I always find articles about Minecraft interesting. I live off of Minecraft's success at the moment (I created the linked Minecraft wiki and also the Minecraft forum) and I often find myself disagreeing with articles about why the game is so successful.
I think the single biggest reason Minecraft has such success is completely accidental, something Notch never consciously caused: Minecraft is a creative game, a game that you need to be creative to enjoy properly, and what do creative people do? They share their creations.
Minecraft came at the perfect time, it came when indie games were becoming more popular, when Youtube video series about video games ("Let's Plays") were rising in popularity and at a time when the internet had become very social, it's so incredibly easy to share content now. If I want 100 people who don't play Minecraft to see a creation I've made in Minecraft it's very easy for me to do that, 5 years ago it would have been close to impossible to do this because the only real place to share content would be the forum for that game, and everyone on that forum would already know about it, so spread of the game would have been severely limited.
Minecraft is a fantastic game and of course if the game was bad it would never have been popular, but the success is in my opinion entirely an accident and a matter of being in the right place at the right time, nothing Notch could ever have expected or intended.
I think it's the combination of creativity and struggle against nature. There have been many games about one or the other but I've never seen one that combined them as Minecraft does. Natural resources fuel your projects and your projects help you control nature. It's a game about the very essence of humanity.
I do think there is kind of a "perfect storm" effect around this game. It isn't so unique that you can't find a game to compare it to. In fact, two of the biggest influences are already present in Notch's previous work:
Procedural landscapes: Infinite Mario Bros.
Multiplayer wilderness survival: Wurm Online
And the voxel terrain concept - the feature which surfaces most visibly - was already demonstrated in many other games.
In light of this I've charted a path for my own games which doesn't seek to ape the specific concepts or technologies of Minecraft, but instead aims to achieve the same level of intrinsic "I want to share this" and supplements it with a dynamic that adds some explicit rewards for doing so(the social game virality model - not necessarily tied to FB or any "social platform" though). This comes at some risk of sucking out the intrinsic joy, but the potential reward is to have even faster growth than Minecraft - assuming the game is equally good.
What I find interesting is the ultimate heratage of MineCraft:
If I recall correctly, Wurm Online directly owes it's existance to RuneScape, a Fantasy MMO with skills instead of classes, and a strong crafting system. RuneScape started originally as a project to recreate Utima Online in java.Ultima Online has a crafting system, player housing, skills instead of classes, and is the second-oldest MMO, and the first that most people would recognise as such.
Ultima Online is closer to a MUSH or MOO, unlike most modern MMORPGS. On the whole they follow a similar style of game as designed in DikuMUD, one of the most popular MUD engines.
As far as I am aware, there are few major competitors to Ulima Online and RuneScape. The DikuMUD model of classes and limited interaction with the world is far similar to develop and market (see World of Warcraft et al). Yet MineCraft's appeal clearly shows there is a huge demand for something else.
This isn't really about the post, but after the article about Dwarf Fortress a couple of weeks ago, I decided to give it a try. I find the gameplay fun and there's definitely a lot to master, but the UI and the difficulty of visualizing what's going on are big obstacles. (There's a program called Stonesense that does isometric drawing of the world, but that seems to be it.) The Minecraft graphics are pretty basic, but even such a simple movable 3D view in DF would do wonders for situational awareness.
Of the two, I think Minecraft is more accessible, but both of them have their charm. Minecraft, I think, is the better sandbox, because you have more exact control over everything that goes on.
But I love DF, too, in spite of the incredibly steep learning curve. It has, indirectly, caused me to learn about the soil triangle, material densities, farming, geology, bee keeping, soap making and quite a few other strange things. I think I've posted on that before, but there are a lot of interesting things in that game.
It's weird seeing yourself go from wondering what on earth you're doing to getting to the point where you barely have to think about designating all the goblinite for melting or smelting limonite into iron or setting up an auto-locking magma death chamber with an easy reset switch.
