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A few commenters are responding on how they think certain features in addition to Minecraft would make a killer game. I don’t think Minecraft’s success had anyt
by eyphka 7y ago
A few commenters are responding on how they think certain features in addition to Minecraft would make a killer game. I don’t think Minecraft’s success had anything to do with its featureset. To paraphrase notch, he believed in a model of good enough vs perfect and continually released updates that added the minimal needed for the feature he wanted, responding to user feedback in real-time. This was unheard of at the time for how games were developed, in addition his target user was the lowest common denominator in terms of gamers, his mother, whom self described never played games.
“In addition to that, he released updates often, in accordance with the Swedish saying “hellre än bra” (meaning someone who prefers spontaneity over perfection). As soon as a new function or bug-fix was in place, he made it available via his site, asking players for help in testing and improving it.” https://www.wired.com/2013/11/minecraft-book/ https://www.wired.com/2013/11/minecraft-book/
- zamadatix 7y agoPlenty of boring casual games with little success release early and often. I don't think there is any 2 thing that made Minecraft a success. It's a combination of a great nu!bet of things but most importantly a combination of a great number of things done right together not just as you'd view them individually.
- LanceH 7y agoIt's a computer version of legos that is actually playable. Lego tried making some brick building games but they were universally awful. A couple hundred bricks and the computer slows to a crawl. Their later games don't involve building at all. Minecraft scratches that building itch, with a bucket that never runs out.
- PeterStuer 7y agoAs I recall Minecraft's snowball started with geek dads watching Notch live coding and buying the game for their kids. https://youtu.be/MhQ70O1MiXc https://youtu.be/MhQ70O1MiXc
- chaos_a 7y agoWas minecraft already starting to get popular by the time minicraft was released? I don't think the livestream alone lead to the game's popularity, it was probably spread a lot more via word of mouth.
- PeterStuer 7y agoI bought it for my kids long before the release. It spread through their primary school like wildfire, as each kid that saw it joined in, and in no time it was the number one game In there by miles.
- WilliamEdward 7y agoPeople will attribute the success of minecraft to the game itself, but really the fact that it could be scripted with a fairly popular language meant mods, and mods meant a ton of users. That to me is why, if he had programmed this game in a better language or tried to over-engineer it, it would have sucked.