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Notch didn’t nail it all on his own though - Zach Barth nailed a bunch of those crafting and world manipulation and building mechanics in Infiniminer. Notch was

Notch didn’t nail it all on his own though - Zach Barth nailed a bunch of those crafting and world manipulation and building mechanics in Infiniminer. Notch was screwing around cloning infiniminer in Java and Minecraft is kind of what popped out. Obviously he wasn’t as interested in the PVP combat mechanics that Zach built, so he ended up leaning into survival, and had some ideas about how to extend the procedural generation ideas to make an infinite world, so… he ran into a slightly different spot in the game design universe.

xyzzy_plugh 2y ago
I certainly agree that Notch was standing on the shoulders of giant, brilliant Barth, and without Infiniminer we would never have gotten Minecraft. Zach's game design is so good that it makes you want to build, or build better games. You can clearly see the inspiration that took hold and the potential that Infiniminer and all Barth's other games absolutely exude. His games are worth playing not to sink time into but to simply breathe in. There's little else quite like it. But I think even then this unfairly discredits Notch. Regardless of what you think of the man, he certainly did nail it all on his own. He didn't just clone Infiniminer -- there's surprisingly little left in common at this point -- he used it as a springboard to invent what is essentially a new genre. You see the same sort of ingenuity in Fortnite and Roblox, who certainly have Minecraft and by lineage Infiniminer DNA in them, among others. The difference is that, for a very long time, Minecraft was Notch, and what he did with it is still arguably unparalleled today. It's staggeringly good for a single person. The simple core loop was incredibly ripe for iteration. But the ingenuity the game is absolutely littered with, dozens of little things, tiny decisions made between pre-alpha point releases, is all Notch. In so many ways the game made itself, like a chain reaction of features, but Notch himself is just totally engrained in the whole thing. It's nuts. To say he didn't nail it all on his own, I simply cannot agree with. Zach Barth and Notch both made something incredible. The shame is that no one ever gave Zach Barth the comically oversized sack full of money he deserves. I will surely never fire up Infiniminer again, but I could fire up Minecraft at any time and instant fall back into the engrossing loop of the game. Though it's been many years since I last played, I inevitably will again. I've struggled to think of an analogy here... perhaps the closest I can come up with is Quake and Half-Life, which are even more closely related. Did Valve stand on the shoulders of giants? Absolutely. But they definitely nailed it all on their own. We all build atop the works of others.
- iforgotpassword 2y ago
  But maybe a bit of happy coincidence, or luck? Like, yes he made the final decision to use the music made by C418, but I really think you couldn't have made anything better. So, lucky those two got together? But then again, deciding to only occasionally start playing a song definitely was a great decision by notch. I'm really someone paying attention to soundtracks. I care and think about the music people put into games. Minecraft definitely has one of the best, most recognizable and iconic soundtracks. And I've been gaming since the 90s.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    The music nails it. The first time you play, it is magical. Like, I was swept away. I think the music was really important for the emotional state.
    - Tijdreiziger 2y ago
      You may enjoy this cover: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gVYjlmB81Hc https://youtube.com/watch?v=gVYjlmB81Hc
29athrowaway 2y ago
When Apple released the iPhone, several smartphones were in existence. But the iPhone created a much more cohesive and simplified experience compared to those. There's merit in that.
- 5636588 2y ago
  It's called the Second-Mover Advantage.
  - 29athrowaway 2y ago
    Apple wasn't even the second mover. There were many smartphones and pocket PCs from a myriad of vendors by the time the iPhone appeared.
    - giobox 2y ago
      The concept of second mover advantage doesn't mean you have to go exactly second - your reply is somewhat pedantic - you just get the advantage by not being the very first. Apple absolutely enjoyed some second mover advantages in bringing iPhone to market. The second mover advantages Apple enjoyed went beyond just the cellphone design too - they completely rearchitected the relationship between a carrier and a cellphone OEM. People forget that pre-iPhone, virtually all cellphones had to carry crappy software insisted on by the cell carrier - the iPhone was one of the first ever handsets that shipped with the OS completely under the control/design of the handset vendor with no network involvement. Just getting AT&T to agree to this alone was massive, and hadn't been figured out by any of the pre-existing smartphone manufacturers on the "first move" either. We take this for granted now across the industry that cellphones can easily arrive this way in carrier stores with little/no carrier interference. Heck, pre-iPhone, it was close to impossible to buy a phone in an AT&T/"Cingular" store that didn't have AT&T/Cingular's logo custom printed on it, such was the extent of the carrier choke-hold on the OEM handset supply side. This was true of virtually all the carriers in North America at that time. Again today, it's rare a phone is branded with the carrier logos, and smartphones rarely ever now have bundled carrier software/OS changes at the user application level.

