5 ms·

Minecraft enters real world with $110M global theme park deal

44 points by sandebert 2y ago

awats299 2y ago
[flagged]
0x1ceb00da 2y ago
Hmmm
black_puppydog 2y ago
Heh... A nice allegory of how our real world eventually comes to resemble the tech we build in the "non-real" internet. :)
arresin 2y ago
I remember seeing the first demos of this game on YouTube.
- INTPenis 2y ago
  It's pretty crazy that a co-worker told me about Minecraft when it was still just a post on a message board. Now there are theme parks being planned.
- rasz 2y ago
  Yes, Infiniminer https://www.zachtronics.com/infiniminer/ https://www.zachtronics.com/infiniminer/
zecg 2y ago
I can't believe someone thought this will be a sustainable business bringing in money.
- mmmore 2y ago
  It doesn't sound like there will be standalone Minecraft theme parks, just Minecraft rides at Legoland and other parks. I don't see why you'd be so pessimistic about that.
- senko 2y ago
  Why not? If we have Disneyland, LEGOland, why not MinecraftLand? Minecraft as a brand is now much more than just a blocky PvE game. I have young kids and they'd love to visit a Minecraft themed park. (So would I!) How it'll turn out in reality is anyone's guess, but it's a reasonable bet.
  - skerit 2y ago
    I would definitely visit something like this. I would visit a plain vanilla Minecraft village made real even if it had no rides.
    - bpye 2y ago
      Minecart-coaster?
  - INTPenis 2y ago
    Unfortunately it seems to me like more kids know minecraft than Lego today. We'd need to do a proper survey but this is just my impression from meeting kids around 10-15 years old. It's cheaper for a parent to get their kids a device they can play Minecraft on, than to keep getting new Lego sets.
    - senko 2y ago
      I would agree, but also LEGO of today is not like LEGO from 30 years ago. Kids today almost never get raw brick sets and let their creativity loose. Instead, the focus is on specific sets, which you complete, then play around with as ordinary plastic toys. Yeah you could disassemble and do crazy stuff but in my experience that doesn't happen as often. Compare with Minecraft creative mode. Kids and I logged hundreds of hours doing silly stuff, goofing around and embarking on "impressive" (for us) builder projects. I'd say for current kids Minecraft is what LEGO was for us a few decades ago.
      - kleiba 2y ago
        It's amazing that you've been able to put in words exactly what I have observed ever since I had kids of my own. Lego used to be such a big part of my childhood, a creative outline bar none. The amazing realization that with a few basic blocks, you can build so many different things - letting your creativity go wild and build your own worlds. But like you said, today, you buy a box set and it comes with a whole bunch of super specific pieces. Sure, the result will perhaps look much more real if your race car model now has an appropriately bend fender piece instead of a step approximation. But you'll never be able to reuse that piece for anything else. But what's worse is that I do not see any desire in my kids to even try and come up with their own creations. It's exactly like you said, they enjoy following the instruction and build the exact thing this box was meant to be, and that's it. Play with it and then it gets dissambled again after a while. They might build it again, yeah, sure, but always exactly like it was predesigned by the company. Instead of fostering creative kids, we're breeding robots. I thought it was just my children so I'm very interested to read someone else having had the same experience. No wonder that Minecraft then has taken over that niche. My kids are too young and don't know the game yet, I've been trying to reduce screen time. But if the real world and tangible toys aren't inspiring them as much as they did when I was young, it makes you wonder if you shouldn't allow them to express themselves at digitally at an earlier age.
- rty32 2y ago
  Yeah, people thought Walt Disney was crazy at the time as well.
- cjs_ac 2y ago
  I used to be a consultant in this industry. Merlin Entertainment dominates the visitor attraction industry in the UK and is very good at making these things profitable. It won't be a premium experience by any means, but it won't be a flop either.
- empath75 2y ago
  Minecraft is probably one of the most profitable IPs of all time.
- rapsey 2y ago
  [flagged]
- safety1st 2y ago
  It's not a bad bet. 180 million monthly active users. Skews young, average user mid 20s. Consider that a a lot of video games are crowing about having a few 10K's of concurrent online players. Minecraft, 180M per month, been doing numbers like this for years. This generation (20somethings and younger) generally loves selfie opportunities with their favorite characters, that drives a huge amount of interest in existing parks like Disney, Universal etc. Of course the Minecraft characters don't have brand recognition like Mickey or the Minions. Yet. But those 180M are way more deeply engaged with Minecraft than they are with any movie character. If you were going to pour money into building that character recognition, or try any number of other tweaks to the theme park formula, Minecraft's a viable place to start just due to the scale.
yapyap 2y ago
Soulless
Dilettante_ 2y ago
The children yearn for the mine(craft themed theme park)s.
stevoski 2y ago
Does it have dark mode?
- K0balt 2y ago
  That’s the horror park version, after they release the horror movie set in the Minecraft theme park. The whole thing kinda makes me queasy.
dangero 2y ago
To contrast this, Super Nintendo World initial investment was $351M to open just the first Japan location while this $110M is expected budget for first two Minecraft locations. Gives a concept of scope —- relatively low budget minimal project, which given the popularity of Minecraft this seems like a conservative experiment. https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/8/18215682/super-nintendo-world-universal-studios-japan-theme-park https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/8/18215682/super-nintendo-wor...
crazygringo 2y ago
I'm genuinely curious what kind of real-world construction and materials are used to create the "blocky" textured buildings and architectural elements. Like is it regular construction with a bunch of plastic "boxes" covering the outside, with some kind of printed vinyl coverings? How is it made heavy-duty enough both without cracking as well as without the printed texture scratching off or fading? What do you do about all the rain that collects on the top of every box? Is there some kind of drainage system? I'm sure these are solved problems -- I'm just curious what the solution is.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

44 points by sandebert 2y ago

awats299 2y ago

[flagged]

0x1ceb00da 2y ago

Hmmm

black_puppydog 2y ago

Heh... A nice allegory of how our real world eventually comes to resemble the tech we build in the "non-real" internet. :)

arresin 2y ago

I remember seeing the first demos of this game on YouTube.

