Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Minecraft Essay - 724 Words

Minecraft is a sandbox a video game created by a Swede called Markus Persson. A sandbox is a type of game where other than the map, the game depends on the user’s imagination. In Minecraft, players can create structures using textured blocks in the random 3D world that the computer generates. The game originally started just as mining, building and surviving back in 2009 but has massively grown into a lot more where the capabilities of the game are endless.
Minecraft can be played over almost every console and device possible with the following being included: PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, iOS devices, Android devices, Windows phones and also a variety of VR companies.
Minecraft has had huge commercial success, with over 154 million copies sold all over the world with a calculated 91 million monthly players on the servers across the 116 countries in which it is possible to play in. When Markus Persson (or Notch) first created Minecraft on May 13th 2009, he soon created Mojang AB, a developing company, for Minecraft to grow and maintain its popularity. But on 15th September 2014, Minecraft and Mojang AB were acquired by Microsoft for a total of $2.5 billion (£1.9 billion) due to the game’s success and profit. This has affected the game massively by a rise in 50 million copies sold since this date, but also making the game less audience oriented in the process. This is because of Microsoft not being able to have a larger connection with the audience due to the company size, compared to Persson who could have this connection. Minecraft have also produced sequels to the game but with more of a purpose. These games include: Minecraft: Story Mode where there is a set story and campaign for the player to experience, Minecraft: Education Edition which is a limited version of Minecraft used mainly for school purposes to expand students knowledge in the classroom.
With the uprise in Minecraft users, which started to become popular in 2010/11, Minecraft decided to add in-game currency for players to be able to use skins in game. Skins are a fan-made aethstetic looks for your character to have to make your account and worlds more personalised to you. These skins are both fan made and company made. These were originally just the classic ‘Steve’ skin which Minecraft is associated with, but over the years, more skins have been developed for the public to buy over micro-transactions. These can then be set in game for the player to use online and offline.
Minecraft Realms is an official subscription-based server hosting service that allows players to create and manage their own private Minecraft servers. When Realms was first released in 2013, it required a micro-transaction payment of $7.99 but recently on the mobile devices, it doesn’t cost to make a Realm server but does only last for up to 120 days before deleting automatically.
Twitch is a streaming website that is primarily based around gaming, but it is broadening it’s horizons with the IRL section, Content creators stream anything that can entertain them and the fans, content creators can make money off of this by the fans donating, twitch is also linked to amazon giving people a twitch prime status to whoever has amazon prime. Minecraft has its own twitch channel, where fans and other pro players stream themselves playing Minecraft, completing different set challenges or just streaming their survival world. The Minecraft twitch channel has got 34,803 followers with a total 2,372,538 views.
Minecraft annually holds a gaming convention called Minecon. This started on 31st August 2010 when the convention was orignally called ‘Minecraftcon’ where a gathering of 50 fans attended the spontaneous event that Notch held in Washington. From there, there has been a Minecon convention yearly, which is announced mid-Februrary and held in late October to early November in places such as Disneyland Paris, Orlando and California. The Minecon convention also earnt a Guiness World Record on 4th July 2015 for the largest convention for a single video game.
Minecraft is regulated by Video Standards Council which applies the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) and their rating system. Initially, Minecraft was rated a PEGI 7 but with the later release of Minecraft: Story Mode, the stories were classified higher because of the narratives that had been introduced.

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