Read Online Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything by Daniel Goldberg, Linus Larsson - Free Book Online
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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invited onto the stage. He showed the audience an iPhone-compatible version of the game Spore and showered praise on Apple’s invention.
It should be noted that Apple was, in fact, far from first. In typical Steve Jobs style, Apple’s mobile store was more like refining an already established model and applying it to its own market. The idea had come from the game industry, which had taken the first steps toward online sales almost five years earlier. In 2003, Valve, known primarily for the game series Half-Life , launched the distribution platform Steam. It soon became the market leader and is today the natural home for PC games distributed over the Internet. In 2004, Microsoft launched the Xbox Live Arcade platform, and in 2006 Sony started its PlayStation Store. Nintendo was last out of the gate, releasing WiiWare in May 2008. When the App Store saw the light of day, all four major game platforms already had digital distribution channels on the market.
Today, Electronic Arts probably feels a little left behind. The company has of course reaped huge success on Apple’s platforms, but the App Store and other digital distribution platforms have proven most advantageous for small-scale, independent game developers. In a telling move, Travis Boatman left the company in 2012 to join Midasplayer-rival Zynga. During the last few years, the portion of digitally sold games has increased greatly, and in 2010 it totaled one fourth of the game industry’s overall turnover. Many of the most popular games are still released by traditional publishers, but the move to digital distribution has also revolutionized the conditions for indie developers. Both Apple and Valve take 30 percent of a game’s sales, and the rest of the money goes directly to the developer. That’s a large piece to pay, it may seem, but keeping 70 percent of the retail price is but a dream for those studios working in accordance with the traditional publishing model. The most important change brought about by digital distribution, it turns out, is not lower costs for the publishers—it’s that the publishers are no longer needed.
Chapter 7
“This Is Way Too Much Fun. I Built a Bridge.”
For most people, the colorful numbers and letters that filled the computer screen would be completely baffling, but Markus felt right at home. The game was called Dwarf Fortress and it had become a cult favorite in indie circles. Markus had downloaded it to try it out himself and watched, entranced by the simple text world drawn up in front of him.
A couple of weeks had passed since Markus started working at Jalbum and his thoughts were circling full speed around the game he’d promised himself he’d work on. Like when he was a child and would run home from school to his LEGO pieces, he now spent almost all his free time in front of his home computer. He combed the Internet in search of inspiration for his project; the heavy labor—the coding—could begin only after he figured out what kind of game he wanted to create. The idea for Minecraft began to take shape in his encounter with Dwarf Fortress .
In Dwarf Fortress the player is tasked with helping a group of dwarf warriors build a fortress in bedrock. The player controls a group of dwarves that can each be put to various tasks (chopping down trees, mining ore from the mountain, cooking, making furniture, fishing, for example) or made to protect the fortress from monsters such as evil vampires, giant spiders, trolls, and wolves. The basic game mechanics are similar to many other strategy games— The Sims , for example, where the player manages a household or the Facebook game Farmville , where the objective is to get a farm to flourish. But Dwarf Fortress is different from most other games of the genre in a couple of ways.
First of all, the graphics are highly stylized. The Dwarf Fortress game world is completely made up of letters, numbers, and other symbols that can be typed on a regular keyboard. In this
It should be noted that Apple was, in fact, far from first. In typical Steve Jobs style, Apple’s mobile store was more like refining an already established model and applying it to its own market. The idea had come from the game industry, which had taken the first steps toward online sales almost five years earlier. In 2003, Valve, known primarily for the game series Half-Life , launched the distribution platform Steam. It soon became the market leader and is today the natural home for PC games distributed over the Internet. In 2004, Microsoft launched the Xbox Live Arcade platform, and in 2006 Sony started its PlayStation Store. Nintendo was last out of the gate, releasing WiiWare in May 2008. When the App Store saw the light of day, all four major game platforms already had digital distribution channels on the market.
Today, Electronic Arts probably feels a little left behind. The company has of course reaped huge success on Apple’s platforms, but the App Store and other digital distribution platforms have proven most advantageous for small-scale, independent game developers. In a telling move, Travis Boatman left the company in 2012 to join Midasplayer-rival Zynga. During the last few years, the portion of digitally sold games has increased greatly, and in 2010 it totaled one fourth of the game industry’s overall turnover. Many of the most popular games are still released by traditional publishers, but the move to digital distribution has also revolutionized the conditions for indie developers. Both Apple and Valve take 30 percent of a game’s sales, and the rest of the money goes directly to the developer. That’s a large piece to pay, it may seem, but keeping 70 percent of the retail price is but a dream for those studios working in accordance with the traditional publishing model. The most important change brought about by digital distribution, it turns out, is not lower costs for the publishers—it’s that the publishers are no longer needed.
Chapter 7
“This Is Way Too Much Fun. I Built a Bridge.”
For most people, the colorful numbers and letters that filled the computer screen would be completely baffling, but Markus felt right at home. The game was called Dwarf Fortress and it had become a cult favorite in indie circles. Markus had downloaded it to try it out himself and watched, entranced by the simple text world drawn up in front of him.
A couple of weeks had passed since Markus started working at Jalbum and his thoughts were circling full speed around the game he’d promised himself he’d work on. Like when he was a child and would run home from school to his LEGO pieces, he now spent almost all his free time in front of his home computer. He combed the Internet in search of inspiration for his project; the heavy labor—the coding—could begin only after he figured out what kind of game he wanted to create. The idea for Minecraft began to take shape in his encounter with Dwarf Fortress .
In Dwarf Fortress the player is tasked with helping a group of dwarf warriors build a fortress in bedrock. The player controls a group of dwarves that can each be put to various tasks (chopping down trees, mining ore from the mountain, cooking, making furniture, fishing, for example) or made to protect the fortress from monsters such as evil vampires, giant spiders, trolls, and wolves. The basic game mechanics are similar to many other strategy games— The Sims , for example, where the player manages a household or the Facebook game Farmville , where the objective is to get a farm to flourish. But Dwarf Fortress is different from most other games of the genre in a couple of ways.
First of all, the graphics are highly stylized. The Dwarf Fortress game world is completely made up of letters, numbers, and other symbols that can be typed on a regular keyboard. In this
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