INTPenis 2y ago
It's pretty crazy that a co-worker told me about Minecraft when it was still just a post on a message board. Now there are theme parks being planned.
rasz 2y ago
Yes, Infiniminer https://www.zachtronics.com/infiniminer/ https://www.zachtronics.com/infiniminer/

zecg 2y ago

I can't believe someone thought this will be a sustainable business bringing in money.

mmmore 2y ago
It doesn't sound like there will be standalone Minecraft theme parks, just Minecraft rides at Legoland and other parks. I don't see why you'd be so pessimistic about that.
senko 2y ago
Why not? If we have Disneyland, LEGOland, why not MinecraftLand? Minecraft as a brand is now much more than just a blocky PvE game. I have young kids and they'd love to visit a Minecraft themed park. (So would I!) How it'll turn out in reality is anyone's guess, but it's a reasonable bet.
- skerit 2y ago
  I would definitely visit something like this. I would visit a plain vanilla Minecraft village made real even if it had no rides.
  - bpye 2y ago
    Minecart-coaster?
- INTPenis 2y ago
  Unfortunately it seems to me like more kids know minecraft than Lego today. We'd need to do a proper survey but this is just my impression from meeting kids around 10-15 years old. It's cheaper for a parent to get their kids a device they can play Minecraft on, than to keep getting new Lego sets.
  - senko 2y ago
    I would agree, but also LEGO of today is not like LEGO from 30 years ago. Kids today almost never get raw brick sets and let their creativity loose. Instead, the focus is on specific sets, which you complete, then play around with as ordinary plastic toys. Yeah you could disassemble and do crazy stuff but in my experience that doesn't happen as often. Compare with Minecraft creative mode. Kids and I logged hundreds of hours doing silly stuff, goofing around and embarking on "impressive" (for us) builder projects. I'd say for current kids Minecraft is what LEGO was for us a few decades ago.
    - kleiba 2y ago
      It's amazing that you've been able to put in words exactly what I have observed ever since I had kids of my own. Lego used to be such a big part of my childhood, a creative outline bar none. The amazing realization that with a few basic blocks, you can build so many different things - letting your creativity go wild and build your own worlds. But like you said, today, you buy a box set and it comes with a whole bunch of super specific pieces. Sure, the result will perhaps look much more real if your race car model now has an appropriately bend fender piece instead of a step approximation. But you'll never be able to reuse that piece for anything else. But what's worse is that I do not see any desire in my kids to even try and come up with their own creations. It's exactly like you said, they enjoy following the instruction and build the exact thing this box was meant to be, and that's it. Play with it and then it gets dissambled again after a while. They might build it again, yeah, sure, but always exactly like it was predesigned by the company. Instead of fostering creative kids, we're breeding robots. I thought it was just my children so I'm very interested to read someone else having had the same experience. No wonder that Minecraft then has taken over that niche. My kids are too young and don't know the game yet, I've been trying to reduce screen time. But if the real world and tangible toys aren't inspiring them as much as they did when I was young, it makes you wonder if you shouldn't allow them to express themselves at digitally at an earlier age.
rty32 2y ago
Yeah, people thought Walt Disney was crazy at the time as well.
cjs_ac 2y ago
I used to be a consultant in this industry. Merlin Entertainment dominates the visitor attraction industry in the UK and is very good at making these things profitable. It won't be a premium experience by any means, but it won't be a flop either.
empath75 2y ago
Minecraft is probably one of the most profitable IPs of all time.
rapsey 2y ago
[flagged]
safety1st 2y ago
It's not a bad bet. 180 million monthly active users. Skews young, average user mid 20s. Consider that a a lot of video games are crowing about having a few 10K's of concurrent online players. Minecraft, 180M per month, been doing numbers like this for years. This generation (20somethings and younger) generally loves selfie opportunities with their favorite characters, that drives a huge amount of interest in existing parks like Disney, Universal etc. Of course the Minecraft characters don't have brand recognition like Mickey or the Minions. Yet. But those 180M are way more deeply engaged with Minecraft than they are with any movie character. If you were going to pour money into building that character recognition, or try any number of other tweaks to the theme park formula, Minecraft's a viable place to start just due to the scale.

yapyap 2y ago

Soulless

Dilettante_ 2y ago

The children yearn for the mine(craft themed theme park)s.

stevoski 2y ago

Does it have dark mode?

K0balt 2y ago
That’s the horror park version, after they release the horror movie set in the Minecraft theme park. The whole thing kinda makes me queasy.

dangero 2y ago

To contrast this, Super Nintendo World initial investment was $351M to open just the first Japan location while this $110M is expected budget for first two Minecraft locations. Gives a concept of scope —- relatively low budget minimal project, which given the popularity of Minecraft this seems like a conservative experiment. https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/8/18215682/super-nintendo-world-universal-studios-japan-theme-park https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/8/18215682/super-nintendo-wor...

crazygringo 2y ago

I'm genuinely curious what kind of real-world construction and materials are used to create the "blocky" textured buildings and architectural elements. Like is it regular construction with a bunch of plastic "boxes" covering the outside, with some kind of printed vinyl coverings? How is it made heavy-duty enough both without cracking as well as without the printed texture scratching off or fading? What do you do about all the rain that collects on the top of every box? Is there some kind of drainage system? I'm sure these are solved problems -- I'm just curious what the solution is.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]