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"Minecraft is digital Lego . . . We only wish we had invented it." - Lego's marketing director. (1) I think that's an interesting quote to understand both the

by aresant 12y ago

"Minecraft is digital Lego . . . We only wish we had invented it." - Lego's marketing director. (1) I think that's an interesting quote to understand both the generational appeal of Minecraft and why the deal makes sense. Continuing the lego comparison, Lego was recently valued at ~$15b (2) and I think that also demonstrates the potential here. Lego mastered the IP licensing biz (lego star wars, batman), merchandising (theme parks, etc), distribution (market specific sets etc). I'm almost surprised that Disney wasn't the acquirer but I imagine that with a corporate profiteer behind Mojang we'll see significant expansion of the brand. (1) http://www.atbmedia.com/lego-we-wish-wed-invented-minecraft/ http://www.atbmedia.com/lego-we-wish-wed-invented-minecraft/ (2) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/lego-builds-new-billionaires-as-toymaker-topples-mattel.html?cmpid=yhoo http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/lego-builds-new-bil...

Laremere 12y ago
Lego had the opportunity to buy digital lego ( http://blockland.us/ http://blockland.us/ ) Blockland's creator went to Lego to see if they were interested in his game while he was working on the retail version, but for whatever reason no deal was made and Blockland was released without external branding. This all happened much earlier than Minecraft: Blockland was featured on the Screen Savers in 2005, and had a retail release in 2007, two years before Minecraft development started. I think Minecraft goes beyond digital lego though. There are many little pieces of minecraft's design which came together to make a game better than one would expect. I honestly wonder how many of those choices were intentionally done by Notch, and how many were arbitrary choices which happened to be right.
- sitkack 12y ago
  Minecraft was at the right place at the right time, it had already occurred in nearly identical forms earlier yet failed to "pop". http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Infiniminer http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Infiniminer
  - cookiecaper 12y ago
    I think there's a tendency in people to assume that massively successful properties like Minecraft become massively successful because they're special or innovative. While this may play a role, it is rarely the only important factor, and sometimes is not a relevant factor at all. The reality is that Minecraft's explosive popularity is the result of a perfect storm of all kinds of fickle conditions. It doesn't mean that Notch made the "right" arbitrary choices, as some posters in this thread have intimated; it just means that the choices he made didn't preclude the other externalities from converging. I think the two biggest factors in Minecraft's success were a) notch's responsiveness and availability to the community on reddit and twitter and b) Mojang's decision to have the game ported to Xbox. Neither of these have much to do with the specific design decisions in Minecraft itself (many of which were frankly terrible and are still only gradually being reversed).
    - jeffmk 12y ago
      What are some examples of poor design decisions that were made?
      - DanBC 12y ago
        Modding is a very popular part of Minecraft. TO mod Minecraft you have to:- i) find the right mod - it has to be for the correct version of Minecraft ii) Locate the Minecraft jar; expand it. iii) Copy the mod into the correct folder iv) Delete a file (if you haven't already) v) recompress vi) test vii) do all this again for the next mod you want to apply A better mod interface would be lovely.
        electromagnetic 12y ago
        Compare this to a game like KSP where modding is also very popular. Installing a mod is generally: extract rar to game folder. Step two is play the game.
        Havvy 12y ago
        Modding hasn't been like that for over two years nowadays. These days it's: 1) Download the MinecraftForge Installer and run it. 2) Find the right mods you want. 3) Copy the mod into the correct folder. 4) Change configuration (if you want) 5) Test Furthermore, you can use various launchers such as the Feed The Beast launcher where you download the launcher, run it, pick a pack that it'll download and then run with a very low chance (< 1%) of there being problems. Oh, and you can also join servers that are configured to that modpack too without doing anything.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  The idea isn't really the thing though is it? The basic idea is the product being worked on in Douglas Coupland's Microserfs released in 1995 (Blockland launched 2004, Minecraft 2011). As you say, it's the design and execution.
- foobarian 12y ago