xyzzy_plugh 2y ago

I certainly agree that Notch was standing on the shoulders of giant, brilliant Barth, and without Infiniminer we would never have gotten Minecraft. Zach's game design is so good that it makes you want to build, or build better games. You can clearly see the inspiration that took hold and the potential that Infiniminer and all Barth's other games absolutely exude. His games are worth playing not to sink time into but to simply breathe in. There's little else quite like it. But I think even then this unfairly discredits Notch. Regardless of what you think of the man, he certainly did nail it all on his own. He didn't just clone Infiniminer -- there's surprisingly little left in common at this point -- he used it as a springboard to invent what is essentially a new genre. You see the same sort of ingenuity in Fortnite and Roblox, who certainly have Minecraft and by lineage Infiniminer DNA in them, among others. The difference is that, for a very long time, Minecraft was Notch, and what he did with it is still arguably unparalleled today. It's staggeringly good for a single person. The simple core loop was incredibly ripe for iteration. But the ingenuity the game is absolutely littered with, dozens of little things, tiny decisions made between pre-alpha point releases, is all Notch. In so many ways the game made itself, like a chain reaction of features, but Notch himself is just totally engrained in the whole thing. It's nuts. To say he didn't nail it all on his own, I simply cannot agree with. Zach Barth and Notch both made something incredible. The shame is that no one ever gave Zach Barth the comically oversized sack full of money he deserves. I will surely never fire up Infiniminer again, but I could fire up Minecraft at any time and instant fall back into the engrossing loop of the game. Though it's been many years since I last played, I inevitably will again. I've struggled to think of an analogy here... perhaps the closest I can come up with is Quake and Half-Life, which are even more closely related. Did Valve stand on the shoulders of giants? Absolutely. But they definitely nailed it all on their own. We all build atop the works of others.

iforgotpassword 2y ago
But maybe a bit of happy coincidence, or luck? Like, yes he made the final decision to use the music made by C418, but I really think you couldn't have made anything better. So, lucky those two got together? But then again, deciding to only occasionally start playing a song definitely was a great decision by notch. I'm really someone paying attention to soundtracks. I care and think about the music people put into games. Minecraft definitely has one of the best, most recognizable and iconic soundtracks. And I've been gaming since the 90s.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  The music nails it. The first time you play, it is magical. Like, I was swept away. I think the music was really important for the emotional state.
  - Tijdreiziger 2y ago
    You may enjoy this cover: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gVYjlmB81Hc https://youtube.com/watch?v=gVYjlmB81Hc

29athrowaway 2y ago

When Apple released the iPhone, several smartphones were in existence. But the iPhone created a much more cohesive and simplified experience compared to those. There's merit in that.

5636588 2y ago
It's called the Second-Mover Advantage.
- 29athrowaway 2y ago
  Apple wasn't even the second mover. There were many smartphones and pocket PCs from a myriad of vendors by the time the iPhone appeared.
  - giobox 2y ago
    The concept of second mover advantage doesn't mean you have to go exactly second - your reply is somewhat pedantic - you just get the advantage by not being the very first. Apple absolutely enjoyed some second mover advantages in bringing iPhone to market. The second mover advantages Apple enjoyed went beyond just the cellphone design too - they completely rearchitected the relationship between a carrier and a cellphone OEM. People forget that pre-iPhone, virtually all cellphones had to carry crappy software insisted on by the cell carrier - the iPhone was one of the first ever handsets that shipped with the OS completely under the control/design of the handset vendor with no network involvement. Just getting AT&T to agree to this alone was massive, and hadn't been figured out by any of the pre-existing smartphone manufacturers on the "first move" either. We take this for granted now across the industry that cellphones can easily arrive this way in carrier stores with little/no carrier interference. Heck, pre-iPhone, it was close to impossible to buy a phone in an AT&T/"Cingular" store that didn't have AT&T/Cingular's logo custom printed on it, such was the extent of the carrier choke-hold on the OEM handset supply side. This was true of virtually all the carriers in North America at that time. Again today, it's rare a phone is branded with the carrier logos, and smartphones rarely ever now have bundled carrier software/OS changes at the user application level.