The History of Minecraft

Marcos Jimgar

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The Beginning

Minecraft began being developed by Markus Persson, also known as Notch. Markus was a boy from Sweden who learned to program from a very young age in the Java programming language.

In 2009, Markus, inspired by a digging game, began the development of a game known at that time as CaveGame. His goal was to create a simple game about digging and building. The first versions of the game came out months after its announcement. At that time, it was a complete success; a lot of people liked the idea and loved to build and dig. As the weeks went by, the game kept updating, little by little adding basic content such as multiplayer, the food bar, monsters, and weather. Minecraft reached version 1.0 in 2011, setting the foundation we know today.

Over the Years

Over the years, Minecraft continued to update and release content requested by the community. A great factor that made the game well-liked was how it listened to its community. While they continued to work on the game, Notch, who already had a team of 10 developers (mainly friends), created the company that would continue to hold the rights to Minecraft to this day, Mojang Studios. This company aimed to bring together developers, illustrators, and programmers for the game.

The Sale of Minecraft

As the years passed, Minecraft continued to grow, but its creator, Notch, began to give up on his creation. The game consumed too much of his life, and he could no longer handle such a large project.

From one day to the next, Notch sold Mojang to Microsoft for €19 billion in 2014.

The Fall of Minecraft

For the first time, the Minecraft community was fractured and divided into several groups with different opinions. The sale of Mojang and Notch's abandonment of the community led many people to leave the game. On top of that, during those years, there were no significant updates with new content, making everything feel bland and empty. This greatly affected Mojang.

The Return of Minecraft in 2017

Out of nowhere, YouTubers like PewDiePie uploaded videos playing Minecraft, making the game relevant again in the industry. Along with series like Karmaland 4, which revived the game's popularity, updates such as 1.13 and 1.14 helped bring the community back to this great game.

Another great help in this revival was the modding community, as mods were heavily used in these series.

Stability

Minecraft remained stable for about four years, with updates and no major controversies. However, everything changed with update 1.17. Initially, it was supposed to include major new content, but Mojang later announced that it would be split across multiple updates. This did not upset the community much at the time.

However, everything fell apart in update 1.19. This update only added discarded and uninteresting features, and some promised content, such as fireflies, was removed from the game for questionable reasons.

The Present

That brings us to update 1.21. There are high expectations for this update, but if Mojang continues making these types of decisions, the same thing that happened in 2014 may happen again—a total drop in popularity.

This would affect both players and content creators, directly and indirectly. Hopefully, Mojang will once again become the company it used to be.