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Minecraft documentary world premiere on Xbox Live, Dec. 22
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, a documentary from 2 Player Productions, will premiere on Saturday, December 22, on Xbox Live for Gold members in the US, UK, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Austria, France, Finland and Sweden. The documentary, strangely enough, tells the tale of Mojang founder Markus "Notch" Persson as he rises to indie fame with the development of Minecraft. It will air at 8 p.m. EST in the US and 8 p.m. CET in Europe on Saturday.The documentary secured funding through Kickstarter, raising $210,000 of a requested $150,000 in March 2011. 2 Player Productions isn't new to the video game documentary world, having produced films for Double Fine, a chiptune documentary called Reformat the Planet, and more. Check out the launch trailer for Minecraft: The Story of Mojang above and click the Minecraft tile on your Xbox Live dashboard for viewing times in your area.With Indie Game: The Movie and now this, gaming has officially entered the realm of sans-serif white letters and Sundance hipster chic. Good job, everyone.
0x10c may charge monthly subscription for ship ownership
In a recent interview, Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson says he's thinking more and more that 0x10c, the Minecraft mogul's space-based PC title, may use a subscription-based monetization plan when it's ready to be sold. The idea's not cemented just yet, but Notch expects to have a multiplayer mode with the game called "the multiverse," and there will likely be cost associated with keeping all of the virtual ships running on a real server.Each ship will require a "generator" to keep it running, so Notch's current idea is that "one subscription gives you one generator." Presumably, he says, multiple players could run around inside one ship, so you may pay a subscription and then invite your friends to join you on your vessel. But someone will have to pay to keep the game going.Notch also talks a bit about how construction will work in the game: Players will likely build a ship's external features first, and then organize various components inside for different layouts or more options. And Notch says there will be "mining," in that players will have to find resources in the galaxy to use as parts, but he says it definitely won't be Minecraft-style. As Notch told us at PAX, work is definitely well underway, and we should see more very soon.
Minecraft creator Notch's 0x10c is aiming at a monthly subscription fee
Minecraft has had a substantial impact on gaming in general and MMOs in specific, which means that Markus "Notch" Persson's next project is going to be watched closely by a lot of people. So it's interesting to note that in a recent interview he discusses giving 0x10c a sort of shared living space in an MMO style as well as mentioning that the game may very well charge players a regular subscription fee. Notch freely admits that it's a matter of making money off of the game, and it's meant to be a flexible approach. If free-to-play is more palatable than a subscription model, he's willing to experiment with that as well. The interview talks extensively about keeping the game's playing field level regardless of the business model as well as potential actions in an almost-MMO space; if you're curious to see what the game might look like, head on over for all the details.
'Indie Speed Run' online game jam judged by Kellee Santiago, Ron Gilbert, Notch, et al
Indie Speed Run, despite the name, is surprisingly not what we call the Friday nights we spend practicing our no-death VVVVVV runs. It is, however, the name of a new online game jam, one which runs from now until January 6.The way it works is pretty straight-forward: Developers visit the official website and register as a participant. Once enrolled, each contender (and/or team of contenders) has 48 hours to create a game using two secret elements given only to them, and while those 48 hours must be consecutive, they can occur anytime between now and when the event ends in January.Once the event does end, every game created during its span will be made freely available on the official site. Meanwhile, a star-studded panel of judges (Kellee Santiago, Ron Gilbert, Notch, Dino Patti, Trent Oster, Jason Rohrer and Vander Caballero) will determine which team is most deserving of Indie Speed Run's $2,500 grand prize and will announce a winner February 5.
Daily iPhone App: Micro Miners combines Lemmings and mining in a cute brew
Back before he invented Minecraft, developer Notch made a little Java game called Miners 4K, which had you digging tunnels on a 2D playing field for little miners to find minerals and other goodies below the dirt. Another developer named Jean-Philippe Sarda later decided to take that idea and run with it on Apple's iOS platform, and the result is this game, Micro Miners, out this week on the App Store. You can see the basic gameplay idea in the video below: The game's sort of like Lemmings, in that you guide the path of a bunch of little creatures without actually controlling them. Instead, like Where's My Water, you swipe across the screen to dig down into dirt, trying to guide them around obstacles to various deposits and other goodies. The action can be relaxing or frantic, depending on where you are in each level, and while the graphics are definitely not extremely polished, they're well-designed in that it's always very clear what's happening in the game. Micro Miners is a smart and fun take on Notch's original title, and for just US$0.99 in the App Store, it's definitely worth playing. Give it a look if the video below interests you.
