Minecraft is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios.

The game was created by

Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early
private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being fully released
in November 2011, with Notch stepping down and Jens "Jeb" Bergensten taking over
development. Minecraft is the best-selling video game in history, with over 238 million
copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players as of 2021 and has been
ported to several platforms.

In Minecraft, players explore a blocky, procedurally generated, three-dimensional world

with virtually infinite terrain and may discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and
items, and build structures, earthworks, and machines. Depending on their chosen game
mode, players can fight hostile mobs, as well as cooperate with or compete against
other players in the same world. Game modes include a survival mode (in which players
must acquire resources to build in the world and maintain health) and a creative mode
(in which players have unlimited resources and access to flight). There is also a wide
variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, skins, texture packs,
and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities.

Minecraft has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and later being cited as
one of the greatest video games ever created. Social media, parodies, adaptations,
merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions played prominent roles in
popularizing the game. The game has also been used in educational environments to
teach chemistry, computer-aided design, and computer science. In 2014, Mojang and
the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion.
Several spin-offs have also been made, including Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft
Dungeons, Minecraft Earth, and the most recent release Minecraft Legends.

== Gameplay ==

Minecraft is a 3D sandbox game that has no required goals to accomplish, allowing

players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. However, there is
an achievement system, known as "advancements" in the Java Edition of the game, and
"trophies" on the PlayStation ports. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by
default, but players have the option of a third-person perspective. The game world is
composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes and fluids, and commonly called
"blocks"—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and
lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These
blocks are arranged in a 3D grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players
can "mine" blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things. Many
commentators have described the game's physics system as unrealistic. The game also
contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical
devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many
complex systems.

The game world is virtually infinite and procedurally generated as players explore it,
using a map seed that is obtained from the system clock at the time of world creation
(or manually specified by the player). There are limits on vertical movement, but
Minecraft allows an infinitely large game world to be generated on the horizontal plane.
Due to technical issues when extremely distant locations are reached, however, there is
a barrier preventing players from traversing to locations beyond 30 million blocks from
the center. The game achieves this by splitting the world data into smaller 16 by 16
sections called "chunks" that are only created or loaded when players are nearby. The
world is divided into biomes ranging from deserts to jungles to snowfields; the terrain
includes plains, mountains, forests, caves, and bodies of water or lava. The in-game
time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time
minutes.

When starting a new world, players must choose one of five game modes, as well as
one of four difficulties, ranging from "Peaceful" to "Hard". Increasing the difficulty of the
game causes the player to take more damage from mobs, as well as having other
difficulty-specific effects. For example, the Peaceful difficulty prevents hostile mobs
from spawning, and the Hard difficulty allows players to starve to death if their hunger
bar is depleted. Once selected, the difficulty can be changed, but the game mode is
locked and can only be changed with cheats.

New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of 9 possibilities,
including Steve or Alex, but the option to create custom skins was made available in
2010. Players encounter various non-player characters known as mobs, such as
animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and
chickens, can be hunted for food and crafting materials. They spawn in the daytime,
while hostile mobs—including large spiders, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during
nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies,
skeletons and drowned (underwater versions of zombies), burn under the sun if they
have no headgear. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an
exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the
ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). There are also variants of mobs
that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned
variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively.Minecraft has two alternative
dimensions besides the Overworld (the main world): the Nether and the End. The Nether
is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via player-built obsidian portals; it contains
many unique resources and can be used to travel great distances in the Overworld, due
to every block traveled in the Nether being equivalent to 8 blocks traveled in the
Overworld. Water cannot exist in the Nether, as it will vaporize instantly. The Nether is
mainly populated by pigman-like mobs called piglins and their zombified counterparts,
plus floating balloon-like mobs called ghasts. The player can also build an optional boss
mob called The Wither out of materials found in the Nether.

The End is reached by underground portals in the Overworld. It consists of islands

floating above a dark, bottomless void. A boss dragon called the Ender Dragon guards
the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which upon
entering cues the game's ending credits and a poem (the "End Poem") written by Irish
novelist Julian Gough. Players are then teleported back to their respawn point and may
continue the game indefinitely.

=== Game modes ===

==== Survival mode ====

In survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone
found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the
difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character,
requiring players to build a shelter at night. The mode also has a health bar which is
depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation,
and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by
eating food in-game (except in peaceful difficulty). If the hunger bar is depleted,
automatic healing will stop and eventually health will deplete. Health replenishes when
players have a nearly full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful difficulty.Players can
craft a wide variety of items in Minecraft. Craftable items include armor, which mitigates
damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or axes), which allows monsters and
animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or hoes), which break
certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the
material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable.
Players can construct furnaces, which can cook food, process ores, and convert
materials into other materials. Players may also exchange goods with a villager (NPC)
through a trading system, which involves trading emeralds for different goods and vice
versa.The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of
items. Upon dying, items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is
reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default
is where players first spawn in the game and can be reset by sleeping in a bed (in the
overworld) or using a respawn anchor(in the Nether). Dropped items can be recovered if
players can reach them before they disappear or despawn after 5 minutes. Players may
acquire experience points by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores,
breeding animals, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools,
armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have
other special effects.

