Minecraft revision
History and economic context:
- Minecraft is the most successful video game, recently outselling Tetris
- Created and designed by Markus Perrson, a game programmer, who also developed and published his game through his company Mojang. A full version of the game went onto release in 2011.
- Currently 176 million copies have been sold.
- Minecraft is a sandbox game. Its described as a virtual version of lego that involves simple instructions to play it. There are two game modes: creative or survival, although more editots have been created such as adventure and multi-player.
- Markus Persson started developing the game in 2009, it was initially seen as a niche game for people with expert knowledge of computers
- Without the commercial backing of a mainstream producer and no money spent on advertising, the game relied on word of mouth between gamers.
- Despite this by April 2011, the game already made an estimate $33 million, and in November after the games release, there was 16 million players and 4 million purchases.
2011-2014:
- In 2011, Minecraft was available on multiple platforms. Minecraft pocket edition was released
- By 2012, it was available on Xbox 360 and Xbox live
- Creating the original game on Java gave it the advantage of being cross platform: will run on windows, Mac OC X and Linux
- Microsoft bought Minecraft in 2014 for $2.5 billion
Industry:
How is the production, distribution and circulation of Minecraft affected by it being part of a specialised and Niche industry?
The industry is part and parcel of the technology world and so is fast-moving and developing more than any other. Its the simplistic and ruthless nature of Minecraft which seems to have maximum appeal across a range of audiences. It has become a globally successful phenomenon across all consoles and handheld devices; its now a multiplatform game across lots of devices which opens up new markets of profitability and increased exposure to new and existing audiences. However, modern versions of the game like Minecraft: story mode follows more of the recognizable institutional conventions of game development including tutorials.
Video Games started developing in late 1990's- graphics were improved with first person mode. Minecraft doesn't fit into the new developed gaming. It looks like it fits into the 1980's. This is because mine craft is so simplistic and rule less that it fits into simpler times. Its an open world exploration world with infinite play ability. It has a strong community, not limited by genre, fulfills human order to cause chaos in wilderness with a sense of imaginative and creativity.
What is the relationship between technological change and the production, distribution and circulation of Minecraft
In the original game, you didn't need a physical copy. When Xbox and Playstation versions were created, consumers got the game across Windows 10. This would promote Microsoft- users were encouraged to buy the game on cloud servers than physical copy which would incur more of the cost for the institution on the physical copy. Physical copies are often released after 6 months after the downloadable version, most likely to limit the impact of piracy, hacking and file sharing. Introduction to Minecraft realms (2013) has tried to give producers more control over distribution and circulation of the game since some pro-am consumers were creating their own virtual spaces and hacks across illegitimate servers e.g. Wizardhax.
Technological change=digital. (around 1995, TV and mobile phones converged and you can now watch videos, podcast and movies when your out and about).
Synergy- combining with other companies e.g. Nintendo.
How has Ownership affected Minecraft?
Mojang is now owned by Microsoft Studios. Other collaborations with game developers include telltale games who helped develop the Minecraft: story mode. The PlayStation versions were created by 4J Studios. When Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, Markus Persson said he wouldn't be developing a version with oculus because Facebook wasn't owned by grassroots game developers. However, when Microsoft bought out Mojang, plans to work on a VR version were renewed. The ideology of the game developers can often surrender their creative license to conglomerate to maximise profits.
How is Minecraft regulated and governed or monitored?
Regarded as being family-friendly and the initial Minecraft series was rated PEGI 7, however, the new series has a higher rating because of dialogue and narratives. Minecraft realms are promoted on specialised servers of Mojang and the terms and conditions are created i.e the player. There are stipulations by the company that they own everything created using blocks within these virtual worlds that accreditations for worlds and structures created by fans is not generated. In 2016, a market place was created for communities to trade maps, skins and texture packs.
Its placed PEGI 7 because of self regulation - mainly addiction in children which cause poor sleep and performance in school (terms and conditions).