Minecraft PC sales up to 8 million
Minecraft continues to unearth new players, with its PC version now up to over 8 million sales. Mojang owner Markus 'Notch' Persson revealed the milestone on Twitter, which comes almost three months to the day his game broke the 7 million barrier.With sales of the XBLA version now over 4 million, our maths bods tell us Minecraft can now boast over 12 million sales on PC and Xbox, at least. That's excluding the Pocket editions, which collectively are into seven figures too.If you haven't yet got that lots of people play Minecraft, you should know it recently toppled Modern Warfare 3 as the most played game on Xbox Live. Of course, a certain other Call of Duty may have something to say about that in the very near future.
Latest 0x10c test footage adds a second player into the mix
Markus "Notch" Persson continues his video series documenting development on his new space sim, 0x10c. Today's video update focuses on multiplayer, showing off "base functionality" in an environment populated by two players.They shoot each other with laser guns to no avail in the video above but, hey, it is only test footage of an extremely early build. It's kinda Notch's new thing – this latest test video follows last week's update, which focused on player bobbing, lighting and gun implementation.
Minecraft creator shows test footage of '0x10c' space sim, dishes early details (video)
Gamers have been waiting on tenterhooks for Markus "Notch" Persson's next offering, titled 0x10c, and while the Minecraft creator has detailed some aspects of the upcoming game, even he's not sure exactly how it'll end up. Newly released video footage (after the break) shows a first-person shooter aboard a spaceship, and the creators told PC Gamer that they'd "really like for stuff to go wrong," so that players can use creativity and resource-gathering, Minecraft-style, to fix it. Persson also said that the ship would contain a fully-programmable 16-bit computer (which sounds a bit like a recent Minecraft mod), and that multiplayer would be added early in the development. Apart from that, though, the team admitted "we don't know where 0x10c is really headed," and that they shouldn't "raise too many people's expectations." Based on the rampant speculation so far, it seems like that ship may have already sailed.
Notch releases test footage of 0x10c
Markus "Notch" Persson has been pretty forthcoming with the development progress on his follow-up to Minecraft, the space-based adventure 0x10c. We've seen some screens and a fan-made trailer, but today we have some early prototype footage.Yes, the above video of 0x10c is meant more as a test than your usual gameplay trailer – Notch is testing physics, bobbing and guns in this early build. Still, it's great to see he's making progress despite recent hiccups.
Notch refuses to 'certify' Minecraft for closed Windows 8 platform
Markus 'Notch' Persson slammed Microsoft this morning for asking him to "help 'certify' Minecraft" for Windows 8. The Minecraft creator berated the company for, in his words, ruining the PC as an open platform. In his next tweet, Notch stated he'd prefer to not have Minecraft run on Windows 8 than to "play along," hoping such action might sway people away from the new OS.While Notch being outspoken on his Twitter feed is nothing new, his outburst contrasts with the love he showered on Microsoft when Minecraft launched on Xbox Live Arcade. However, Notch made his views on Windows 8 known last month in a Reddit Q&A: "I hope we can keep a lot of open and free platforms around. If Microsoft decides to lock down Windows 8, it would be very very bad for Indie games and competition in general. "If we can keep open platforms around, there's going to be a lot of very interesting games in ten years, mixed in with the huge AAA games that we all love."Windows 8 launches next month with a burly enough line-up, but now doubt hangs over whether or not Mojang's game will be compatible with the platform anytime soon.
Notch still working on 0x10c, despite a few stops and starts
Speaking to Joystiq at PAX last weekend, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson told us that while most of his days lately are taken up with "just discussing how to do stuff" ("and then Reddit," he added slyly), work continues on the 0x10c space game he announced a while ago. Oh, and in case you're still wondering how the title is pronounced, Notch calls it "ten-to-the-C.""I have the game world fleshed out, all the soft stuff, like the setting," he says. "And I have the emulator for the CPU, which is probably the most complex part of it, all written. I had a prototype for walking around and trying out all of the graphics styles, but that wasn't really fun. So I kind of took a break to recharge my batteries and deal with some personal stuff, and then I'll probably start over again when I get back to Sweden." Starting over again means he'll just rework the graphical engine on the game, and "rethink how the rendering is done, how the physics is done for the character."The team working on 0x10c did have a building interface in mind for players to design their own spaceships, and Notch said it was heavily based on the popular 3D Construction Kit. But the interface wasn't fun, he told us. "We had something kind of inspired by [the Kit], with cubes you could remove corners from to make angles, but it turned really annoying when you tried to build anything."And Notch also confirmed that the game, whenever it is ready, will be released to the public in the way Minecraft was, in various states as it's being built. Notch says he got the idea to release games that way from the old roguelike genre, of all places. "The first version they release is just you can walk around in the dungeon and that's it, that's the extent of what you can do. That's where I got it from." That release schedule, he said, works well for games that fall back on sandbox or user-generated content. "If you're making like The Walking Dead or something, because it's story driven," he said, then obviously a half-finished version won't work. "You're just going to ruin it for people in the other versions."