  The thing about Minecraft is, it's a lot like Beatles music. It's a simple game with straightforward gameplay, but it comes together so well, it's extremely catchy and fun. There is the random drop element with blocks. There is the creative element with building. There are the exploration and social elements. Then there are the monsters that come out at night, the rush to build a shelter etc. And let's not forget creepers. I think there wasn't a single monster in the history of video games that scared me more than a creeper coming from behind with the "sssss" sound. These design decisions could have been lucky, but I think it really takes a person who "gets it" like Notch, who spent years up to that point thinking about and building games to internalize what makes a game fun, and turn it into something that comes together like Minecraft.
- Avshalom 12y ago
  At the time Lego would have been just pulling out of near bankruptcy that probably contributed to not jumping on blockland and/or doing more to make their own digital lego (the steady trickle of games have always been lego themed rather than lego-like).
n72 12y ago
I remember telling my brother about two years ago "You know what would be a great game? A game where you can make things, worlds etc., from a few fundamental pieces, just like lego." He said good idea, but it's already been done and is called Minecraft and our cousins play it non-stop.
qopp 12y ago
Lego had the lego creator video game long before Minecraft. Minecraft is something a bit more special.
- dlhavema 12y ago
  i always took that quote to mean Minecraft is the Legos of the Digital Age. building blocks used to make pretty much anything you want.. I've played it on PC and think it's really fun. It is amazing what it's doing for young kids and how its introducing them into programming. the last two conferences (JavaOne 2013, Oscon 2014) i went to had a keynote speaker that was 10 or 11 and got started because of minecraft ( and his parents were techies.. )
- Houshalter 12y ago
  I remember playing the lego creator game. The reason minecraft caught on instead is the controls are much easier, and multiplayer.
- kabdib 12y ago
  Lego is really, really paranoid about the kids being exposed to "bad influences" and predators. Those definitely exist, but Lego is a huge, fat target for lawsuits. IIRC chat was next to nonexistent in the Lego online products. Mojang? Too small to care about. The parents seem to know that; at least I haven't heard about any multi-million dollar lawsuits revolving around MineCraft's chat, for instance. I really wonder what Microsoft is going to do about this.
  - cookiecaper 12y ago
    The thing with Minecraft is that it's pretty difficult for children to get in trouble with it. Chat is a minor part of the game and it's hard to send long messages; it's more or less just for coordinating builds. Servers are often private or invite-only and often involve mostly people the kids knew in real life. External resources cannot be imported into the game, so you don't have to worry about offensive avatars or sprays. If someone is really that dedicated to putting a naked woman in Minecraft, and I'm sure some children are, it would be a super pixelated version built out of Minecraft blocks that most parents wouldn't find explicit or offensive (though they may talk to the kid about the server he's on or something). Even though it probably happened by accident, Minecraft is pretty kid safe.
prawn 12y ago
I think Lego could still take on Minecraft with a digital building world based around the iconic minifigs. I wonder if they're concerned that it might cannibalise their existing product sales? The Lego games on consoles already are not about building, they're just platformers. To build a Minecraft equivalent for Lego, you'd need to give out a lot of bricks/options and that'd work against the current default with Lego which involves buying more and more sets.
- arrrg 12y ago
  Lego is all the wrong scale, I think. A 1:1 translation wouldn’t work (but maybe this is just a case of Survivorship Bias and Minecraft-like games would have worked at a wide range of scales). Building 3D models with contemporary computer interfaces is clumsy and the really powerful tools for it are also clearly tools. Using them is work, not play. Minecraft takes this building of 3D models and simplifies it, making it suitable for play. Part of that is certainly putting that building in an alive and big world with rules and limits. That way the play isn’t happening in some sterile environment. That also provides jumping off points for creativity. Whoever plays doesn’t have to come up with everything on their own. There are already elements all around that are starting points. (Lego does much the same with their play sets. Coming up with something completely new is often hard, so they provide a whole world as a guideline and starting point.) However, another big part is creating completely new tools for building 3D models. Those tools are much less powerful than what you can find in any 3D modelling program, but they are also much, much simpler to use – both because they have a real world analog (Lego and all other building blocks), but also because of their large scale. Computer interfaces are still clumsy, so to make building fun (enough) and not too boring picking an appropriate scale was very important, I think. And that 1m scale of Minecraft (blocks are one cubic meter, two block high corridors are high enough for the player to walk through) just works very well for that. I don’t think Lego’s scale would. It‘s too detailed, too small.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by aresant 12y ago