==== Creative mode ====

In creative mode, players have access to nearly all resources and items in the game
through the inventory menu and can place or remove them instantly. Players can toggle
the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters do not take
any damage and are not affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on
building and creating projects of any size without disturbance.

==== Other game modes ====

Minecraft includes other game modes such as spectator mode, which allows players to
fly through blocks. Hardcore mode is a survival mode variant in which, upon death, the
player may only view the world in spectator mode or return to the game’s menu. This is
only available in Java edition, however. Adventure mode is a survival mode variant with
possible restrictions added by a creator of a map.

=== Multiplayer ===

Multiplayer in Minecraft enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each
other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, LAN
play, local split screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted).
Players can run their own servers, use a hosting provider, or connect directly to another
player's game via Xbox Live. Single-player worlds have local area network support,
allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server
setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to
server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators
can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or
disallowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with
some servers having their own unique rules and customs. The largest and most popular
server is Hypixel, which has been visited by over 14 million unique players. Player versus
player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. Many servers
have custom plugins that allow actions that are not normally possible.

==== Minecraft Realms ====

In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to

enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set
up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and
these servers do not use IP addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners
can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a
time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their
server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms
servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps.
Minecraft Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs,
and custom Minecraft maps. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for
cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added
through Realms starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to
come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang
released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch
support for Realms was released in July 2018.

=== Customization ===

The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a
variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced
a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture
packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a
variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays
of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of
mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as minimaps, waypoints, and durability
counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media.
While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse
engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official
frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource
packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can
also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) which often contain specific
rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added
an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were
created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version
1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new
advancements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags,
world generation settings, and biomes‌.The Xbox 360 Edition supports downloadable
content, which is available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs
usually contain additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in
its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combines texture
packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The
first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition
was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise.
Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition does not support player-made mods
or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario
franchise by Nintendo was released for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016. A
mash-up pack based on Fallout was announced for release on the Wii U Edition. In April
2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for
use with the Java Edition of the game. Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were
infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard
drive. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the
code would not be run or read by the game itself", and would only run when the image
containing the skin itself was opened.In June 2017, Mojang released an update known
as the "Discovery Update" to the Bedrock version of the game. The update includes a
new map, a new game mode, the "Marketplace", a catalogue of user-generated content
that gives Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game", and more.

