Minecraft essay

Minecraft essay - 

Create an essay discussing the evolution of Minecraft as part of the essay you will discuss

how ownership of Minecraft has affected the games evolution

How Minecraft is marketed to a variety of audiences The development of the game through technological change 

Minecraft is a sandbox video game originally created by Swedish game developer Markus Persson on 17th May 2009, which was then later released to the public in 2011 by the company Mojang. The game allows players to build a virtual reality world with building blocks. Other activities in the game include exploration, resource gathering, crafting, and combat. A sandbox game is where players are free to roam and make choices about how they use available content. Sandbox games are often described as having open world settings and it has been found that a majority of players are between 15 and 21 by a recent survey. However, the game is aimed to anyone ranging from 3-81+ and they encourage any ages to play.

When Markus Persson first created the game in 2009 he was inspired by other single-player construction games e.g - Dwarf Fortress and many described it as a virtual world of lego. The game uses a simple code called 'JAVA' which perssons created himself and this led to Minecraft being the second most successful video game of all time being Tetris. Players were fascinated by Minecraft's freedom and its creativity and within a month, Minecraft had sand, water, lava and dynamic lighting. The game then developed and the Minecraft's Creeper survival mode began testing, this attracted more audiences making it for Persson to leave his day job in May 2010 due to the amount of money that the game made through the different versions that was made such as the survival mode. Later in 2010 Minecraft then explored the idea of multiplayer which made the game even more popular due to the interactive theme that the majority of gamers enjoy.


In November  2011 Minecraft full version was released and prior to the game’s official release, Minecraft had over 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. Perssons original choice of Java code was not really made for games as heavyweight as Minecraft was becoming, this then caused slight bugs which were then soon eliminated. Due to its popularity, Minecraft was released across multiple platforms becoming a commercially viable franchise with increased interactivity. In particular, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released on Sony Xperia Play, available on Sony Xperia smartphones. Minecraft also become available on Android and iOS devices shortly after. In 2013 it was announced that Microsoft would buy all rights to Minecraft for a large sum of $2.5 billion. Which had been a huge breakthrough for perssons and the game. This resulted in many different events like MineCon at London's Excel centre and they also broke the Guinness world record for the largest convention for a single video game.

Minecraft continued to try and approach new audiences, So in 2012 Minecraft set up an educational programme where children could learn with Minecraft and this helped to increase their skills of coding, engineering, creative problem solving and teamwork. This was a huge hit and had lots of positive feedback. Furthermore, Microsoft developed the code of Minecraft in 2013 with a complex C++ code and this meant that the game could now be used by Multiplatform users and the appearance become a more detailed and sophisticated style which was done to increase profits. As technology developed and the world of virtual reality was introduced Minecraft tried to develop their own edition of virtual reality and so they teamed up with Oculus in 2014. The virtual version was later released in 2016 and had many positive reviews because it was immersive, life like, more active and cross platform. 

Minecraft has had many ways of advertising and promoting their brand and many of these were done for free by word of mouth. By the incline of Social media and Youtube Minecraft was promoted through videos and memes and posts all by other popular influencers. An example of a well known Youtuber would be 'Sky does Minecraft' which has a fanbase of 11.6 million subscribers. Has a total of 3.7 billion views and posts daily vlogs. Although social media has been a huge impact to their marketing the synergy between lego and Minecraft has also promoted the brand. The synergy attracted a younger audience and this meant that Minecraft was appealing to all. 

Overall, Minecraft was a game that has never stopped evolving snd has been able to sell to this, well over 121 million copies across all platforms, including over 27 million PC copies, making it the biggest selling PC game of all time and by the development of technology has continued to be one of the most successful games to date.