March 23, 2023

The history of the creation of Minecraft

I researched the history of the creation of Minecraft by examining seven sources, including Wikipedia, news articles, a version history website, and a website dedicated to Minecraft's history. The sources provided a comprehensive overview of Minecraft's creation, development, and the life of its creator, Markus Persson. There was a general consensus among the sources regarding the key events and milestones in Minecraft's history, and I am confident in the information provided.

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Markus Persson and Early Life

Markus Persson, also known as Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer born on June 1, 1979. He began developing video games at an early age and pursued a career in game development and web design. Persson grew up in Edsbyn until age 7, before his family moved back to Stockholm. He spent his playtime building complex designs with Lego blocks until he encountered his father's Commodore 128 home computer and started programming and creating games.

Inspiration for Minecraft

One of Persson's more notable personal projects was called RubyDung, an isometric three-dimensional base-building game like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. Infiniminer, a multiplayer mineral-em-up, also inspired "Notch" to create Minecraft.

Release and Success of Minecraft

On May 17, 2009, Persson released the original edition (later called "Classic version") of Minecraft on the TIGSource forums and regularly updated the game based on feedback from TIGSource users. Minecraft's Alpha sales began on June 13, 2009, and the Creeper-toting survival mode began testing later that year. Within a year, Minecraft attracted 20,000 paid registrations.

Minecraft Updates and Versions

Minecraft Java Edition has been in constant development since mid-May 2009. The game has gone through several stages, including Pre-Classic, Classic, Indev, Infdev, Alpha, and Beta. The full release stage of Minecraft: Java Edition's development started on November 18, 2011. Minecraft has been released in various versions to suit all kinds of platforms, including Android, iOS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita, and Windows Phone.

Popularity and Impact

Minecraft is one of the best-selling video games of all time, with over 238 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players as of 2021. The game has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and later being cited as one of the greatest video games ever created. Minecraft has a large modding community, which has developed mods to add enhancements and additional content to the game. The game has also been used in educational environments to teach chemistry, computer-aided design, and computer science.

Acquisition by Microsoft

In 2014, Microsoft bought Minecraft and Mojang, the Swedish game studio behind it, for $2.5 billion. Following the acquisition, Minecraft's development continued under new leadership, and the game's expansion continued with the introduction of the Pocket Edition and several other versions.

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Research

"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/magazine/the-minecraft-generation.html"

  • Minecraft is a popular online game where players can create things out of virtual blocks.
  • There are over 100 million registered players, and it’s now the third-best-selling video game in history.
  • Microsoft bought Minecraft and Mojang, the Swedish game studio behind it, for $2.5 billion in 2014.
  • Each time you start a new game, Minecraft generates a unique world filled with hills, forests, and lakes.
  • Blocks can be attached to one another to quickly produce structures, and players can combine blocks to “craft” new items.
  • Minecraft culture resembles the early days of the digital age when the arrival of personal computers gave rise to the first generation of kids fluent in computation.
  • Minecraft may well be this generation’s personal computer, and at the time when even the president is urging kids to learn to code, Minecraft has become a stealth gateway to the fundamentals, and the pleasures, of computer science.
  • Playing with blocks has deep cultural roots in Europe, and Minecraft resembles the appeal and the critical reception of block-play games.
  • The European tradition of block-play had influenced Markus Persson, the inventor, and founder of Minecraft and Mojang.
  • Block-play was particularly “wholesome” activity, and children were turned loose with tools to change a hostile environment into something they can live in.
  • Minecraft encourages kids to get under the hood, break things, fix them and turn mooshrooms into random-number generators. It invites them to tinker.
  • Minecraft is more than just a game, it’s a world of trial and error, and stuffed with byzantine secrets, obscure text commands, and hidden recipes.
  • Minecraft runs completely counter to most modern computing trends, where companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google want our computers to be easy to manipulate.
  • Minecraft’s code can be modified, creating new types of blocks and creatures, and then put online for others to use. There is no single, central server: Thousands exist worldwide.
  • Redstone is the game’s virtual wiring that transports energy between blocks like an electrical connection.
  • Persson ingeniously designed redstone in a way that mimics real-world electronics.
  • Minecraft has succeeded Lego as the respectable creative toy, particularly because Lego has moved away from that open-ended engagement, because it’s sold in branded kits.
  • Minecraft has become a destination, a technical tool, a cultural scene, or all three put together, where kids engineer complex machines, shoot videos of their escapades that they post on YouTube, make art, and set

"https://www.thescienceacademystemmagnet.org/2019/12/20/the-history-of-minecraft/"