== Development ==

Before coming up with Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer with
King through March 2009, at the time serving mostly browser games, during which he
learnt a number of different programming languages. He would prototype his own
games during his off-hours at home, often based on inspiration he found from other
games, and participated frequently on the TIGSource forums for independent
developers. One of these personal projects was called "RubyDung", a base-building
game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but as an isometric three dimensional game like
RollerCoaster Tycoon. He had already made a 3D texture mapper for another zombie
game prototype he had started to try to emulate the style of Grand Theft Auto:
Chinatown Wars. Among the features in "RubyDung" he explored was a first-person view
similar to Dungeon Keeper but at the time, felt the graphics were too pixelated and
omitted this mode. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, but
otherwise kept working on his prototypes.Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining
game first released in April 2009, sparked Persson's inspiration for how to take
"RubyDung" forward. Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay,
including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the
block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to
have RPG elements.The original edition of Minecraft, now known as the Java Edition,
was first developed in May 2009. Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early
version of Minecraft. The base program of Minecraft was completed by Persson over a
weekend in that month and a private testing was released on TigIRC on 16 May 2009.
The game was first released to the public on 17 May 2009 as a developmental release
on TIGSource forums. Persson updated the game based on feedback from the forums.
This version later became known as the Classic version. Further developmental phases
dubbed as Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev were released in 2009 and 2010.The first
major update, dubbed Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010. Although Persson
maintained a day job with Jalbum.net at first, he later quit in order to work on Minecraft
full-time as sales of the alpha version of the game expanded. Persson continued to
update the game with releases distributed to users automatically. These updates
included new items, new blocks, new mobs, survival mode, and changes to the game's
behavior (e.g. how water flows). To back the development of Minecraft, Persson set up
a video game company, Mojang, with the money earned from the game. Mojang
co-founders included Jakob Porser, one of Persson's coworkers from King, and Carl
Manneh, jAlbum's CEO.On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft was
entering its beta testing phase on 20 December 2010. He further stated that bug fixes
and all updates leading up to and including the release would still be free. Over the
course of the development, Mojang hired several new employees to work on the
project.Mojang moved the game out of beta and released the full version on 18
November 2011. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control
over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang
announced that they had hired the developers of the popular "Bukkit" developer API for
Minecraft, to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This acquisition also
included Mojang apparently taking full ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod which
enables the use of Bukkit, although the validity of this claim was questioned due to its
status as an open-source project with many contributors, licensed under the GNU
General Public License and Lesser General Public License.On 15 September 2014,
Microsoft announced a $2.5 billion deal to buy Mojang, along with the ownership of the
Minecraft intellectual property. The deal was suggested by Persson when he posted a
tweet asking a corporation to buy his share of the game after receiving criticism for
enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been
present in the EULA in the prior three years. According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl
Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if
Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies
including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated
on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's
Billionaires".Since the first full release of Minecraft, dubbed the "Adventure Update", the
game has been continuously updated with many major updates, available for free to
users who have already purchased the game. Early updates frequently introduced
gameplay-altering mechanics while more recent updates tend to enhance the game
through additional content or tweaks to existing features. The most recent major update
to the game was "The Wild Update", which released in June 2022 and added new
creatures, biomes, and items.The original version of the game was renamed to
Minecraft: Java Edition on 18 September 2017 to separate it from Bedrock Edition,
which was renamed to just Minecraft by the Better Together Update.The Bedrock Edition
has also been regularly updated, with these updates now matching the themes of Java
Edition updates. Other versions of the game such as the various console editions and
Pocket Edition were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and as such have not
received further updates.On 16 April 2020, a beta version of Minecraft implementing
physically based rendering, ray tracing, and DLSS was released by Nvidia on
RTX-enabled GPUs. The final version was released on 8 December 2020.

=== Minecraft: Pocket Edition ===

In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released for the Xperia Play on the
Android Market as an early alpha version. It was then released for several other
compatible devices on 8 October 2011. An iOS version of Minecraft was released on 17
November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft
acquired Mojang. The port concentrates on the creative building and the primitive
survival aspect of the game and does not contain all the features of the PC release. On
his Twitter account, Jens Bergensten said that the Pocket Edition of Minecraft is written
in C++ and not Java, due to iOS not being able to support Java. However, there now
exists a way to play Java Edition on both Android and iOS devices.On 10 December
2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In January 2017,
Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of
Pocket Edition. On 19 December 2016, the full version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition was
released on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

Pocket Edition was replaced by Minecraft: Bedrock Edition in 2017, enabling

cross-platform play with the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch Editions.

=== Legacy Console Editions ===

An Xbox 360 version of the game, developed by 4J Studios, was released on 9 May
2012. On 22 March 2012, it was announced that Minecraft would be the flagship game
in a new Xbox Live promotion called Arcade NEXT. The game differs from the home
computer versions in a number of ways, including a newly designed crafting system, the
control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and the ability to play with
friends via Xbox Live. The worlds in the Xbox 360 version are also not "infinite", and are
essentially barricaded by invisible walls. The Xbox 360 version was originally similar in
content to older PC versions, but was gradually updated to bring it closer to the current
PC version prior to its discontinuation. An Xbox One version featuring larger worlds
among other enhancements was released on 5 September 2014.Versions of the game
for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 were released on 17 December 2013 and 4
September 2014 respectively. The PlayStation 4 version was announced as a launch
title, though it was eventually delayed. A version for PlayStation Vita was also released
in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation versions were developed by 4J
Studios.On 17 December 2015, Minecraft: Wii U Edition was released. The Wii U version
received a physical release on 17 June 2016 in North America, in Japan on 23 June
2016, and in Europe on 30 June 2016. A Nintendo Switch version of the game was
released on the Nintendo eShop on 11 May 2017, along with a physical retail version set
for a later date. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo
announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition would be available for download
immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The
game is only compatible with the "New" versions of the 3DS and 2DS systems and does
not work with the original 3DS, 3DS XL, or the old 2DS.On 20 September 2017, the Better
Together Update was released on the Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile versions
of the game, which used the Pocket Edition engine to enable cross-platform play
between each of these versions. This version of the game eventually became known as
the Bedrock Edition. Shortly after, the Bedrock Edition was also ported to the Nintendo
Switch.

On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions
of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as Legacy
Console Editions.On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft
received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well.The PlayStation 4
version of Minecraft was updated in December 2019 and became part of the Bedrock
Edition, which enabled cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account.

