Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything by Daniel Goldberg, Linus Larsson
Authors: Daniel Goldberg, Linus Larsson
Tags: Technology, Building, Pop Culture, indie, gaming, minecraft, Mojang, blocks, Creeper, sandbox, gaming download, Minecon, survival mode, creative mode
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his own demands. He was only interested in working at Jalbum on the condition that his employer would not interfere with his hobby and would let him continue developing games in his free time. Of course, his future boss shrugged his shoulders and said yes. Carl Manneh, CEO at Jalbum, couldn’t care less about what Markus did in his free time, as long as he came to work on time and did what was expected of him while he was there.
With an offer from Jalbum secured, it didn’t take long for Markus to again quit his job at Midasplayer. But before he did, he discussed the matter with Jakob. Immediately after leaving Midasplayer, Markus intended to sit down and start developing a new game, he said, and if, contrary to expectation, he succeeded in making any money at it, the two friends would proceed with their plans and start a game studio together.
Markus’s decision to leave was a direct consequence of Midasplayer’s refusal to let him develop games in his free time. However, it was also because Markus’s perception of the gaming world differed fundamentally from that of the bosses at Midasplayer. To them, the games were products for consumption; they could just as well have been selling detergent or toilet paper or candy. To Markus, the games themselves were the be-all and end-all. If he wasn’t allowed to work on the projects he liked, he might as well do something else.
Markus was not alone in harboring these sentiments. Just as in the film or music industries, the conflict between commercial success and creative freedom has always been present in the gaming world. Midasplayer had grown into a large, established company, focusing on tried-and-true concepts that would generate the most profit from each hour of development. Minecraft , which would grow into one of the most successful games of the decade, was born from a different tradition. In order to understand how it happened, you need to move the spotlight away from the arena of commercial mass production and onto another, completely different, and often overlooked corner of the gaming world.
Jens Bergensten. Art by Ethan Thornton. Photo courtesy of Mojang.
Chapter 6
Macho Men with Big Guns
On the evening of July 27, 2008, more than fifteen young men sat sequestered in a basement room in Skövde, Sweden, just a stone’s throw from the city’s college. Twenty-eight hours later, they would emerge into the daylight, one summer night poorer, dozens of new computer games richer. The event was called No More Sweden and it was the first of what would become a recurring event in the Swedish gaming world.
In attendance were Jens “Jeb” Bergensten, then mostly known for the strategy game Harvest: Massive Encounter , and Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren, who’d created the popular platform games Knytt and Knytt Stories , based on the character Knyttet (Toffle, in English) in Tove Jansson’s Moomin books. Erik Svedäng, developer of the prizewinning adventure game Blueberry Garden and the arcade game Shot Shot Shoot for Apple’s iPad was there, and of course Jonatan “Cactus” Söderström, a twenty-six-year-old self-taught programmer from Gothenburg, known to be unbelievably prolific (in just a few years he had developed and self-published more than forty games, with names like Burn the Trash ; Shotgun Ninja ; Clean Asia! ; and Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf , an interactive music video for the Gothenburg post–punk rock band Fucking Werewolf Asso). The guys in the basement all belonged to the world of self-financed game developers who have always lived alongside the mainstream industry. In a nutshell, the cream of the Swedish indie game scene had gathered to meet for three days to mingle, swap stories, and create games.
The “cream” is a relative concept. The Swedish indie scene is a narrow subculture kept alive by a small number of enthusiasts. Fifteen people in a basement in Skövde doesn’t sound particularly glamorous, but if someone in the future
With an offer from Jalbum secured, it didn’t take long for Markus to again quit his job at Midasplayer. But before he did, he discussed the matter with Jakob. Immediately after leaving Midasplayer, Markus intended to sit down and start developing a new game, he said, and if, contrary to expectation, he succeeded in making any money at it, the two friends would proceed with their plans and start a game studio together.
Markus’s decision to leave was a direct consequence of Midasplayer’s refusal to let him develop games in his free time. However, it was also because Markus’s perception of the gaming world differed fundamentally from that of the bosses at Midasplayer. To them, the games were products for consumption; they could just as well have been selling detergent or toilet paper or candy. To Markus, the games themselves were the be-all and end-all. If he wasn’t allowed to work on the projects he liked, he might as well do something else.
Markus was not alone in harboring these sentiments. Just as in the film or music industries, the conflict between commercial success and creative freedom has always been present in the gaming world. Midasplayer had grown into a large, established company, focusing on tried-and-true concepts that would generate the most profit from each hour of development. Minecraft , which would grow into one of the most successful games of the decade, was born from a different tradition. In order to understand how it happened, you need to move the spotlight away from the arena of commercial mass production and onto another, completely different, and often overlooked corner of the gaming world.
Jens Bergensten. Art by Ethan Thornton. Photo courtesy of Mojang.
Chapter 6
Macho Men with Big Guns
On the evening of July 27, 2008, more than fifteen young men sat sequestered in a basement room in Skövde, Sweden, just a stone’s throw from the city’s college. Twenty-eight hours later, they would emerge into the daylight, one summer night poorer, dozens of new computer games richer. The event was called No More Sweden and it was the first of what would become a recurring event in the Swedish gaming world.
In attendance were Jens “Jeb” Bergensten, then mostly known for the strategy game Harvest: Massive Encounter , and Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren, who’d created the popular platform games Knytt and Knytt Stories , based on the character Knyttet (Toffle, in English) in Tove Jansson’s Moomin books. Erik Svedäng, developer of the prizewinning adventure game Blueberry Garden and the arcade game Shot Shot Shoot for Apple’s iPad was there, and of course Jonatan “Cactus” Söderström, a twenty-six-year-old self-taught programmer from Gothenburg, known to be unbelievably prolific (in just a few years he had developed and self-published more than forty games, with names like Burn the Trash ; Shotgun Ninja ; Clean Asia! ; and Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf , an interactive music video for the Gothenburg post–punk rock band Fucking Werewolf Asso). The guys in the basement all belonged to the world of self-financed game developers who have always lived alongside the mainstream industry. In a nutshell, the cream of the Swedish indie game scene had gathered to meet for three days to mingle, swap stories, and create games.
The “cream” is a relative concept. The Swedish indie scene is a narrow subculture kept alive by a small number of enthusiasts. Fifteen people in a basement in Skövde doesn’t sound particularly glamorous, but if someone in the future
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