Notch responds to Guncraft: 'I'm a huge fan of clones'
Before PAX started up in Seattle last week, even before the booths were assembled in the convention center, we heard about Exato Games' plan to attract Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson's attention to its own Guncraft. "Notch, come have a beer with us," John Getty said through Joystiq last week. So how did that go?At least on Saturday morning, when Joystiq sat down to chat with Notch, that beer hadn't yet been shared. "I saw some video going on, and it looked like Minecraft with guns," Notch told us, "which seems like a fairly interesting game if you don't make it fantasy." But he hadn't stopped by the booth, and it didn't sound much like he planned on doing so.Notch that there was no drama between the two developers, however. "I'm a huge fan of clones," he said. "I think clones is how games evolve, I'm a huge proponent of patterns." At the same time, however, Notch says he's "been through hell and back" enough to know how trademarks work, and he's a fan of protecting those as well. "I think trademarks are great, because you can go this is our product, this is your product and it can all be seen by consumers."That's Notch's real response to Guncraft's attempts to get his attention. "A lot of people will come up and say, 'Oh, so Guncraft is actually your new thing?' They're kind of maybe sort of kind of maybe implying that we're connected somehow, and we're not," Notch said to us. "It's just a clone. If they want to make a clone, that's awesome, as long as it's clear we're not related in any way."
Notch wants 0x10c, Minecraft to support Oculus Rift
Furthering the notion that developers just love the Oculus Rift, Minecraft maestro Markus "Notch" Persson has revealed his excitement for the device. Taking to Twitter, Notch stated he is "very excited" for the device and "can't wait to start playing with it."Furthermore, he's already promised that his upcoming project, 0x10c, will support the device so long as it works with Java. Finally, he's interested in seeing Minecraft feature Rift support, though the decision will come down to Minecraft's current lead designer, Jens Bergensten.For our part, we're hoping Minecraft never supports the device. Creepers are scary enough when they're not coming right at you.
Minecraft creator warns locked down Windows 8 could be 'very bad' for indies, stays wary of Steam too
Microsoft just isn't getting much Windows 8 love from the game community, full stop. Following Blizzard and Valve anxieties, Minecraft developer Notch (the man on the left) is himself cautious about the shift to the Windows Store and the seeming discouragement of third-party outlets. Despite sharing an affinity with Microsoft for square-shaped worlds, he sees any further lockdown of Windows 8 as potentially "very very bad" for indie game developers and overall competition in the gaming business. Not that Notch is singling out the OS for concern: he's also maintaining his resistance to Valve's Steam and doesn't want the Portal creator to "rent games" instead of selling titles that buyers can keep forever. While Notch isn't adverse to producing games for closed systems when it's the only choice, he's joining a growing chorus of those worried that openness is on the endangered list.
Notch: Minecraft occupies a genderless world, even for that guy
Minecraft mastermind Markus Persson, better known by the sexually ambiguous alias "Notch," has cleared up the matter of gender in Minecraft's boxy world with a blog post. Simply put, there is no gender in the game, even for Steve, the default character. "He" got "his" title when Notch jokingly answered a question regarding the main avatar's name with "Steve?""The human model is intended to represent a Human Being. Not a male Human Being or a female Human Being, but simply a Human Being," Notch writes."The blocky shape gives it a bit of a traditional masculine look, but adding a separate female mesh would just make it worse by having one specific model for female Human Beings and male ones. That would force players to make a decisions about gender in a game where gender doesn't even exist."Notch touched on this subject at GDC, during his fireside chat with SpyParty's Chris Hecker. Making a female character model wouldn't only be strange-looking, as Notch said then, but it would be completely unnecessary in a genderless world. Even the animals are neutral (rather than neutered)."Cows have horns and udders (even if I've later learned that there are some cows where the females do have horns), and the chicken/duck/whatevers have heads that look like roosters, but still lay eggs," Notch writes. "For breeding, any animal can breed with any other animal of the same species."Notch notes that this particular post serves only to provide official clarification on gender questions in Minecraft. Oh, also: "As a fun side fact, it means every character and animal in Minecraft is homosexual because there's only one gender to choose from. Take THAT, homophobes!"
