Minecraft intro essay

Why has Minecraft been a commercial and critical success?


Minecraft is a sandbox computer game meaning that the main aim of the game is to build and construct anything you want. This is one of the reasons why Minecraft is one of the most successful video games, there is unlimited possibility meaning that a player can build a variety of different things. The video game was created and designed by Marcus “Notch” Perrson in 2009 and was fully developed and published by Mojang. Players are free to explore the different environments and realms available, choose what to build and have the ability to be creative with the game. The game has no specific objective giving players a more free range. As well as constructing and ‘mining,’ players can fight with monsters and play in multi-player to build as groups. Minecraft players build structures from different materials available; mostly 3d blocks. There is a wide variety of different textures from a range of metals to fabrics; potions, animals and different accessories are also available to build with.

On opening the game, Players can choose between two types of gameplay; survival and creative. In survival mode, the player is given limited life and start with no materials and must collect and create all of their tools, weapons, armour and other resources from scratch in order to build. In this mode, monsters come out at night and can attack, so players must combat and stay safe in order to sustain their life. These monsters include skeletons, which can shoot arrows, creepers, which explode when getting near the player, zombies, which can eat you and many more such as spiders. This mode is very popular as it gives the player a chance to work for their progress and ‘survive.’ A popular reason why Minecraft is so popular is that there is no specific genre, players can construct but also battle in action packed combat and also explore. The other mode is called creation which differs and the player starts with unlimited resources and are able to create whatever they wish to. In this mode, players are also able to fly making it quicker to travel across the environment. Players are given unlimited life so cannot die making it easier to make whatever they want. In creation mode, players have the ability to have monsters in their world based on whether they pick easy, medium or hard and also peaceful where there is no monsters at all. The problem that players have with the monsters is that they can destroy the structures that the players spend their time on making.

After making their structures, players often share their creations online, mainly through Youtube, so that viewers can get inspiration and sometimes copy their ideas. This is another popular aspect. Minecraft has created a community of players which all share their ideas and this can lead to more multi-player game play in order to create bigger structures quicker. Minecraft’s community has grown so big that there is now an event called Minecon which involves players to go to one event and talk about the game and get even more inspiration. Minecraft has influenced popular culture because of social media. Their video channels have huge followings which learn from the internet videos. Minecraft’s success in popularity has meant that merchandise has now been created for players including foam pick axes, t shirts and mugs.

Minecraft has huge commercial success with over 121 million copies of the game sold as of February 2017. An estimated 55 million people play the game every month including a range of ages from around 8 years old to around 30. Minecraft is the second best-selling game of all time after Tetris. In 2014, the game was brought from Mojang by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. Since being released, the game has been released on many platforms including Xbox, Playstation, Wii, Nintendo, PC, Phone, etc. This is a main reason why the game is very successful as it is on a multi-platform meaning that more people can play the game. Since the release of the game, there have been many spin off games including the education edition and story mode. Minecraft has also expanded from just being  video game as there is a feature film being released in 2019, Lego have released a selection for Minecraft and more merchandise has been released making Minecraft a global success and a household name.

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