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Minecraft studio threatened with suit by Bethesda over 'Scrolls' title
Not exactly unexpectedly, about four hours ago Markus "Notch" Persson -- creator of Minecraft and head of Mojang Specifications -- received a letter from a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks. It claimed that his company's trademark of the word "Scrolls" for use with a currently-in-development game was infringing on Bethesda's own trademark, "The Elder Scrolls," and requested "a pile of money up front" before things could proceed. But Notch could've guessed it was coming. Writing on his Tumblr page, Notch explains that "about half a year ago," his company's legal team suggested registering "Minecraft" as a trademark. In the process, Mojang also filed to register "Scrolls," killing two birds with one stone. Notch writes that "A while later, out of the blue, we got contacted by Bethesda's lawyers. They wanted to know more about the 'Scrolls' trademark we were applying for, and claimed it conflicted with their existing trademark 'The Elder Scrolls.'" At the time, Mojang responded by offering what Notch calls a compromise: "We'd agree to never put any words in front of 'Scrolls,' and instead call sequels and other things something along the lines of 'Scrolls - The Banana Expansion.'" In his piece, he says that he's not sure if Mojang ever heard back. Fast-forward to this afternoon, and a "15-page letter" from a Swedish law firm, on behalf of Bethesda, arrives for Notch (pictured above). He says it's threatening a lawsuit if Mojang refuses "to stop using the name 'Scrolls,'" and that Bethesda will sue should that be necessary. Regardless of the current situation, Notch notes at the top of his piece, "I love Bethesda. I assume this nonsense is partly just their lawyers being lawyers, and a result of trademark law being the way it is." Here's hoping that compromise works out, and Notch is somehow legally bound to name the first Scrolls DLC "The Banana Expansion." Update: This piece was originally headlined "Minecraft studio being sued by Bethesda over 'Scrolls' title," and has since been amended to more accurately reflect the situation.
Minecraft hits 3 million, Notch buys us all
In January, Minecraft passed its first major sales milestone: 1 million downloads. Three months later, in April, it clocked another cool million. And today, just five days into August, the game has surpassed its 3 millionth paid user -- every four months, eh? Smells like a trend! Those 3,000,961 folks (as of this writing) make up over a full quarter of all accounts at 26.24 percent. At around $22 per purchase, that's quite a bit of dough -- and with no publisher to pay. We imagine Mojang Specifications head Markus "Notch" Persson will be investing a good chunk of that dough in the upcoming MineCon, which kicks off the official launch of Minecraft on November 18. [Thanks, Matias.]
Minecraft's 'MineCon' convention set for November 18 - 19 in Vegas
Rather than setting its convention in the icy grip of its home country's chilly November, Sweden-based Minecraft studio Mojang Specifications is holding what it dubs "MineCon" in Las Vegas. "For me, MineCon is about celebrating the full release of Minecraft," Mojang head Markus "Notch" Persson told PC Gamer this week. Apparently the delayed title will see its full launch in grand style, with Notch "getting up on stage and pushing the button to upload the final build." When he first spitballed the idea back in May, voters overwhelmingly responded, "No, definitely not" when asked whether they'd attend such an event. That said, the minority's 42,000 votes were assuredly enough to convince him of demand for such an event. Speaking of, Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino will host MineCon on November 18 and 19, and the ticket registration site is set to go live next week -- apparently Notch will announce as much on his Twitter account, so keep an eye out. That is, if you can tear yourself away from building that to-scale replica of Hogwarts. Update: This year marks the second MineCon.
Modder builds homebrew version of Minecraft on DS
We've long held the opinion that the only thing standing between our world and its inevitable ruin is the creation of a portable version of Mojang's remarkably addictive Minecraft. We're still waiting on the Xperia Play to bring about said apocalypse, but it seems a Nintendo DS modder by the name of Smelaum has beaten Sony to the punch, releasing a demo of a homebrew application aptly titled Minecraft DS. The software, which is demonstrated in the video above, is fairly basic: Players can only add or remove blocks, and cannot save their towering megastructures. Smelaum hopes to bolster the homebrew with saving and terrain generation -- hopefully those features will be implemented before Smelaum is incapacitated by Notch's shadowy cabal of trademark lawyers. (We're kidding, of course; those clearly don't exist.)
Minecraft's Adventure Update will be playable at PAX
If the promise of 24/7 board gaming extravaganzas and endless 3DS StreetPass swapping aren't enough to get PAX Prime attendees excited about the event, perhaps this will: Notch has announced that Minecraft's Adventure Update will be playable on the show floor. The expansion, which is still largely under wraps, will tack over 40 new features onto the game, including NPC villages, additional farming opportunities and randomly-generated dungeons. For those who didn't snag tickets to the sold-out, late-August convention, don't fret too much -- we can only assume the line for Mojang's booth is going to wrap around the expo hall like an anaconda. Your time would be better spent actually playing regular Minecraft and building a complex machine to do all that Adventuring for you.