Mojang cans collaboration with unannounced studio
File this one under "didn't even have a chance to get excited." Mojang recently cancelled work on an unannounced collaborative project in development with an unknown outside entity, according to statements made by Notch to PC Gamer."We're trying to figure out what we want to do long term with the position we have now," Notch said in regards to Minecraft's absence from Steam and Mojang's continued autonomy. "We only recently decided to stay as independent as possible and cancelled an unannounced project that we were doing in collaboration with someone else. It's going to be an interesting future."What this unannounced project actually was, or who Mojang was working with to create it, remains to be seen. Maybe it was, like, some kind of witch simulator? Or like, an underwater welding game with gravity control elements and realistic fluid dynamics? Someone should get on those.
Mojang sued for alleged patent infringement in Android version of Minecraft
Mojang has seen the sort of success that most game developers dream of with Minecraft, but it looks like it's now also found itself thrust into the rarely desirable world of patent lawsuits. As revealed by Minecraft creator Notch himself on Twitter, Mojang is being sued by the Texas-based Uniloc (which has also taken aim at Electronic Arts, Gameloft and others) over some alleged patent infringement in the Android version of Minecraft. That supposed infringement is not related to any of the distinctive gaming elements of Minecraft, but rather the means through which the game verifies users -- something Uniloc alleges is a violation of patent #6,857,067, a "system and method for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data." Not surprisingly, Notch has taken the opportunity to make his thoughts on software patents known (see his blog post below), and also make absolutely clear that he intends to fight the suit, saying that "if needed, I will throw piles of money at making sure they don't get a cent." That's also prompted a response from Uniloc CEO Ric Richardson, who notes that he had no direct involvement in this particular patent or suit, but defends the company's practices and insists that it is not a patent troll.
Minecraft sells 6 million on PC, 'around 9 million' across all platforms
Minecraft's ability to churn through the bank accounts of all the cosmos continues unabated, having sold six million copies on PC to date, according to a tweet from Mojang mogul Markus Persson. Factoring in XBLA, Android and iOS sales, the figure is "around nine million," according to Persson, a number that Mojang's Daniel Kaplan puts a tiny bit more specifically as "maybe 9.2" million.If you've been affected by Minecraft's unwavering grasp on the gaming universe, make sure to listed to the Mailbag portion of this week's Super Joystiq Podcast, wherein Joystiq's feature content director Xav de Matos, managing editor JC Fletcher and editor in chief Ludwig Kietzmann discuss various methods for breaking Minecraft addictions.
Minecraft XBLA sold 1 million copies in five days
Yep, that's a 1 followed by six 0s and two – count 'em, two – commas. Minecraft on Xbox 360 has sold 1 million copies since its launch on May 9, Microsoft announced today. Minecraft runs $20 a pop on XBLA, making its initial revenue bump against $20 million, supposedly split between Mojang, port developer 4J Studios and Microsoft.Players have so far spent more than 5.2 million hours mining on XBLA, played 4 million multiplayer sessions and clocked more than 2.4 million multiplayer hours, Microsoft reported. Original Minecraft developer Markus "Notch" Persson reacted to the news in what we think is an appropriate manner: "Wow."
Minecraft XBLA was profitable within an hour, broke digital sale records
Minecraft is digging its own grave with its latest release on XBLA -- and by "grave" we mean "lavish, gold-plated throne room with indoor pool and grape-feeding robots." Minecraft was profitable within an hour of its launch on XBLA, developer Markus "Notch" Persson tweeted today. That's on top of Notch's multi-million-dollar PC version.Based on leaderboard participation numbers, Minecraft sold more than 400,000 copies in 24 hours, Notch said. Minecraft broke digital sales records for the console, selling more than any other XBLA title in its first day, according to Microsoft.Earlier today, Notch tweeted that he had sales numbers for Minecraft (turns out they were the above leaderboard figures), which sparked a conversation about the inner workings of XBLA developer contracts with Fez's Polytron. Polytron still doesn't know Fez's exact numbers, even though it came out a month ago."Standard procedure" according to Polytron is "you find out how much you sold when you get your first check three-four months later." Notch thought getting immediate numbers was standard, but he avoided contract negotiation and doesn't know what it says on the subject, he replied.Minecraft also gets free updates, "which is something every other developer on the platform is told is simply not an option," Polytron wrote. Notch replied: "We had to fight for that, and we got a limited number of them. Not sure why they don't like it."We may have discovered Notch's hidden talent and secret to his success: fighting for something in a contract while avoiding contract negotiation, and winning.
