Behind the Success of Minecraft

With almost 14 million copies sold, Minecraft is one of the most-bought PC games ever. This is surprising, because Minecraft didn’t come from a massive, game-publishing magnate like Blizzard or EA; it came from a small, independent Swedish gaming company, Mojang, which to this day has less than 40 employees. It’s doubly surprising because the concept for Minecraft seems so absurdly simple, like playing with Legos – the player breaks blocks and moves them around to build whatever they want. The question is: how did Mojang do it? How did an obscure indie title with 8-bit graphics out-sell Starcraft? Well, as it turns out, Minecraft is a pure marvel of game design. The designers ensured that Minecraft’s game mechanics created a fun user experience that propelled it out of obscurity.


A house built in Minecraft

In many ways, Minecraft’s simplicity is its biggest asset. Game designers always struggle to create an experience that will both have mass appeal and engage players for a long time. To attract a large number of players, designers usually err on the side of simplicity. However, to keep players interested, they often need to do the opposite; err on the side of complexity. This is where the genius of Minecraft comes into play. Each block in Minecraft serves one simple, very specific function.  Yet, when these blocks are cleverly and creatively combined, they can do so much more. With very simple features and little implementation, Minecraft’s developers created a virtually endless amount of complexity. In a lot of ways, this departs from the normal approach to games. Normally, in order to control the experience they are creating, developers want to know everything that is possible for the players to do. Instead, the designers of Minecraft simply added an item, and then watched what the players did with it.

It’s lucky they did. No single person could fathom every single possibility in Minecraft. Players continue to discover new uses for old items. In fact, some people make a living doing just that! The wide range of possibilities means that anyone could find something to do. Artistic people can draw skins, create resource packs, or build models in creative mode. Brainy people can try to invent new contraptions to solve a problem, or put together adventure maps. Or a player can just hang out with friends on a server. There is practically something for everyone. It shows that a simplistic design philosophy can go a long way.

A working guitar

Minecraft’s design genius also shines through in the way it introduces new players. In any game designed to enhance the player’s imagination, the ultimate challenge involves balancing choice with player skill. How many different blocks should the player get? How many different things should they be able to do? Too much choice and a new player will be so overwhelmed that they’ll give up. But too little and experienced players will get bored and quit. This means that the ideal imaginative game has a huge selection and low barrier of entry for new players. As it turns out, Minecraft does this perfectly. At the beginning of a game in survival mode, the player is plopped down in a randomly generated wilderness. They aren’t given any items or told how to do anything. Only a few achievements serve to introduce critical game concepts like crafting and breaking blocks. They can’t even build anything yet! This is the polar opposite of what most creative games do, which is to give the player all the choices right at the beginning.

Normally, giving a new player no goals and no tutorial would frustrate them, because knowing nothing about a game means things will happen that the player wasn’t ready for; like for example – hostile monsters that spawn ten minutes after loading up a new world. However, Minecraft’s creators knew a tutorial wasn’t necessary. All indie games like Minecraft are spread almost entirely by word of mouth. This means the new player probably has a friend with them – showing them the ropes, introducing them to the game in a highly personalized manner. This is further enhanced by multiplayer support fairly early in development. Remember, every block’s behavior is very simple, and it’s easy to understand and describe. Therefore, explaining the game is fun and easy for both the teacher and the student. Minecraft’s designers need only to sit back and let the new player’s friends introduce them to the game. No boring tutorial necessary.

The crafting recipe for a sign

Minecraft’s crafting also ensures that new players never get overwhelmed by possibilities. This crafting system isn’t like in other games. The player isn’t told which items they need or how to put them together. The only way to find a recipe is either to painstakingly guess the 3x3 pattern, or to look it up on the wiki. Essentially, this guarantees that a player is ready for the new information, because they’ve already chosen to learn it. So instead of being overwhelmed by choices, the player is curious about all the possibilities and is encouraged to learn more. Crafting makes survival mode the perfect tutorial for a game like Minecraft, and it’s just that – a tutorial. Most long-time players never enter survival mode without mods, because they’ve seen everything it has to offer. However, all of them started out playing survival mode to learn the basics. Experienced players will also agree, checking the wiki is just part of the game. The developers knew this. Minecraft is played in a window as opposed to directly controlling the graphics card, which slows the game, but makes it easy for a player to tab out and check a webpage.