Minecraft designs tossed into 3D printer, we're pretty sure a wizard did it
We've seen the cuboid tools afforded to Minecraft builders used for some pretty impressive in-game creations -- but never before have we seen those creations manifested out-game. Two students at the MIT Media Lab have whipped up a piece of software called Minecraft.Print(), which is capable of feeding a megastructure built in the game's world into a 3D printer, which that turns it into a real-life thing. Check out the video above to check out this impressive tool in action. Keep an eye out for the few frames where a wizard steps in and performs the series of magic spells required to make something like this work -- we missed them our first time through, but we know they're there.
Minecraft 1.7 is out, pistons and deadly sheep added to the mix
Minecraft's latest world-expanding update has arrived, bringing with it the all new piston mechanism that should help add some motion to your intricately constructed Starship Enterprise model. As is customary, the patch also included an odd bug or two -- as evidenced by creator Markus Persson's somewhat ominous Tweet suggesting players "don't right click sheep with an empty hand." However, minutes after that warning, Update 1.7.01 went live, which apparently fixed the whole thing. So, what are you waiting for? Go build some stuff with pistons. The trailer after the jump shows some of the practical applications of the new tool, but we think you can come up with something even more clever. Like, for instance, a machine that does all that tiresome mining and crafting for us.
Mojang's Scrolls to follow Minecraft's piecemeal release strategy
Mojang Specifications' Daniel Kaplan confirmed that the studios' next game, Scrolls, will follow the same procedural release plan as its current mega-hit, Minecraft. Kaplan explained to attendees at the Barcelona-based event Gamelab 2011 that the game will be released "very early," and will be continually patched and updated until finished. Hey, if there's anything we love more than magic-infused parchment, it's instant gratification. Kaplan also outlined the future of the development studio, explaining that Scrolls is being developed by a five-person team -- a sizable increase over Minecraft, which was "by and large created by one developer, Markus Persson." He also revealed the studio is considering becoming a publisher for other, smaller indie developers, which of course means that Mojang is totally selling out, or something.
Minecraft Adventure mode coming in update 1.8, game launch delayed by a week
Mojang Studio's next update to Minecraft, 1.7, promises the addition of pistons (seriously!), thus allowing for the creation of mechanical objects. Rather than include it as planned in the 1.8 update alongside Adventure mode, creative lead Markus "Notch" Persson and partner Jens Bergentsen instead chose to drop it in with a handful of bug fixes in 1.7. No solid release date is given for 1.7 (or 1.8 for that matter), but the former will be released "soon" while the latter "might be a long wait." Persson also notes that, after update 1.8 is released in the coming months (Adventure mode and all), the team at Mojang will "start crunching for the full release," though it seems that the official launch may not make its intended November 11 date. "The release date is almost certainly changed to sometime the week after 11/11/11, and we're working hard on setting that up," Persson explains. And following that, after years of laboring on Minecraft, Persson and Co. get some much needed vacation time. After that? "I'll start working on the first post-release update," he adds with a grinning emoticon.
Minecraft surpasses 2.5 million in sales, still in beta
Minecraft creator Markus Persson recently announced on Twitter that his game has built up 2.5 million sales. Not bad for a game that won't officially launch for another five months. According to our napkin math, pre-release versions of Minecraft have earned over $33 million for developer Mojang. Minecraft's potential cash flow doesn't end at PC, as a limited version of the title is also planned for Xperia Play, under the moniker Minecraft Pocket Edition, while a console version of the title is also being worked on exclusively for Xbox 360, featuring Kinect and cross-platform functionality with the PC for this winter. While that "won't be a straight port," and will not be developed by Mojang, it still stands to pocket the developer some more money.
Minecraft coming to 360 and Kinect this Winter
Man, Mojang's little indie darling is getting some major mileage with the gaming industry's biggest players. The Microsoft E3 press conference brought the announcement that Minecraft would be making its way to Xbox 360 with some unexplained Kinect support this Winter. No other details were announced, but we're thrilled to punch trees to extract logs using our real hands. Update: Microsoft has announced in a press release that Minecraft will "feature cross-functionality between the PC and Xbox 360 versions."
Minecraft Beta 1.6 released, four bug-fixing patches follow soon after
You've got to admire Minecraft creator Mojang Specifications' unswerving work ethic. The developer launched Beta Update 1.6 for the world-building title yesterday, adding mapmaking, hatches, some new vegetation and multiplayer Nether functionality to the title. Unfortunately, the update also added a handful of nasty bugs and performance problems into the game -- problems which Mojang managed to fix by releasing four subsequent mini-patches in the very same day. You can check out all of the game's latest patch notes after the jump, including patches 1.6.1 through 1.6.4. We suggest reading them in order, like a short story that was really, really frustrating for the author to write.