Yeah, UI/graphics are a big learning curve for DF. It's great for people who were into roguelikes before they found it, but even so. Tile-sets make visualization a lot easier (although if you've gotten into the game without one then they might be unbearable), but they're not perfect. The main problem I have with Stonesense is that, whenever I've tried it, the latest version of DF wasn't supported - as I understand it, the memory offsets change with each version, since all of these tools work by looking at what DF has in memory, so with each new release someone has to go in and figure out the changes.
One of the best things about this type of games is the unexpected results you can get. And I am not talking about Easter eggs or different endgames some mainstream games boast themselves with. I am talking about really unexpected game situations (or even incidents).
As if you are building a giant simulation, where a very complex software system is interacting with unpredictable human players, and nobody, including the creators of the system, knows the limits of the simulation. This is the most interesting part of this type of games. This is why we get full working computers inside Minecraft, all sort of unpredictable scenarios in Dwarf Fortress, and also some really surprising glitches like the virtual epidemic that plagued the servers of WoW in 2005, almost like a real disease:
I've never played Minecraft before, but that video of fire spreading through that Minecraft structure & surrounding trees is frighteningly realistic.
I recently got training in a volunteer neighborhood emergency response organization (CERT, in case you're interested) and they showed a video of how quickly a fire can spread. It's truly frightening.
I found my heart racing when I watched that Minecraft fire just like when I watched a real fire on video.
The firefighters pointed out that - unlike in the movies - the smoke becomes so thick so quickly that you can't run out of a burning house. You usually have to crawl. They themselves usually crawl if they really must enter a burning unit, so they can somewhat see where they're going. In some cases, even that's not possible. So they'll keep one hand on the wall and slowly make their way in. Frightening. I give firefighters a lot of credit.
When I was younger and played games I always thought that it'd be nice to make a game that isn't about killing, instead it should be about building stuff. I also thought that it'd be nice if it'd be as general as possible, so you can build anything you like. But also simple, because simple is beautiful.
I'm stuck on the randomized rewards right now, looking for enough iron to help my friend finish his ambitious minecart rail system, and simultaneously for 'enough' diamond.
Branch mining is your friend -- start doing that down around level 11 or so and you'll have all the iron, diamond and any other type of ore you'll ever need :)
If you want large amounts of resources in Minecraft, you'll have to mine in a smart and boring fashion (called resource mining) near the bedrock. Mine in a consistent pattern (in three dimensions!) trying to minimize the amount of rock to mine w.r.t. the blocks you reveal.
Mining for resources is quite a boring grind and I don't like to do it a whole lot. Thankfully you don't have to do a whole lot of it to survive if you don't do crazy builds with a lot of iron (like minecarts).
This reads like NDF to me. Minecraft was not engineered to be all of these things; it just happened. Notch had a vision of what he wanted to do, tempered by time and skill constraints, and the resulting game is an accidental success, not a carefully constructed pillar of solid game design.
Indeed. Indie devs have been making really amazing games just because they want to for decades. It was just a matter of time before one of those became wildly successful.
It's also worth noting that Minecraft didn't spring fully-formed from the mind of anyone— the alpha version was out and in development for a year and a half before you heard of it. It's a beautiful demonstration of the power of an early MVP.
At the same time, it wasn't just a fluke; Notch was already an award-winning indie dev.
I should note that I knew about MC during the Classic days. My roommate was one of the original /v/ people who popularized it. I also wrote Bravo, so I'm well-acquainted with the community and code.
Citation needed on awards and indie work prior to MC; Notch was a developer for King.com, a large Flash game producer and publisher, prior to founding Mojang.
I of course meant "most people", but thanks for calling me out. Shouldn't assume!
If you check out http://www.mojang.com/notch/ , he's made a few (dozen) little Java games, and he's been doing it for many years. The only awards mentioned on that page are a win at Java4k in 2006 and a third-place at Ludlum Dare in 2008. I could have sworn there were one or two more, but since GDC 2011 it's become pretty impossible to research :P
Incidentally, that win in 2006? That was for a Java Lemmings clone called... Miners4k. I'm sticking with "not a fluke."
