Mojang Studios
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The future of ‘Minecraft’ includes swamps, scary monsters and a Game Pass bundle
Nearly 10 years after its release, Minecraft is going stronger than ever.
Microsoft and Mojang Studios have sold 200 million copies of ‘Minecraft’
200 million copies of Minecraft have been sold on Xbox, PC and Mac. It's the best-selling game of all time.
Humble Bundle Mojam makes nearly $500K for charity
Mojang is everyone's favorite studio to blindly throw money at these days, so it comes as little surprise that the Sweden-based Minecraft creators raised nearly $500K ($458,215.95) this past weekend during a live "game jam." The conceit was that Mojang would arrange a game jam (a "Mojam," if you will) and stream it live across 60 hours, with the resulting product being added to the most recent Humble Indie Bundle, as well as two games developed under similar constraints from Oxeye Game Studio and Wolfire Games.What games did the three studios end up making? Mojang created an Egyptian/Steampunk-themed RTS slash shoot 'em up called "Catacomb Snatch," which we'll refrain from making lurid jokes about, while Oxeye made a game named "Fists of Resistance" and Wolfire made "The Broadside Express."As over 81K bundles were purchased, the three studios collectively raised just under half a million dollars, all of which will be donated to Child's Play, Electronic Frontier Foundation, charity:water, and the American Red Cross. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got some lurid jokes to make in private.
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 for Kinect is an XBLA title, ported by 4J Studios
More details have begun to trickle out on Swedish developer Mojang Studios' first Xbox 360 title, a Kinect-enabled port of indie hit Minecraft. Beyond the fact that it'll be some form of indirect port and that an unnamed developer other than Mojang was at the helm, few other details were known, but as Minecraft creative lead Markus "Notch" Persson revealed on his Twitter feed last night, Scottish devs 4J Studios are apparently in charge of this holiday's world-builder. If you, like us, are unfamiliar with 4J, a cursory Wikipedia'ing reveals work on a wealth of ports, not to mention a handful of not-so-well-known original games. Hopefully any worry you have in the studio's confidence is abated by the fact that Notch will remain a game designer on the project, presumably retaining creative oversight.
Minecraft devs dish on upcoming mobile version
Details have begun trickling out from Sweden-based Mojang Studios about the mobile version of Minecraft for iOS and Android. Taking to the comment-fertile grounds of Reddit, developer Jens Bergensten broke down some users' questions about the ongoing project. For starters, he says the "Pocket Edition" of Minecraft "will not synch with the PC version" as the engine has been rebuilt for iOS support. Without stating numbers for iOS, he said that it's running "around 30-35 fps on the Xperia Play." He also confirmed multiplayer support -- "in LAN environments" only, likely meaning WiFi, though "Bluetooth support may come later." Additionally, he says the game will be "exclusive to Xperia Play for a while," before coyly noting that he "can't tell you how long." As for the gameplay experience, Bergentsen only offered that "it is creative mode in a limited world," unsurprisingly citing "performance and memory" as the culprits. As things go around this time of year, we expect to hear more in the coming weeks, as Minecraft will be playable on the Xperia Play at E3.
Minecraft digging in on Xperia Play before other Android devices
Mojang Studios today revealed to Gamasutra that its world-building, zombie-avoiding, indie hit, Minecraft, will be heading exclusively to Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play before other Android-enabled devices. Perhaps better known as the "PlayStation Phone," the Xperia Play is the first Ericsson phone to come equipped with Sony's "PlayStation Suite" service -- a service thus far used only as a delivery mechanism for PS1 ports. The studio didn't announce how long the game will remain an exclusive to the Xperia Play, or if it would arrive at the same time on iOS devices. According to a Mojang representative, the Xperia Play version will have customized controls for the phone's PlayStation-style controller layout. The rep also hinted at the nature of the release, saying it'll fall in line with the studio's previous "release early and update frequently" model. Given the previously announced "2011" release window for the mobile version of Minecraft, and the studio's upcoming "Minecraft-themed media event" at E3, we expect to hear much more in the next few weeks. [Update: Developer Markus Persson just tweeted the above image, writing, "This is the project Aron and Jens are working on."] [Update 2: Via Engadget we've even got a video of the game running on an Xperia Play which you'll find ... you guessed it! After the break.]
