Minecraft is still in beta, and it's already brought home $33 million USD after taxes and PayPal fees.
Talk about crazy: indie mega-hit Minecraft isn't even out of beta, and it's already raked in over $33 million USD in revenue so far-- even after PayPal fees and taxes. In fact, during the alpha stage, Minecraft sold roughly 800,000 copies at the introductory price of €9.95. Once it went beta, the game sold over 1 million additional units at €14.95 a piece. Eventually the final product will sell for €20.00, but in its present state, Minecraft has already enlisted 1,813,527 paying customers without offering a single demo to test-drive.
According to a mini-Q&A over on Reddit, Minecraft creator Markus Persson started work on the PC game back in 2009, and immediately began to see a profit just months after the alpha launch. Towards the end of 2010, Persson teamed up with two friends and launched a studio to provide better support for the "runaway hit" while gearing up to develop another title.
Given that, has Minecraft's success been overwhelming? "I've always had a tendency to feel like I'm just not quite keeping up with demands, even before starting work on Minecraft," Persson admitted. "It's not gotten better by having a runaway hit like this. It would be nice to "kick back", but I'd just end up developing games again, so it kinda wouldn't change anything if I did that. I'm still genuinely developing Minecraft out of passion for the game. If that ever changes, I probably SHOULD hand over the reins to someone else."
Eventually he goes on to offer hopeful game designers advice, saying that they should start making games just to get used to it. "Focus on the details," he said. "What makes a jump animation feel good? What is a good main menu? Try to finish a few projects. The language you choose only matters once it comes to distribution. If you want to end up on consoles, you pretty much have to write the game in C or some variant thereof."
Persson said he got into programming after his father purchased a Commodore 128 for the family when he was seven years old. He essentially took over the computer and started learning the language of code after subscribing to an unspecified computer magazine. "We get most of our entertainment (movies and tv series) in English with Swedish subtitles, so we learn English pretty fast," he added. "We also learn it in school from a young age."
And how did he lure in the initial players? After all, Minecraft doesn't use the traditional means of advertisement. "I posted about the game on a few forums I used to frequent, and people from there started playing it," he said.
Nearly 2 million paying customers later, Persson and his team are sitting on a pile of money with no end to the revenue in sight. To read the full unofficial Q&A, head over to the Reddit thread here.
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...he really is a good guy, with a good heart. he comes off as very humble, i think he deserves these riches, even if minecraft isn't a completely original idea. i bought it in alpha, and played for a few weeks before getting bored. was it worth $10? hell fukin yes.
I think you need to double check your sources on that. There is a free version which can only be played online in the browser, but it gives you a good idea as to what the game is about. That's how I evaluated it before I opted to get addicted, erm, I mean buy it.
Awesome game, well worth the money and will provide years of fun with online servers.
Yeah, the free version is nothing at all like the paid version.
This is why i built a high end gaming machine
^This
Paid version is SO much better... been playing it for 4 months now... best ~$17.50 I have spent on a computer game, imho....
Anyway, one topic: I was just playing it a couple of hours ago, then saw a picture of it on the side of the screen while browsing Tom's Hardware and was like "Whuh...? Didn't expect to see that here." But yea, epic game!
And is why I am planning on getting a decent laptop soon
My POS laptop with a Turion Intel processor and integrated graphics can play this. You don't need anything near a good computer.
Turion is AMD, silly. There is no Turion Intel CPU.
What about "regular" pc games? Surely there are way more people addicted to those games than minecraft. Is that crap too?
And one rich Markus Persson.
And did I contribute? Hell. Yes.
There was also a weekend during alpha where you could download the full game for free because the paypal service wasn't working or some odd thing. (only reason I remember is because this is when I bought the game)
Despite the obvious trolling ... Yeah, its so stupid compared to spending hours playing soldier in CoD or watching television.
Personally, I love this game, but I can see how some people just don't have the mindset for it, just like I don't care for the CoD series. If you don't like games that don't have a clear goal or are able to be 'won' it's not going to be for you. Just like some people like to play with a random box of legos whereas others need a specific lego kit with instructions how to build what's on the front of the box and others don't like legos at all.