Maps are coming to Minecraft in Beta Update 1.6
You guys, you've got to see our latest Minecraft masterpiece! Using only the bricks included in the core game and two months of intensive, virtual labor, we've managed to completely recreate all of Red Dwarf! You can come check it out right by that mountain. Or, wait. No, sorry, it's that mountain. With the trees on it. Right? You're saying it's not there either? Oh, no. No, not again. It seems that due to Minecraft's lack of cartographical support, we've misplaced yet another magnum opus. We are, as you might expect, crushed. If only we had held off on construction until the arrival of Beta Update 1.6 -- a patch which, alongside a few bug fixes, will allow players to craft and fill out interactive maps. Instead of becoming part of the UI, the map is an item which players will have to tote around in order to fill out. That seems like a small price to pay to ensure that none of our superstructures vanish into the ether.
Fan-made Halo UNSC frigates dock at Minecraft station
At this point in Minecraft's life, we expect every gigantic space ship from every sci-fi property has been recreated. Imagine our surprise then when we looked through our records and found no documented UNSC frigates from Halo. That changes now. Seen above is the work of Minecraft forum user Garified, who constructed not one but two UNSC frigates in the game -- one large-scale and one a bit smaller -- modeled after Halo: Reach's UNSC Savannah. We think you'll agree: kudos are most certainly in order.
Minecraft hits the motherlode, reaches two million purchases
Slowly but surely, Mojang's indie blockbuster Minecraft is working its way into the collective consciousness of every human being on the planet. According to the game's official site, over two million people have purchased the game -- that's about 28 percent of Minecraft's seven million-odd registered users. The title first hit one million paid downloads back in January, meaning to complete its mission for world domination, it only has to keep up this pace of one million purchases every three months for another ... 1,700 years? Oh, man. They better keep those free content updates coming.
Meatcraft's Minecraft theme makes it okay for adults to play with blocks
An art project by Jeffrey Kam and Cody McCabe reconstructs Minecraft's ... construction in real life. "Meatcraft" is a collection of 1,500 cardboard blocks made using the textures from Minecraft. Visitors to the exhibit (shown at San Jose State University last month) were encouraged to build structures with the themed blocks on two crafting tables inside a fully Minecraft-ized room. There were even tiny little pixelated pickaxes and other tools. "We noticed several types of visitors in the gallery that very closely mirrored the different types of Minecraft players," the artists said on the project's site. "There are players who like to mine, some who like to build structures, and even some who simply stand around and watch the awesome things people do in game. In the gallery, those who were familiar with Minecraft began digging for ore, specifically the very rare diamond (we only had 4)." If you happen to run some kind of art space, and you'd like to turn it into a play space, you can contact the artists and set up Meatcraft in your own gallery.
PC Gamer releases 90-minute Minecraft demo
If you've been hesitant to drop your dough on the entry fee to Mojang's blockbuster ... block-buster, Minecraft, but you're unsatisfied with the super simplified, free-to-play Minecraft Classic, PC Gamer's willing to give you your first hit at no charge. The site recently uploaded a demo that will allow you to create a world and shape it as you see fit, locking you out after 90 minutes of playtime. You can keep creating worlds ad infinitum, provided you don't mind the time restraint, though 90 minutes isn't enough time to get much of anything done in Minecraft's cuboid world. Seriously, we've blown an hour and a half on building a mere treehouse. Which we keep in the backyard of our mansion, which took a team of eight contractors two-and-a-half months to complete.
Minecraft beta 1.5 released, our day gets even busier
We were worried that we wouldn't be able to find the time to dip our toes into today's beefy new release catalog -- now those worries have been abated, as we're one hundred percent certain we won't have the time. See, in addition to Portal Kombat, today also brings us the launch of Minecraft beta 1.5, an update which adds weather effects, statistics, achievements and some new minecart track pieces to the rapidly expanding title. We'll try to get a few spare hours to scope out all the new arrivals, but between all the fatalities and ro-bro-mancing, it's going to be a stretch. Is there any chance we can expand today, so that it lasts, like, 28 hours? Using black holes, maybe? We're not sure, but we're totally going to need to consult some science-folks.
Around the world in eight days: A journey in Wurm Online, part one
Wurm Online is a unique MMO. I can't think of many other games that allow the freedom of Wurm, which may be why I still consider it my favorite online game to this date. For anyone who hasn't tried the game or heard me yammer on about it on the Massively Speaking podcast, I'll explain the basics. Wurm Online is a sandbox game created to allow players unbelievable freedom. If you've played Minecraft, you have the basic premise of Wurm, but multiply that experience by about 100. In fact, Markus "Notch" Persson was the co-founder and co-creator of Wurm before moving on to Minecraft and world fame. Wurm Online starts you off as a fairly inanimate and uncustomizable character whose goal is to simply build. Find a spot of unclaimed land, throw down a settlement token, and build to your heart's content. You cut down trees for wood, mine stone for ore, forage and fish for food, and use it all to create the world that lives within your imagination.
Minecraft's weather, stats and achievements previewed on video
Minecraft's Update 1.5 looks to be one of the beefiest additions to the game to date, adding weather effects, a statistics page and a whole mess of achievements to the cuboid, world-building indie gem. Check out the video posted after the jump to see these new features in action!