Multiplayer

However, the wiki is merely the tip of the iceberg – Minecraft’s online community is huge, which hints at the game’s final design achievement – timing. The development of Minecraft coincided almost perfectly with the rise of the internet; specifically, the rise of video sharing sites like YouTube. Because Minecraft is so easy to record, countless You-Tubers built their careers playing it, giving the game free advertising and exposure. Mojang also capitalized on increasing internet use by organizing and sponsoring websites where players can share their creations – mods, skins, adventure maps, resource packs, and new inventions and discoveries. Perhaps the timing was just luck, but Minecraft’s designers were certainly shrewd enough to capitalize on it.

Ultimately, Minecraft’s robust community is a testament to its uniqueness. Its designers achieved something exceptional that normally is only attained by a few select MMOs – they crafted an experience, not just a game. When one thinks only about Minecraft – the game, they miss the true reason people play it. They miss the forums and the wiki – long multiplayer sessions with friends over Skype; Sphax, Shaders Mods, Machinimas, Tekkit and Hexxit – and all the YouTube let’s-players, adventure maps, and secret updates. What makes Minecraft truly special is its massive online presence that always gives players something to do; and of course, it’s all made possible by simple mechanics that bring new players in, and by an ingenious design that allows for virtually endless possibilities.



Logic gates for computers made with blocks in Minecraft - in case you were interested

Transience

By the end of my life, I wonder how much time I’ll have wasted.
 

I wonder how much time I’ll have spent on projects I’ll never finish, and chasing goals I’ll never catch.

 

I wonder how much time I’ll have spent pursuing relationships that never go anywhere or maintaining relationships that will just fall apart in the end.

And I wonder how much time I’ll have spent trying something new and hating it, or doing extra work that I didn’t have to do.

 

It’s impossible to say how much time I’ll waste by the end of my life. I might live to be 100. I might die tomorrow. I wonder how much time I’ll waste during retirement, how many days I’ll spend playing golf, or surfing the internet, promising myself I’ll get to the important stuff later.

By the end of my life, I wonder how much time I’ll have spent second guessing my decisions, making plans that are destined to fall apart, and thinking about doing something instead of doing it.

 

When I think about time, my mind pops out of the world. By the end of my life, I wonder how much time I’ll have wasted on impossible questions. The thoughts go nowhere. I roll the ideas around with my tongue, licking the juices. The taste turns bitter so I swallow hard, then I choke myself back to reality.

…By the end of my life, I wonder how much time I’ll have spent making dumb mistakes.

 

I wonder how much time I’ll have spent doing one thing, when I could be doing multiple things.

I wonder how much time I’ll have spent getting sleep I don’t need, or taking too long to eat. That must be a massive quantity...

Yesterday, I asked my dad if I’ve ever wasted his time. He was quiet for a moment; then he told me he loves me, and he would do absolutely anything for me. Anything! He would travel to the moon and back. He would face any villain or monster. And there was nothing I could ever do to change that.

I said ‘same’… Then I asked if I’ve ever wasted his time.

…By the end of my life, I wonder how much time I’ll have spent repeating myself…

For as long as I can remember, parents, teachers, friends, and family have told me to plan for the future, to understand the effects of my actions, to always know the next step. For as long as I can remember, parents, teachers, friends, and family have told me to enjoy the present, to be happy with what I have, to be free from rigid expectations. Time is everything. Time is nothing. I need to plan for the future. I need to live in the moment.

By the end of my life, I wonder how much time I’ll have spent thinking about how best to spend my time, trying to be thrifty with time, or trying to get the most “bang for my buck”.

Time is a currency. People can spend it. People can save it. Sometimes, I wonder if people can also horde it under their mattress until the economy gets better. The problem with time is you don’t know how much of it you have; but for some reason, I feel like, no matter how much time I get, by the end of my life, it won’t be enough.