Minecraft essay

A video game is a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a monitor or other display. There are many different types of gamin genres such as: Sports, Horror, FPS, Strategy, puzzle solving etc. In this case, narrowing it down, Minecraft is a construction/strategy and ‘sandbox’ computer game. ‘Sandbox’ is defined as an opened structured game where the player is free to play without specific objectives (an allusion of a child’s sandbox). They are free to explore different environments, choose what tasks they do and have the ability to express themselves creatively in the game. There is no limit. The game was created by Marcus “Notch” Perrson in 2009 he made this game with ‘online Lego’ in his mind. Along with mashing up other games such as Dwarf Fortress and Infiniminer into something entirely its own, and first made the game public by uploading it onto the TIGSource forum (site for independent game players and creators). Perrson started selling the game at first for £8 and the reason why there was such a quick initiative buzz was the fact that the game didn’t have any instructions. The game was left deliberately incomplete. This had made Perrson a celebrity in the web and gaming world and had earned him £45million just from a basic game. Minecraft was then fully developed and published by Mojang who licensed Minecraft’s IP.

 Minecraft started off as an ‘indie’ game but from the success of the small business it was usual that larger companies would want to buy it. In this case Microsoft brought the game from Mojang in 2014 for £1.9 billion which resulted in Minecraft being put across multiple platforms such as the Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Android phones etc. and over 121 million copies have been sold since last February 2017. Due to its large success, spin-off games had also been released too, such as Minecraft: education edition created by Microsoft to be used in education facilities globally and Minecraft: Story Mode which was created by Telltale games. By doing this it opened more market segments and attracted new audiences making it the second best selling game of all time after Tetris.

In Minecraft the players build anything they want from using textured 3D cubes in a virtual world. There are several modes of play within the game with survival and creation being the most popular– two very different concepts. In the survival game you must find your own resources from scratch in order to survive whereas in creation the resources are limitless, you can build, create and wear whatever you want. This is a main reason why Minecraft is so successful. Not just is the game original it allows the creativity to be the main aim of the game, its continuous. Over 55 million people play the game a month and due to this it has created a whole new society thanks to social media. Huge media platforms like YouTube have been used by gamers of Minecraft to upload and share their creations. The videos can be from walkthroughs of various tasks to parodies of popular culture e.g. one Minecraft player created the whole set of game of thrones. And this is how one third of Minecraft’s players learned about the game via video content. This has then lead to game creating merchandise for fans of the game. These are things such as action figures of the popular characters Steve and Alex from the game, collectable trading cards and items of clothing such as t-shirts, hoodies, hats etc. consequently Minecon being made. This is a convention that began in 2011 and takes place every year at different locations such as Les Vegas, Disneyland Paris and London. Gaming events, discussion panels with people such as Perrson who created Minecraft will be held at this certain event. But due to the growth of social media, in 2017, Minecon was taken place via a live-stream rather than a convention floor. This way fans of the game who say could not afford or live too far away to attend the event can now watch it and be apart of it live. Minecraft are constantly ahead of the game and have changed the world of gaming forever.