Minecraft? More Like Cashcraft!

Post by Steve Farrelly @ 09:37am 07/04/11 | 33 Comments

Minecraft creator and indie game design sensation, Notch, recently utilised Reddit for a "Ask Me Anything" session, where it was revealed his game made quite a bit of money during its Alpha stage, and then even more once it had gone Beta.

According to Gamasutra, in the alpha stage, at €9.95 a pop, Notch moved around 800,000 units of the game, then, once it was out in full Beta force at €14.95, he moved more than 1 million units, meaning, in Australian dollar terms, he collected some AU$31 million for his indie sensation.

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Latest Comments

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E.T.
Posted 09:39am 07/4/11

Oh crap.

I hope he does something good with his money

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Eorl
Posted 09:41am 07/4/11

Steve, it hasn't actually gone "gold" or "retail" yet. It's still in beta, with the 9.95 being alpha price, and 14.95 being beta price.

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Steve Farrelly
Posted 09:58am 07/4/11

Oops, cheers Eorl

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Eorl
Posted 09:59am 07/4/11

No problem :) That is a crap load of money though, and hopefully he doesn't blow it on game ideas that may not work.

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DM
Posted 10:01am 07/4/11

Good on him. I love minecraft and it's proof to all the devs that graphics and technology mean d*** when you don't have a good idea behind the game to hook players.

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Pinky
Posted 10:07am 07/4/11

Well done to him. If I had that kind of money I'd ask Charlie Sheen for some financial advice.

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 10:11am 07/4/11

Spend the money to be infused with Tiger Blood.

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CHUB
Posted 10:17am 07/4/11

Good on him. I love minecraft and it's proof to all the devs that graphics and technology mean d*** when you don't have a good idea behind the game to hook players.

He didn't invent the idea, he took it from another game and expanded it. The best part about minecraft, the block/mining aspect, was already developed prior to Notch making his massive amount of money.

So in that sense I don't really give him too much credit.

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E.T.
Posted 10:23am 07/4/11

Far out Chub, I hadn't heard about that before now. What was the original concept called and who developed it?

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CHUB
Posted 10:27am 07/4/11

It was called Infiniminer.

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Infiniminer

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Outlaw
Posted 10:34am 07/4/11

I really can't see what all the fuss is about. Looks incredibly boring.

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E.T.
Posted 10:35am 07/4/11

Wow. So, apparently Infiniminer had stopped being developed and the source code was released. This being the case, anyone could pick up the original source code a develop their own version of the game without copyright issues. After all, thats what Notch did !?

Ausminecraft, here we come :) Game needs uranium.

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Nerfington
Posted 10:41am 07/4/11

Maybe I could make one playable straight from the browser in html5 and be rich... >_>

Mostly kidding, though I suspect a html5 engine I've built could do that if I implemented some depth-sorting rendering tricks in my renderer.

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BillyHardball
Posted 10:44am 07/4/11

What's minecraft? I've heard people talking about it a bit lately.

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CHUB
Posted 10:46am 07/4/11

That's why I don't buy into Notch being this "design genius". The major things he expanded upon in Minecraft from Infiniminer were weapons + mobs, both of which were horribly implemented and add nothing of value.

The whole building things with blocks wasn't his idea, he basically jazzed up the textures, added new object types and his main original idea (survival/enemies) is a failure.

Then again I'm just bitter :)

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Nathan
Posted 11:51am 07/4/11

The whole building things with blocks wasn't his idea, he basically jazzed up the textures, added new object types and his main original idea (survival/enemies) is a failure.

I think his success with Minecraft is a great example that some things are much more than the sum of their parts, because what you say is very true and yet somehow its been incredibly successful in spite of - or perhaps even because of - its shortcomings.

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Mantorok
Posted 12:42pm 07/4/11

Hey Nathan, any chance you could sort out the Ausgamers Minecraft server?

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copuis
Posted 12:51pm 07/4/11

+1 for sorting out the server

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myWhiteWolf
Posted 12:57pm 07/4/11

main original idea (survival/enemies) is a failure.

failure using what metric? I really like the survival mode, as it gave life to the game instead of just building for the sake of building.

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paveway
Posted 12:57pm 07/4/11

the weapons/mobs weren't that great in the multiplayer

but it all worked fine in the single player

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CHUB
Posted 01:04pm 07/4/11

The design of the mobs just wasn't there, in less then 60 seconds and with only bare hands/dirt you can build a 100% secure shelter from all enemies.

There's so much potential for a challenging survival mode but his enemy design is just s***. The enemies can't tell a difference between a 2 block high dirt wall and a 50 block high stone castle, it's irrelevant.

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WetWired
Posted 01:05pm 07/4/11

Now he needs to finish the game, it needs a substantial amount of more content and all we seem to get are these tiny incremental updates, wolves, yay.

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SwissCM
Posted 01:50pm 07/4/11

The design of the mobs just wasn't there, in less then 60 seconds and with only bare hands/dirt you can build a 100% secure shelter from all enemies.

There's so much potential for a challenging survival mode but his enemy design is just s***. The enemies can't tell a difference between a 2 block high dirt wall and a 50 block high stone castle, it's irrelevant.

Spiders can climb walls. Also, while you can make a secure fort there is still the issue of gathering and mining for resources which means going underground where there are plenty of enemy mobs, and you can't tell me that the Creeper hasn't become a popular character, even to the point of being a meme.

last edited by SwissCM at 13:50:42 07/Apr/11

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myWhiteWolf
Posted 01:58pm 07/4/11

and you can't tell me that the Creeper hasn't become a popular character, even to the point of being a meme.

that bastard has ruined more bases of mine than any griefing.

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CHUB
Posted 02:01pm 07/4/11

Spiders can climb walls.

Will they climb over a wall completely covered in light?

I haven't played for a few months.

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copuis
Posted 04:03pm 07/4/11

chub, they treat everything as is it is a ladder, however sand and sandstone are unclimbable (i think), or overhangs,

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 05:38pm 07/4/11

This minecraft dude should buyouy the Dwarf Fortress guys and hire in a couple of gun 3D artists and texture dudes and smash out an awesome game.

Through in a bit of nethack too just for good measure.

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Thundercracker
Posted 07:21pm 07/4/11

Dwarf fortress is such a great concept, and deep down is also a pretty solid game. But it is also so flawed in many ways.

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Dazhel
Posted 08:49pm 07/4/11

Dwarf fortress is such a great concept, and deep down is also a pretty solid game. But it is also so flawed in many ways.

Being more obscure than a f*****g perl script written by Charlie Sheen is a big flaw imho.

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Mantorok
Posted 11:11am 08/4/11

Some info on what's coming for Minecraft in the next update: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/4423138657/11-11-11

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Thundercracker
Posted 12:04pm 08/4/11

Being more obscure than a f*****g perl script written by Charlie Sheen is a big flaw imho.

I remember starting the 20+ part youtube tutorial >.<

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carson
Posted 12:17pm 08/4/11

I played it when it was free, but haven't touched it since (early alpha).

How does the MP work on the AGN server?

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Dazhel
Posted 12:47pm 08/4/11

I remember starting the 20+ part youtube tutorial >.<

Hehe.
Minecraft had a 1 part youtube tutorial:

"oh... I can make a work box... ooh and I can make a pick too ...awesome, a link to the crafting wiki page" *click*

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