the alpha stage. It entered its beta stage on December 20th, 2010. The full version was released on November 18th, 2011. The game’s popularity has resulted in attempted (and some accomplished, simplistic) reproductions through Blender and Python, and even the creation of something called MineCon.

MineCon, formally known as MinecraftCon, is run by Mojang AB. Mojang AB, also called Mojang, was created by Notch, Jacob Porser, and Carl Manneh. It currently has a total of 30 employees. MineCon is a Minecraft convention that’s been going on since 2010. In MineCon’s 2011 attendance, perhaps speaking to the wide range of players of the game, the ages ranged from newborn to 105 years old. The typical number of people in attendance of MineCon was 4,500 people. 4,500 people gathering to talk about, play in a group, and meet the “celebrities” of the Minecraft world.

Minecraft is a piece of software, specifically a game, that has been ported to many platforms. These platforms include the PC, Mac, X-Box, Android, iOS, and RaspberryPi. Its original platform is the PC.  The requirements for Minecraft are fairly simplistic and minimalistic:

Because of these simplistic requirements, it makes the game far more playable for those who do not wish to upgrade their computers. The game requires a keyboard and a mouse, however, these can be replaced with a game controller or an Emotiv headset with some simple mapping. Additional controllers (non-game) could be used, even a pseudo-controller made through Arduino. If you have the old-school red-cyan 3D glasses, Minecraft does have a “3D” mode. There is currently no actual 3D capabilities for Minecraft. Notch has mentioned intent to make Minecraft Oculus Rift ready, though it will be up to Jeb to actually go through with this.

Observe one of the least-expensive laptops currently available from New Egg. For $265, you get a computer that has 160 GB Hard Drive, 2 GB of RAM, 2.8 gHz processor, and an Intel Core 2 Processor… that can run Minecraft. There are even inexpensive desktops with even better specifications, around the same price or slightly more. For example, from Best Buy, a refurbished desktop. 750 GB Hard Drive, 4 GB of Ram, 3.0 gHz processor, and an AMD Athlon II dual core CPU… also able to run Minecraft. Cost? $130.

The game has simplistic 3D graphics and is sandbox in nature. Knowing full well that many people, especially gamers, do not enjoy wandering aimlessly within a game world, achievements were put in to give these players something to shoot for. Some unofficial goals for the game created by the players are: mine diamond, get a full diamond set, build an extravagant home, kill the Ender Dragon. Additionally, the game has a leveling system in place for those want to brag, and for those who want to craft. And to go with any leveling system, in Survival Mode, there is both a health meter and food meter.

The game’s creation system allows for a number of customization options. One of the most fun things to do in the game is to try to make an amazing house for you to live in. There’s simplistic gravity and physics in place, and features a wide variety of blocks within the game. There’s beef, pork, sugar, gun powder, TNT, cookies, emerald, diamond, and more. Yes, TNT. And it explodes. Sometimes so hard it crashes the game and the server you’re running it from if it’s multiplayer.

Minecraft is highly (and relatively easily!) moddable making the game a user-developer haven. There are a number of mods available for the game, all user-created, that enhance the game. Minecraft at its core lacks much in the ways of modern electronics. There’s a mod for that: Tekkit. What about a map? Minecraft’s map system that’s built in is pretty terrible. There’s a mod for that: Rei’s Mini Map. And what if you really want Pokemon in the game? There’s a mod for that: Pixelmon. All created by users.

The game offers a nearly limitless amount of possibilities for creation, and hours upon hours of gameplay. However, it does have its limitations that mods attempt to rectify. For one, the graphics are… blocky and basic. Just as the game released it. Those players who prefer more visually-aesthetic gameplay can use a mod, but it’s still nothing like any of the Final Fantasy games. (Maybe a bit like Final Fantasy VII…)

Another limitation of the game is rendering time. The game often glitches, and ends up showing you 50 blocks down or further into the game while the game renders when you enter a new area. This takes away some of the amazing, enchanting part of the game.

Minecraft SP chunk render glitch

There’s another rendering glitch that can occur that can cause some non-literal minor heart failure. This glitch creates a giant hole in the ground that goes straight down. However, you can walk across it, jump on it, and be fine. It is still one of the most terrifying glitches the game has, as a player. Unfortunately, it’s hard to locate a video of this on Youtube, but anyone who’s played the game has encountered this glitch at least once.

Another issue with Minecraft is that, although the mods available are many, there is no adequate built-in mod handling system for Minecraft. As a result, installing mods onto Minecraft can potentially ruin your application of Minecraft, which is just a matter of redownloading, but still frustrating. Since the mods are user-created and not supported or developed by any of the Minecraft staff, when the game updates, the mods, too, must be updated in order to operate. Sometimes, an update can kill off a mod permanently or until someone decides to take it up as a pet project. And then let it die. It happens far too often.

Minecraft is a game that continues to grow by leaps and bounds, introducing new content and expanding at every update. The game is easy enough to pick up and learn that many of the people doing Let’s Plays of it on Youtube are under 13 years old. The game is not gender specific, but if you do not like the default model, called “Steve”, you can use any number of user-created ones, or use one of the amazing websites out there to relatively-easily create your own.

For those interested in purchasing the game, it’s $30 – a one time fee – and the game’s yours practically forever. Just go here to buy an online version, or see which physical stores carry it.