Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything by Daniel Goldberg, Linus Larsson Page B
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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inventively named groups, and compete against other groups to try and create the most impressive works. Rival groups would meet up and exhibit their creations at demoparties, a kind of predecessor to today’s gaming and computer festivals. Several Scandinavian groups became famous through demoparties—Hackerence and Dreamhack, in Sweden; The Gathering, in Norway; Assembly, in Finland. These events established networks and began collaborations, giving rise to the largest export giants of the Swedish game industry. DICE has its roots in a demogroup called The Silents; Starbreeze, who developed the acclaimed games The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and The Darkness , was formed from the group Triton; and the Finnish group Remedy, known mostly for the Alan Wake and Max Payne , has its origin in the demogroup Future Crew.
When the very first computer games were being created, development was pretty much all small-scale. Spacewar! , released in 1962, is considered one of the world’s first computer games. It was a hobby project for programmers Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne Wiitanen working on the PDP-1 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before Atari mass-produced Pong and it became a global success, programmer Allan Alcorn had written the game as a school assignment in 1972. Likewise Tetris , perhaps the world’s most famous game, was written by a Russian programmer, Alexey Pajitnov, in his free time, with the help of two colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Compared to today’s games, these were very modest productions, with simple graphics and mechanics. Putting three hundred game developers to work for several years was unheard of—what in the world would they all do with all that time?
Not until games were packaged and sold in retail shops did the gaming industry in its present form begin to take shape. In the early 1970s, as game consoles made their way into homes, the emerging power structures became even more evident. Printing floppy disks, cassettes, boxes, and manuals was expensive. Producing console games demanded long and complicated copyright agreements with hardware manufacturers. Professional publishers were needed to take care of the paperwork and provide the capital so programmers could concentrate on creating games. And as game consoles became more powerful and games more numerous, developers’ financial resources grew into the budgets of today, often totaling more than $100 million per title.
It’s tempting but incorrect to describe the history of the game industry as a classic David and Goliath saga, with the crass, capitalist corporate interests in one corner and the idealistic indie scene in the other. In reality, the indie scene has always lived in a kind of symbiotic relationship with the established gaming industry, like a creatively brilliant but impossibly unbusinesslike experimental greenhouse. Those who wanted to make game design their career and not just a hobby haven’t had many options to do so, except by applying to work on one of the giant companies’ multimillion-dollar productions. Lately, though, modern forms of distribution have given independent developers new ways to make money.
As is often the case, Apple is a good starting point. In the summer of 2008, the company’s legendary CEO Steve Jobs stood onstage at the company’s main office in Cupertino, California. That morning, he wasn’t presenting a new cell phone or computer. Instead, on the agenda was an update of iPhone’s operating system, with a special focus on developers.
After Jobs demonstrated the telephone’s new security functions and improved e-mail support, it was time for the big news: App Store. Apple was turning the iPhone into a shop. It would be a marketplace where anyone could sell games and applications to millions of iPhone users around the world. To demonstrate the excellence of the new technology, Electronic Arts’ boss Travis Boatman was
When the very first computer games were being created, development was pretty much all small-scale. Spacewar! , released in 1962, is considered one of the world’s first computer games. It was a hobby project for programmers Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne Wiitanen working on the PDP-1 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before Atari mass-produced Pong and it became a global success, programmer Allan Alcorn had written the game as a school assignment in 1972. Likewise Tetris , perhaps the world’s most famous game, was written by a Russian programmer, Alexey Pajitnov, in his free time, with the help of two colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Compared to today’s games, these were very modest productions, with simple graphics and mechanics. Putting three hundred game developers to work for several years was unheard of—what in the world would they all do with all that time?
Not until games were packaged and sold in retail shops did the gaming industry in its present form begin to take shape. In the early 1970s, as game consoles made their way into homes, the emerging power structures became even more evident. Printing floppy disks, cassettes, boxes, and manuals was expensive. Producing console games demanded long and complicated copyright agreements with hardware manufacturers. Professional publishers were needed to take care of the paperwork and provide the capital so programmers could concentrate on creating games. And as game consoles became more powerful and games more numerous, developers’ financial resources grew into the budgets of today, often totaling more than $100 million per title.
It’s tempting but incorrect to describe the history of the game industry as a classic David and Goliath saga, with the crass, capitalist corporate interests in one corner and the idealistic indie scene in the other. In reality, the indie scene has always lived in a kind of symbiotic relationship with the established gaming industry, like a creatively brilliant but impossibly unbusinesslike experimental greenhouse. Those who wanted to make game design their career and not just a hobby haven’t had many options to do so, except by applying to work on one of the giant companies’ multimillion-dollar productions. Lately, though, modern forms of distribution have given independent developers new ways to make money.
As is often the case, Apple is a good starting point. In the summer of 2008, the company’s legendary CEO Steve Jobs stood onstage at the company’s main office in Cupertino, California. That morning, he wasn’t presenting a new cell phone or computer. Instead, on the agenda was an update of iPhone’s operating system, with a special focus on developers.
After Jobs demonstrated the telephone’s new security functions and improved e-mail support, it was time for the big news: App Store. Apple was turning the iPhone into a shop. It would be a marketplace where anyone could sell games and applications to millions of iPhone users around the world. To demonstrate the excellence of the new technology, Electronic Arts’ boss Travis Boatman was
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