Laremere 12y ago

Lego had the opportunity to buy digital lego ( http://blockland.us/ http://blockland.us/ ) Blockland's creator went to Lego to see if they were interested in his game while he was working on the retail version, but for whatever reason no deal was made and Blockland was released without external branding. This all happened much earlier than Minecraft: Blockland was featured on the Screen Savers in 2005, and had a retail release in 2007, two years before Minecraft development started. I think Minecraft goes beyond digital lego though. There are many little pieces of minecraft's design which came together to make a game better than one would expect. I honestly wonder how many of those choices were intentionally done by Notch, and how many were arbitrary choices which happened to be right.

sitkack 12y ago
Minecraft was at the right place at the right time, it had already occurred in nearly identical forms earlier yet failed to "pop". http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Infiniminer http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Infiniminer
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  I think there's a tendency in people to assume that massively successful properties like Minecraft become massively successful because they're special or innovative. While this may play a role, it is rarely the only important factor, and sometimes is not a relevant factor at all. The reality is that Minecraft's explosive popularity is the result of a perfect storm of all kinds of fickle conditions. It doesn't mean that Notch made the "right" arbitrary choices, as some posters in this thread have intimated; it just means that the choices he made didn't preclude the other externalities from converging. I think the two biggest factors in Minecraft's success were a) notch's responsiveness and availability to the community on reddit and twitter and b) Mojang's decision to have the game ported to Xbox. Neither of these have much to do with the specific design decisions in Minecraft itself (many of which were frankly terrible and are still only gradually being reversed).
  - jeffmk 12y ago
    What are some examples of poor design decisions that were made?
    - DanBC 12y ago
      Modding is a very popular part of Minecraft. TO mod Minecraft you have to:- i) find the right mod - it has to be for the correct version of Minecraft ii) Locate the Minecraft jar; expand it. iii) Copy the mod into the correct folder iv) Delete a file (if you haven't already) v) recompress vi) test vii) do all this again for the next mod you want to apply A better mod interface would be lovely.
      - electromagnetic 12y ago
        Compare this to a game like KSP where modding is also very popular. Installing a mod is generally: extract rar to game folder. Step two is play the game.
      - Havvy 12y ago
        Modding hasn't been like that for over two years nowadays. These days it's: 1) Download the MinecraftForge Installer and run it. 2) Find the right mods you want. 3) Copy the mod into the correct folder. 4) Change configuration (if you want) 5) Test Furthermore, you can use various launchers such as the Feed The Beast launcher where you download the launcher, run it, pick a pack that it'll download and then run with a very low chance (< 1%) of there being problems. Oh, and you can also join servers that are configured to that modpack too without doing anything.
Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
The idea isn't really the thing though is it? The basic idea is the product being worked on in Douglas Coupland's Microserfs released in 1995 (Blockland launched 2004, Minecraft 2011). As you say, it's the design and execution.
foobarian 12y ago
The thing about Minecraft is, it's a lot like Beatles music. It's a simple game with straightforward gameplay, but it comes together so well, it's extremely catchy and fun. There is the random drop element with blocks. There is the creative element with building. There are the exploration and social elements. Then there are the monsters that come out at night, the rush to build a shelter etc. And let's not forget creepers. I think there wasn't a single monster in the history of video games that scared me more than a creeper coming from behind with the "sssss" sound. These design decisions could have been lucky, but I think it really takes a person who "gets it" like Notch, who spent years up to that point thinking about and building games to internalize what makes a game fun, and turn it into something that comes together like Minecraft.
Avshalom 12y ago
At the time Lego would have been just pulling out of near bankruptcy that probably contributed to not jumping on blockland and/or doing more to make their own digital lego (the steady trickle of games have always been lego themed rather than lego-like).

