Hey Sean, you might have heard of the new update on Minecraft that brings horses, but the log change actually brings something much more promising:
Changed the idea of mob difficulty
- Regional difficulty: The longer you spend in one area, the harder it gets
- Scales with difficulty – Items, enchants or AI improve with difficulty
Interesting. Minecraft PC has passed 10 million sales which is quite impressive. Combined with the Xbox 360 Minecraft, it is safe to say that Minecraft likely has more players than World of Warcraft. Minecraft has certainly outsold Starcraft 2.
Notch is in some Time poll lately. Game developers have to be asking, “What the hell? What is so different about this guy? Doesn’t he have enough attention?” Notch did do something game developers often do not do which is why he is where he is at today.
As Minecraft began to get popular (during the beta), Notch was regretting that he allowed the original alpha and beta buyers to get the full version and to get future updates for free. After all, wouldn’t he be getting more money if people had to buy the game and then pay for each DLC? As Minecraft’s success shows, this is not the case. Notch could have gone back on his word. He was highly tempted to do so. “But a promise is a promise,” he muttered.
The art of business is not about making a ‘better business model’ to squeeze more money from people like blood from a rock. The art of business is improving the lives of people. Unlike most relationships between gamers and the game companies, there is a higher level of trust between Minecraft gamers and Mojang. This is why you see so many Minecraft gamers put out so much stuff and generate content of their own. This reminds me of the relationship between gamers and Blizzard back in the day before Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.
It is not enough to succeed. You have to have people want you to succeed. The way how you do that is by making them believe you care about improving their lives or grateful that you did improve their lives.
Finally! A 3d Zelda that looks fun. You know why? It is because there is little emphasis on the goddamn puzzles and more on the monsters and swashbuckling. The amount of work people give away for free with Minecraft is very impressive and speaks of the faith the customers have in the product and the people behind it.