Here’s Why ‘Minecraft’ Is Becoming Cool Again
Minecraft has been around for almost 12 years, and that’s only counting the official years it’s been out. It would only be natural that the game has run its course and will die out soon enough. Minecraft has had its ups and downs through the years, but it always seems to bounce back up somehow, so how did it happen this time around? Why is Minecraft becoming cool again?
A bit of history
You, the person reading this, might not even know what Minecraft is, so let’s start with a bit of history. Minecraft started as a 6-day passion project of one Markus Persson, also known as Notch. It was coded in Java; back then, you could make a cobblestone house, break blocks, and that’s it.
Even with such a simplistic design, people took an interest and wanted to see the game thrive. Notch noticed this and began development to release the game officially. In its first year of existence, Minecraft accumulated 1 million USD in revenue and was a smashing success.
The community members helped advance the game, so it was always a joint community project, never just a project of one person or a team. In 2011, the game was officially released. Minecraft accumulated 15 million USD in revenue in that first year and sold 4.2 million units worldwide.
The success only grew further in the following years, and it seemed as if nothing could stop the game from becoming the giant it is today, but it happened. Sales dropped, and seemingly, Minecraft was dead. Notch stopped working on the game years ago and sold its shares of Mojang to Microsoft for 2.5 billion dollars. The player base was devastated and feared what would happen to the game.
The rise and fall of Minecraft
After Microsoft’s acquisition, the game’s original version (Java Edition) wasn’t updated for two years. Mojang and Microsoft were working on Pocket Edition Minecraft at that time. It seemed as if the player’s predictions were accurate. The game would eventually completely die out due to the Microsoft industry giant.
The acquisition happened in 2014, and the game slowly started to fade. In 2018, it hit an all-time low, but just a year later, in 2019, the game would be brought back to life by a YouTuber named Pewdiepie.
Pewdiepie’s Minecraft series
Pewdiepie was the equivalent of Mrbeast back then in terms of subscriber counts, so everybody hopped aboard the hype train when the Swedish gamer started playing Minecraft. Of course, it wasn’t just Pewdiepie that saved the game from its inevitable doom; it was all the hard-working players releasing content despite the game being pretty much dead.
So, we have YouTube to thank that Minecraft is what it is today, but not entirely. In the following years, Minecraft-related content would surpass a trillion views and 200 million copies sold worldwide. It wouldn’t have been possible for the game to reach such interesting highs if it wasn’t a good game that kept the player’s interest growing. So what makes the game so enjoyable to play?
Why is Minecraft fun
Well, for starters, Minecraft is a game with no limits. You can be as creative as you’d like or as logical as you’d like. If you like to imagine and build things, you might want to go for building in Minecraft. Getting the right materials and amounts can be challenging for players to obtain if they’re playing in survival mode.
If, on the other hand, you’re left side of the brain is stronger, you might be interested in creating challenging Redstone contraptions or perhaps even making modifications to the game that you’ll release on modding websites. If you like PvP games, Minecraft has that too, and if you want arcade games, the community members made them happen as well within the visual capabilities of Minecraft.
If you’d like to have acid rainfall, you can make it happen; if you’d like a natural disaster to hit your world, you can make it happen. You can make it happen if you want sharks and different mobs in the game. You are the only real limit to what you can do in Minecraft.
Third, the game’s goal is simple and easy to execute. Minecraft players stay in their worlds for years after doing what is considered the end game in Minecraft. There’s so much to do and so much effort and time to put into creating whatever you want. Visually and by today’s standards, it’s also a simple game in terms of graphics that can’t compare to other giants like Call of Duty, but that’s also partly why it’s cool.
Anyone can play the game no matter their computer, and anyone can get good at it as well. All you have to do is find your field of expertise and keep grinding at it.
The rise and fall of Minecraft part 2
What was considered the rise of Minecraft back in 2019 – YouTube also seems to be an indication of how Minecraft was doing in 2022. Views were down across all platforms, and it was thought that the game itself would run into the same faith. Although global revenue went down in 2021, and the trend continued in 2022, player counts haven’t gone down whatsoever. Last month, an average of 173 million people played Minecraft at least once.
Minecraft is a franchise, but it’s no secret that the game with the greatest success is the base version of the game. Players who have long forgotten about their worlds might be coming back to the game following the news that a new game is coming out, but what’s more likely is that the game is simply one that you eventually put on a shelf for it to collect dust. Still, you’ll always return to it since the game doesn’t limit you.
