4 ms·

When I worked in the games industry, we would spent an incredible amount of effort, money and time on creating as realistic a world as we could muster out of th

When I worked in the games industry, we would spent an incredible amount of effort, money and time on creating as realistic a world as we could muster out of the hardware. This would involve talented artists, animators, programmers and hardware engineers. And then came Minecraft made by 1 guy rendering blocky graphics with basic animations. It was a real wake up call for a lot of developers, that success isn't driven by how realistic you can make a world, but something more fundamental. Most games with ultra-realistic graphics feel more like theme-park rides, where you have little or no affect on the game - as doing so would break the immersion. After minecraft came out I quit the industry, and am far happier for it.

anthk 2y ago
Minecraft was a clone of another block game. On interactivity and emergent gameplay, it predated MC for decades. Elite, Nethack, Ultima IV-VII, Deus Ex, Arx Libertatis...
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  > Minecraft was a clone of another block game. Assuming you mean Infiniminer? > On interactivity and emergent gameplay, it predated MC for decades. Infiniminer was released in early 2009 and pretty much immediately inspired Minecraft (first public alpha mid 2009.)
  - pdpi 2y ago
    The point isn't "infiniminer predated MC by decades", but rather "immersive simulations and emergent gameplay predated MC by decades", as evidenced by the examples OP gave.
    - zimpenfish 2y ago
      Hmm, fair, I misread that.
esperent 2y ago
This take feels off to me. Not denying it was an emotional reaction by people working in the games industry at the time, but it doesn't feel grounded in reality. It's like the makers of The Matrix feeling like they should give up because of The Blair Witch Project. Minecraft and Blair Witch caught gold dust. You could make a thousand similar low budget movies or games - of equal quality - without ever replicating their success. By contrast, if you make a movie or a game that's any way good with a 100 million budget and another 100 million to market it, you can be fairly sure of making profit. It's a different market. A Marvel movie, a Matrix movie, or a Fallout game, has to be actively terrible to fail to turn a profit.

anthk 2y ago

Minecraft was a clone of another block game. On interactivity and emergent gameplay, it predated MC for decades. Elite, Nethack, Ultima IV-VII, Deus Ex, Arx Libertatis...

zimpenfish 2y ago
> Minecraft was a clone of another block game. Assuming you mean Infiniminer? > On interactivity and emergent gameplay, it predated MC for decades. Infiniminer was released in early 2009 and pretty much immediately inspired Minecraft (first public alpha mid 2009.)
- pdpi 2y ago
  The point isn't "infiniminer predated MC by decades", but rather "immersive simulations and emergent gameplay predated MC by decades", as evidenced by the examples OP gave.
  - zimpenfish 2y ago
    Hmm, fair, I misread that.

esperent 2y ago

This take feels off to me. Not denying it was an emotional reaction by people working in the games industry at the time, but it doesn't feel grounded in reality. It's like the makers of The Matrix feeling like they should give up because of The Blair Witch Project. Minecraft and Blair Witch caught gold dust. You could make a thousand similar low budget movies or games - of equal quality - without ever replicating their success. By contrast, if you make a movie or a game that's any way good with a 100 million budget and another 100 million to market it, you can be fairly sure of making profit. It's a different market. A Marvel movie, a Matrix movie, or a Fallout game, has to be actively terrible to fail to turn a profit.