  • Markus Persson (aka Notch) created Minecraft in 2009, originally called Cave Game.
  • Minecraft is different from other online games where you create things because instead of simply creating structures, you also have to gather resources to build those structures.
  • Minecraft is also a survival game where you have to survive hostile mobs and can explore the vast world while using resources to craft new materials.
  • Minecraft Updates:
    • Version 1.0.0: the explorer update that added all the features in the base game, like health and other base features.
    • Version 1.1: added 51 new languages, including three fictional ones, and it added spawn eggs for all the current animals. Oak leaves also obtained a 1/2000 chance of dropping apples.
    • Version 1.2.1: added the bottle o’ enchanting and the fire charge. It also added mine shafts and desert wells.
    • Version 1.3.1: added trading with villagers and another mode called adventure mode. Some structures were also added into the game, including desert and jungle temples. Desert villages and emeralds were added.
    • Version 1.4.2 (The Scary Update): added the wither, a second boss to the game. Added new items including the anvil, carrots, potatoes, pumpkin pie, carrot on a stick, item frames, and flower pots. Added new mobs including the wither skeletons, the witch, and the bat.
    • Version 1.5 (The Redstone Update): added Redstone -related blocks, more death messages, and slimes in Minecraft began to only spawn at certain times.
    • Version 1.6 (The Horse Update): added the horse, the mule, and the donkey. Added new horse or pet-related items such as horse armor, lead, and name tags. End credits and splash texts were also added.
    • Version 1.7 (The Update that Changed the World): added 16 colors of stained glass and glass panes. Added new biomes, types of trees, and new flowers. Added salmon, clownfish, and pufferfish. Added deep ocean, extreme hills, mega taiga, normal taiga, flower forest, birch forest, roofed forest, sunflower plains, mesa, and savanna.
    • Version 1.8 (The Bountiful Update): added granite, andesite, and diorite, plus

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson"

  • Markus Persson, also known as Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer.
  • He was born on June 1, 1979, in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother Ritva and a Swedish father Birger. He has a sister.
  • Persson began developing video games at an early age, making games both professionally and in his spare time for much of his life.
  • When Persson was around age seven, his parents divorced, and he and his sister lived with their mother. His father moved to a cabin in the countryside. Persson said in an interview that they experienced food insecurity around once a month.
  • According to Persson, his father suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and medication abuse, and went to jail for robberies. Persson lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce. His sister also experimented with drugs and ran away from home.
  • Persson grew up in Edsbyn until age 7, before his family moved back to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, Persson’s father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. He spent much time outdoors in Edsbyn, exploring the woods with his friends.
  • By 1994, Persson knew he wanted to become a video game developer, but his teachers advised him to study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18.
  • Persson started his career working as a web designer. He later found employment at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. The pair worked in their spare time to build the 2006 video game Wurm Online. The game was released through a new entity, “Mojang Specifications AB.” Persson left the project in late 2007. As Persson wanted to reuse the name “Mojang,” Jansson agreed to rename the company to Onetoofree AB.
  • Between 2004 and 2009, Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (later known as King). There, he worked as a programmer, mostly building browser games made in Flash. He later worked as a programmer for jAlbum.
  • One of Persson’s personal projects was called RubyDung, an isometric three-dimensional base-building game like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. In 2009, Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game. RubyDung is the earliest-known Minecraft prototype created by Persson.
  • On

"https://kids.kiddle.co/Minecraft"

  • Minecraft is a sandbox game and one of the best-selling video games of all time, with over 238 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players as of 2021.
  • The game was created by Markus “Notch” Persson and first released in November 2011. After several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009.
  • The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing blocks to build structures, earthworks, and machines. Players can also fight hostile mobs or cooperate with other players in the same world.
  • Minecraft has a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities.
  • There are several game modes in Minecraft, including survival mode, where players must acquire resources to build in the world and maintain health, and creative mode, where players have unlimited resources and access to flight.
  • Minecraft has multiplayer features that enable multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, LAN play, local split-screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted).
  • Minecraft has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and later being cited as one of the greatest video games ever created.
  • Minecraft has also been used in educational environments to teach chemistry, computer-aided design and, computer science.
  • Notch stepped down from development and Jeb took over starting in December 2011.
  • Mojang and Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft in 2014, for US$2.5 billion.
  • Following Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang, several spin-offs have been made, including Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Earth, and the upcoming Minecraft Legends.
  • Minecraft allows players to explore a blocky, procedurally generated, three-dimensional world with virtually infinite terrain.
  • The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes and fluids, and commonly called “blocks”—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava.
  • The game world is virtually infinite and procedurally generated as players explore it, using a map seed that is obtained from the system clock at the time of world creation.
  • Minecraft has two alternative dimensions besides the Overworld (the main world): the Nether and the End.
  • In survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in

"The Mystery of Minecraft"

Not used in article

"Why is Minecraft Fun?"

Not used in article

"https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Java_Edition_version_history"