Audiences:
The industry is part and parcel of the technology world and so is fast-moving and developing more than any other. Its the simplistic and ruthless nature of Minecraft which seems to have maximum appeal across a range of audiences. It has become a globally successful phenomenon across all consoles and handheld devices; its now a multiplatform game across lots of devices which opens up new markets of profitability and increased exposure to new and existing audiences. However, modern versions of the game like Minecraft: story mode follows more of the recognizable institutional conventions of game development including tutorials.
Video Games started developing in late 1990's- graphics were improved with first person mode. Minecraft doesn't fit into the new developed gaming. It looks like it fits into the 1980's. This is because mine craft is so simplistic and rule less that it fits into simpler times. Its an open world exploration world with infinite play ability. It has a strong community, not limited by genre, fulfills human order to cause chaos in wilderness with a sense of imaginative and creativity.
What is the relationship between technological change and the production, distribution and circulation of Minecraft
In the original game, you didn't need a physical copy. When Xbox and Playstation versions were created, consumers got the game across Windows 10. This would promote Microsoft- users were encouraged to buy the game on cloud servers than physical copy which would incur more of the cost for the institution on the physical copy. Physical copies are often released after 6 months after the downloadable version, most likely to limit the impact of piracy, hacking and file sharing. Introduction to Minecraft realms (2013) has tried to give producers more control over distribution and circulation of the game since some pro-am consumers were creating their own virtual spaces and hacks across illegitimate servers e.g. Wizardhax.
Technological change=digital. (around 1995, TV and mobile phones converged and you can now watch videos, podcast and movies when your out and about).
Synergy- combining with other companies e.g. Nintendo.
How has Ownership affected Minecraft?
Mojang is now owned by Microsoft Studios. Other collaborations with game developers include telltale games who helped develop the Minecraft: story mode. The PlayStation versions were created by 4J Studios. When Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, Markus Persson said he wouldn't be developing a version with oculus because Facebook wasn't owned by grassroots game developers. However, when Microsoft bought out Mojang, plans to work on a VR version were renewed. The ideology of the game developers can often surrender their creative license to conglomerate to maximise profits.
How is Minecraft regulated and governed or monitored?
Regarded as being family-friendly and the initial Minecraft series was rated PEGI 7, however, the new series has a higher rating because of dialogue and narratives. Minecraft realms are promoted on specialised servers of Mojang and the terms and conditions are created i.e the player. There are stipulations by the company that they own everything created using blocks within these virtual worlds that accreditations for worlds and structures created by fans is not generated. In 2016, a market place was created for communities to trade maps, skins and texture packs.
Its placed PEGI 7 because of self regulation - mainly addiction in children which cause poor sleep and performance in school (terms and conditions).
Audiences:
How
has Minecraft reached and maintained varieties of audiences nationally and
globally?
Early
on, the advertising of Minecraft was staggeringly cheap and simple, with much
of its success was due to word of mouth and audiences sharing their own mods
and game footage across web forums and video sharing sites such as YouTube.
This participatory culture is particularly present in the video game audience.
Different
versions of Minecraft were released to entice different audiences, moving away
from creation-only narratives to include story modes , spectator modes and multi-player
functionality across Minecraft Realms. Further developments included synergy eg the
introduction of a physical Lego set to encourage younger audiences as well as
merchandise opportunities and bonus content for buying more than one version of
the franchise across many platforms.
Culturally,
other developers and games studios have made intertextual references to
Minecraft across games such as Runescape and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to name
but a few; Lady Gaga, South Park and The Simpsons have also parodied Minecraft.
All of this benefits the game by heightening its exposure to audiences.
Diversification
and cross media: in 2022 there will be a joint venture with Warner Brothers to
release Minecraft the movie, this will be anticipated as having as much
commercial success as The Lego Movie, also a Warner Brothers Movie. No doubt,
there will be several spin-offs as a result of this.
Audience:
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