n72 12y ago

I remember telling my brother about two years ago "You know what would be a great game? A game where you can make things, worlds etc., from a few fundamental pieces, just like lego." He said good idea, but it's already been done and is called Minecraft and our cousins play it non-stop.

qopp 12y ago

Lego had the lego creator video game long before Minecraft. Minecraft is something a bit more special.

dlhavema 12y ago
i always took that quote to mean Minecraft is the Legos of the Digital Age. building blocks used to make pretty much anything you want.. I've played it on PC and think it's really fun. It is amazing what it's doing for young kids and how its introducing them into programming. the last two conferences (JavaOne 2013, Oscon 2014) i went to had a keynote speaker that was 10 or 11 and got started because of minecraft ( and his parents were techies.. )
Houshalter 12y ago
I remember playing the lego creator game. The reason minecraft caught on instead is the controls are much easier, and multiplayer.
kabdib 12y ago
Lego is really, really paranoid about the kids being exposed to "bad influences" and predators. Those definitely exist, but Lego is a huge, fat target for lawsuits. IIRC chat was next to nonexistent in the Lego online products. Mojang? Too small to care about. The parents seem to know that; at least I haven't heard about any multi-million dollar lawsuits revolving around MineCraft's chat, for instance. I really wonder what Microsoft is going to do about this.
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  The thing with Minecraft is that it's pretty difficult for children to get in trouble with it. Chat is a minor part of the game and it's hard to send long messages; it's more or less just for coordinating builds. Servers are often private or invite-only and often involve mostly people the kids knew in real life. External resources cannot be imported into the game, so you don't have to worry about offensive avatars or sprays. If someone is really that dedicated to putting a naked woman in Minecraft, and I'm sure some children are, it would be a super pixelated version built out of Minecraft blocks that most parents wouldn't find explicit or offensive (though they may talk to the kid about the server he's on or something). Even though it probably happened by accident, Minecraft is pretty kid safe.

prawn 12y ago

I think Lego could still take on Minecraft with a digital building world based around the iconic minifigs. I wonder if they're concerned that it might cannibalise their existing product sales? The Lego games on consoles already are not about building, they're just platformers. To build a Minecraft equivalent for Lego, you'd need to give out a lot of bricks/options and that'd work against the current default with Lego which involves buying more and more sets.

arrrg 12y ago
Lego is all the wrong scale, I think. A 1:1 translation wouldn’t work (but maybe this is just a case of Survivorship Bias and Minecraft-like games would have worked at a wide range of scales). Building 3D models with contemporary computer interfaces is clumsy and the really powerful tools for it are also clearly tools. Using them is work, not play. Minecraft takes this building of 3D models and simplifies it, making it suitable for play. Part of that is certainly putting that building in an alive and big world with rules and limits. That way the play isn’t happening in some sterile environment. That also provides jumping off points for creativity. Whoever plays doesn’t have to come up with everything on their own. There are already elements all around that are starting points. (Lego does much the same with their play sets. Coming up with something completely new is often hard, so they provide a whole world as a guideline and starting point.) However, another big part is creating completely new tools for building 3D models. Those tools are much less powerful than what you can find in any 3D modelling program, but they are also much, much simpler to use – both because they have a real world analog (Lego and all other building blocks), but also because of their large scale. Computer interfaces are still clumsy, so to make building fun (enough) and not too boring picking an appropriate scale was very important, I think. And that 1m scale of Minecraft (blocks are one cubic meter, two block high corridors are high enough for the player to walk through) just works very well for that. I don’t think Lego’s scale would. It‘s too detailed, too small.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]