  • Minecraft Java Edition has been in constant development since mid-May 2009.
  • Pre-Classic: refers to the early unreleased versions of Minecraft during the week from May 10 to May 16, 2009.
  • Classic: lasted from May 17 to November 10, 2009.
  • Indev: short for “in development”, lasted from December 23, 2009, to February 23, 2010.
  • Infdev: short for “infinite development”, lasted from February 27 to June 30, 2010.
  • Alpha: lasted from June 30 to December 3, 2010.
  • Beta: lasted from December 20, 2010, all the way through to November 18, 2011.
  • The full release stage of Minecraft: Java Edition’s development started on November 18, 2011.
  • At this point of development, the game was considered “complete,” having both an “ending” and being ready for ratings and reviews.
  • The game’s price also increased from what it was in Beta, but users who previously bought the game were not charged extra.
  • All versions of Minecraft Java Edition up to 1.19.3 fall under the full release.
  • Minecraft Java Edition has had numerous updates, with the most recent being version 1.19.4.
  • The webpage has a version history table that shows all the updates with their respective version numbers and release dates.
  • There have been various updates like the 1.18 version, which was called the “Caves and Cliffs Part II (Guide)” released in 2022.
  • Another version was the 1.17, called “Caves and Cliffs: Part I (Guide),” released in 2021.
  • The 1.16 version was called “Nether Update (Guide),” which focused on overhauling the Nether dimension of the game.
  • The 1.15 version was called “Buzzy Bees (Guide),” which added bees to the game, and honey-related items.
  • The 1.14 version was called “Village & Pillage (Guide),” which added new villager and pillager types and changes to the usual gameplay.
  • The 1.13 version was called “Update Aquatic (Guide),” which focused on adding new underwater environments and features.
  • The 1.12 version was called “World of Color Update (Guide),” which added concrete and terracotta blocks’ colors.

"https://www.techradar.com/news/the-history-of-minecraft"

  • Minecraft was created by Markus “Notch” Persson.
  • Infiniminer, a multiplayer mineral-em-up, inspired “Notch” to create Minecraft.
  • Minecraft’s first version was coded in Java.
  • Minecraft’s original version had sand, water, lava, and rudimentary dynamic lighting.
  • Minecraft’s Alpha sales began on June 13th, 2009.
  • Minecraft’s Creeper-toting survival mode began testing later in 2009.
  • Minecraft Creepers, a harmful hostile mob, gained attention due to their surprised making hissing sound and sudden explosion.
  • Within a year, Minecraft attracted 20,000 paid registrations.
  • The Java edition left its beta stage and continued to have new features added.
  • In 2013, Minecraft’s exclusivity with Microsoft elapsed, and versions for PS3, PS4, and PSVita were announced.
  • “Notch” and co. sold Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion.
  • Minecraft has since been ported to both Android and iOS as a sandbox video game.
  • Minecraft allows for a high level of creativity, with the ability to build and explore entire 3D worlds.
  • Minecraft has a large modding community, which has developed mods to add enhancements and additional content to the game.
  • The game also includes “skin” customization, allowing players to make their characters unique.
  • Minecraft merchandise has become popular, such as toys and branded merchandise, as well as Minecraft LEGO sets.
  • Minecraft is also used as an education tool due to its problem-solving and creative aspects.
  • Minecraft’s development continued under new leadership after its acquisition by Microsoft.
  • Minecraft’s expansion continued after its acquisition, with the introduction of the Pocket Edition and several other versions.
  • Minecraft has sold over 100 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video games of all time.
  • Minecraft has partnered with several companies to promote products, such as a collaboration with UNICEF for providing children with clean water.
  • Minecraft has released versions compatible with several consoles, such as the Nintendo Switch.
  • Minecraft was also heavily marketed as an educational tool for students learning subjects such as history and ecology.
  • Minecraft was the subject of several patents granted to Mojang, including patents for game code, the game’s blocks system, and the game’s use of graphics.

"https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/markus-persson-5569.php"

  • Markus Persson, nicknamed “Notch,” was born on June 1, 1979 in Stockholm, Sweden into a Swedish-Finnish family. His father Birger was a railway employee while his mother, Ritva, worked as a nurse.
  • He spent his first seven years in Edsbyn before moving back to Stockholm with his parents.
  • He spent his playtime building complex designs with Lego blocks until he encountered his father’s Commodore 128 home computer. He started programming and creating games centered on cowboys and Indians.
  • He developed his first game, a text-based adventure game, at eight years old, after experimenting with a number of type-in programs.
  • In 2005, Persson joined King.com as a game developer, but left the company in 2009 to move into Jalbum where he worked as a programmer for two years.
  • Along with his best friend Jakob Porser, Persson founded the company Mojang AB in May 2009.
  • He started producing Minecraft in 2009 and shifted from full-time to part-time at Jalbum to focus on his creation. He quit his job in 2010 to work solely on Minecraft.
  • After the game was officially launched in 2011, Persson passed the lead creative authority to Jens Bergensten.
  • Minecraft has been released in various versions to suit all kinds of platforms, including Android, iOS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita, and Windows Phone.
  • He announced his second game, 0x10c, a sandbox science fiction video game, in 2012, but shelved it due to lack of interest and concentration on other projects. Presently, a team of his fans is developing their own version of the game.
  • Persson appeared in the 2012 documentary “Minecraft: The Story of Mojang,” showcasing the formation and growth of Mojang and Minecraft.
  • Persson sold his company, Mojang, to Microsoft at a cash deal amounting to $2.5 billion in November 2014, thereby handing over the Minecraft game’s intellectual property to its buyer.
  • Persson created Minecraft, a survival open-ended, messy video game, by combining his two childhood activities in 2009 and developed and published it under his company, Mojang, in 2011.
  • Persson developed the massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG), Wurm Online, in 2012 along with his designer friend R

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The evolution of Minecraft since its initial release

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The key individuals behind the creation of Minecraft