History of Minecraft

History of Minecraft 

If you're an avid Minecraft player, or know the way around the game, you can skip this part. Before we look through the history books, let's summarize how this epic game is played out. Minecraft is arguably the most influential of sandbox games. The player is dropped into a large randomized open world (actually infinite!) with biomes such as mountains, forests, caves, plains and oceans - with no specific goal or objective. Progression can only be reached through an Achievements system. The world consists of cubes, or blocks, which you can destroy, remove, build or replace. It also has a night/day cycle. Depending on the set difficulty level, players need to eat and defend themselves from hostile mobs during the night.

Through various Game Modes chosen at the start of each new game, players will experience a different adventure. If you just want to focus on building amazing things, you should choose Creative Mode. If you want a real adventure, boom, Adventure Mode is for you. If you want "the real deal" struggling for survival, Survival Mode is the perfect fit. These various modes makes the game even more replayable.

The beginning 

It all started with a swedish progammer Markus "Notch", a person who prevously worked at the video game King and later jAlbum. Before laying all his focus on Minecraft.

The first edition of Minecraft, called Java Edition, was made by Notch during a weekend in early May 2009. The game was initially released to the public in May 17 on the TIGSource forum, a forum for Independent game developers. After feedback from his peers, Notch updated the game to, which nowadays is called, the Classic version. A few more updates were released during the next couple of months, the Indev and Infdevs versions, before the first major update, Alpha, was released June 30, 2010. It was around this time that Minecraft was beginning to pick up speed.

Notch quit his daytime job to solely focus on Minecraft. With the money earned from the game, he founded the now legendary video game company Mojang. At this time, Minecraft was constantly updated and calibrated. New items, blocks, mobs, resources, game mechanics - and the much loved Survival Mode was added. In December 30, Minecraft entered the Beta-phase. In preparation for the full release, Mojang hired new employees as the game, and the amount of people who played it, grew at a rapid pace.

It´s about time

The full version of Minecraft was released on the 18 November 2011. And it was an immediate success. From this time on, Minecraft was really only heading one way. And that way was up. As the player base grew, so did Mojang. Tying up deals with more partners and developers was a must to support and push the limit of the ever increasing Minecraft. Over the next couple of years, several new editions and updates came out

After all the success and imprint of Minecraft in the hearts of so many gamers, Mojang and the ownership of Minecraft's intellectual property was bought by Microsoft in 2017, for almost a record amount. It was suggested by Notch himself on Twitter, looking for a corporation to buy his shares.

Minecraft continued to develop and added more of literally everything. Boss fights, a much larger underground element, additional dimensions and areas. The game was introduced to various new consoles and platforms during the years. Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, the Pocket Edition for mobile. Even virtual reality got a piece of the Minecraft cake. Basically, if you own an electronic media machine of any kind, you can play the game.

The train that has no break 

Nobody in their right mind could ever had predicted the massive cultural impact that Minecraft has had. Few games can boast the incredible rise, and more impressive, the constant relevance it has had since the beginning. Minecraft has won multiple awards and has, more than once, been called "One of the most important games of the decade" by several acclaimed reviewers.

Critics have praised the original "blocky" graphics, the freedom to play precisely how the player chooses to, the enormous open world, the constant updates, mods and changes made, the complex crafting system, the ability to engage people of all ages, the transformations into mobile, console and virtual reality and perfect balance between an adventure game and sandbox. It's no wonder that Minecraft is reported to have been sold in over 200 million copies with over 125 million monthly active players. As the early funding was player-based, Minecraft was one of the first indie games to truly use Youtube and other similar media platforms to market itself successfully. Many of today's biggest gaming influencers used Minecraft to exert themselves on their respective channels, to gather and sustain viewers. The story of Minecraft is a great example of synergy in the world of gaming.