The story of Minecraft is like a fantastic movie script. Notch is the main genius programmer who, after starting as an indie, changed the game industry completely by doing what he loved. And he made lots of money during the process. And , even more when he became exhausted and sold Minecraft. However, a movie may be unnecessary, since it's all very well documented. And most people are familiar with the story. A large part of it was recorded online. So we have the websites, blogs, forum posts, tweets and youtube videos. What we don't have is a nice graphic timeline that shows the history (until now).I heard about Minecraft sometime in the year 2010. And I started paying close attention to Minecraft and its creator. Since it seemed like a fantastic story. One man and his computer revolutionizing the world. My personal favorite type of story! I remember being awestruck when Notch participated in a game-coding contest and livecaught the entire thing. This was something that I still love to this day. (Mind you this link is a condensed version of the entire event. It lasted for 48 hours. The man was amazing! The miracles of game creation unfolded in front of your eyes. It was too fast to record all the details, but it did give you a great idea of what it takes to create a game. Just him, and his computer using Java IDE Eclipse and Paint.net. The same tools that he used in creating Minecraft. I later discovered, through the contest that there are other skilled programmers who are just like him. It's not easy for everyone to make it big. However, many such as Notch and others, aren't in it because of this.
Minecraft is a story that is unique and I decided to create one.
These are some of the most interesting things about this timeline.
- Notch started working on Minecraft a few weeks before starting a new job (at JAlbum, the software used by this site as well!) It took a full year of development before he finally quit his "real" job to concentrate on Minecraft. At that time somewhat 20.000 copies had been sold! Even though the game was in the alpha stage. It was promising to say the least. Yurock.net The second half of 2010 was crazy, as was the first half of 2011. They founded the company around Minecraft: Mojang, hired several people, made a ton of improvements to the game, launched a second game (completely different), talked with Valve and organized MineCon and faced a lawsuit on their hands, and amidst all that they sold millions of copies of Minecraft! A lot of significant Minecraft events seem to have happened on June 1, a couple of years in a row (this also happens to be Notch's birthday).
The Minecraft story isn't over. Minecraft is alive and setting new records. But Where Notch and Minecraft once were part of the same narrative, they are now moving into separate timelines.
However, whatever happens next, the story of Minecraft will always be an inspirational tale and its impact on the game and entertainment industry will echo for years and years to be. It's even more unique that thanks to the power of Youtube we have this 2009 video.