The article never - never – claims that Minecaft was engineered that way. Whether or not some features of Minecraft that make it work were intentionally designed a certain way is something this article doesn’t even attempt to discuss.
The rationale for the article is that Minecraft works (9,000+ copies per day sold) and that it is consequently very worthwhile to explore why it works.
Your prejudices (NDF and all) seemingly colored your interpretation of this article and you consequently completely misunderstood it.
That really baffles me. The article is completely consistent with your interpretation. (The author may not agree with your interpretation but he doesn’t tell and we just don’t know. Maybe he would agree with you, maybe not, there is no way to tell.)
I guess your comment shows the evils of confirmation bias.
Actually, the article does praise "design choices."
The article has a long, subdivided section with the heading "What Works" and no corresponding analysis of any flaws or problems with the game's design. It is full of only praise and not criticism.
Whether or not something works is orthogonal to whether or not it sells.
Did you read the article? It’s not a review. Let me quote the first two sentences verbatim since you seem to have completely skipped them: “I don’t review games. But I do study games, and to that end, I have an interest in dissecting them to figure out what makes their designs work.”
This article sets out to explore factors in Minecraft’s design that make it successful, that make it work. The author uses those two terms synonymously (as you can see in the very last sentence of the article). You might have a different definition of “works” – and that’s alright – but the author clearly doesn’t share it.
Please don’t argue about definitions, it’s pointless. The author of the article simply thinks that games that work are games that are successful, i.e. that can attract a lot of players. That makes sense, considering the context. (The article is published on a website targeted at hobby game developers, not art critics.) Again, there is nothing wrong if you have a different definition of “works”, you just will have to accept the author’s for the duration of the article.
To repeat: The whole premise of the article is to list factors in Minecraft’s design that make it successful. It doesn’t set out to also list flaws, it never claims that the game has no flaws and, considering the premise (which is clearly and transparently laid out in the very first two sentences), it doesn’t need to waste one word on Minecraft’s flaws. Criticism is not the article’s purpose.
Where did you get the crazy idea that an article with the title “Why Minecraft Works” that mentions in the first sentence that it’s not a review and that is targeted at hobby game developers must also contain criticisms of the game?
I also want to note that the article doesn’t use very flowery language and mostly just describes features. I don’t really see any praise in that article. If you do please quote (correctly, please), I’m lost otherwise.
Oh, and regarding your funny “design choices” misquote, that phrase is actually only used once in the whole damn article, as “design choice” (singular) in reference to water and lava sources. I just want to note that “design choice” is not at odds with your interpretation. Making water and lava sources behave a certain way is objectively a design choice. (Except if you think that Notch codes by randomly smashing keys.) That language doesn’t tell you anything about intent. If the author had written “and Notch in his infinite wisdom had great foresight in designing water sources a certain way” you would have a point, as it stands you certainly don’t.
Confirmation bias indeed. A nasty one that blinds completely. I really am baffled this time.
Possibly "Notch Defense Force", based on a Google search.
My favorite go-to for this kind of question, http://www.acronymfinder.com/ , was sadly unhelpful.
Yeah, "Notch Defense Force." It's a meme born of the obsequious fans of MC who refuse to acknowledge any problems with the game or anything MC-related.
I think the single biggest reason Minecraft has such success is completely accidental, something Notch never consciously caused: Minecraft is a creative game, a game that you need to be creative to enjoy properly, and what do creative people do? They share their creations.
Minecraft came at the perfect time, it came when indie games were becoming more popular, when Youtube video series about video games ("Let's Plays") were rising in popularity and at a time when the internet had become very social, it's so incredibly easy to share content now. If I want 100 people who don't play Minecraft to see a creation I've made in Minecraft it's very easy for me to do that, 5 years ago it would have been close to impossible to do this because the only real place to share content would be the forum for that game, and everyone on that forum would already know about it, so spread of the game would have been severely limited.
Minecraft is a fantastic game and of course if the game was bad it would never have been popular, but the success is in my opinion entirely an accident and a matter of being in the right place at the right time, nothing Notch could ever have expected or intended.