=== Minecraft Education ===

Minecraft Education (known as Minecraft: Education Edition until December 2022) is an
educational version of the game, designed specifically for use in educational
establishments such as schools, and built off of the Bedrock Edition codebase. It is
available on Windows 10, MacOS, iPadOS, and ChromeOS. It includes a Chemistry
Resource Pack, free lesson plans available online, and two free companion applications:
Code Connection and Classroom Mode.An initial beta test was carried out between 9
June and 1 November 2016. The full game was then released on Windows 10 and
MacOS on 1 November 2016. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring
Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6
September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by
JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made
available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to
the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020.

=== Minecraft China ===

On 20 May 2016, Minecraft China was announced as a localized edition for China, where
it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang. The PC
edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released
on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The
PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile
version is based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 300
million players by November 2019.

=== Other PC versions ===

Apart from Minecraft: Java Edition, there are other versions of Minecraft for PC,
including Minecraft for Windows, Minecraft Classic, Minecraft 4K, and a version for the
Raspberry Pi.

==== Minecraft for Windows ====

Minecraft for Windows is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11

operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on
July 29, 2015.After nearly one and a half years in beta, Microsoft fully released
Minecraft for Windows on December 19, 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release
implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on
packs. This version has the ability to play with Xbox Live friends, and to play local
multiplayer with owners of Minecraft on other Bedrock platforms. Other features include
the ability to use multiple control schemes such as a gamepad, keyboard, or
touchscreen (for Microsoft Surface and other touchscreen-enabled devices). Virtual
reality support has been implemented, as well as the ability to record and take
screenshots in-game via the Windows built-in GameDVR.As of 7 June 2022, the Java
and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft for Windows were merged into a single title for
purchase; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other
version. Both game modes would otherwise remain separate.

==== Minecraft 4K ====

Minecraft 4K is a simplified version of Minecraft similar to the Classic version that was
developed for the Java 4K Game Programming Contest "in way less than 4 kilobytes".
The map itself is finite—composed of 64×64×64 blocks—and the same world is
generated every time. Players are restricted to placing or destroying blocks, which
consist of grass, dirt, stone, wood, leaves, and brick.

==== Raspberry Pi ====

A version of Minecraft for the Raspberry Pi was officially revealed at Minecon 2012. The
Pi Edition is based on an alpha version of Pocket Edition with the added ability of using
text commands to edit the game world. Players can open the game code and use the
Python programming language to manipulate things in the game world. It also includes
a scripting API to modify the game, and server software for multiplayer. The game was
leaked on 20 December 2012, but was quickly pulled off. It was officially released on 11
February 2013. Mojang stopped providing updates to Minecraft: Raspberry Pi Edition in
2016. It is preinstalled on Raspberry Pi OS and can be downloaded for free from the
official Minecraft website.

=== Music ===

Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel
Rosenfeld, better known as C418. The background music in Minecraft is instrumental
ambient music. On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft –
Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other
music not featured in the game. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft
as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld
released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which includes
the music that was added in later versions of the game. A physical release of Volume
Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs,
was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015. In addition
to Rosenfeld's work, other composers have contributed tracks to the game since
release, including Samuel Åberg, Gareth Coker, Lena Raine, and Kumi Tanioka.

=== Variants ===

For the tenth anniversary of the game's release, Mojang remade a version of Minecraft
Classic in JavaScript and made it available to play online. It functions much the same as
creative mode, allowing players to build and destroy any and all parts of the world either
alone or in a multiplayer server. Environmental hazards such as lava do not damage
players, and some blocks function differently since their behavior was later changed
during development.Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, there had been
collaboration between Mojang and The Lego Group to make a Lego brick-based
Minecraft game to be called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft
game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for
larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson had worked on the preliminary version
of this game, which he had named "Project Rex Kwon Do" based on the joke from
Napoleon Dynamite. Lego had greenlit the project to go forward, and while Mojang had
put two developers on the game for six months, they later opted to cancel the project, as
Mojang felt that the Lego Group were too demanding on what they could do, according
to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. The Lego Group had considered buying out Mojang to
complete the game, but at this point Microsoft made its offer to buy the company for
over $2 billion. According to the Lego Group's Ronny Scherer, the company was not yet
sure of the potential success of Minecraft at this point and backed off from acquisition
after Microsoft brought this offer to Mojang.

==== Virtual reality ====

Early on, Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a port of Minecraft. However,
after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled plans noting "Facebook
creeps me out." A community-made modification known as Minecraft VR was developed
in 2016 to provide virtual reality support to Minecraft: Java Edition oriented towards
Oculus Rift hardware. A fork of the Minecraft VR modification known as Vivecraft ported
the mod to OpenVR, and is oriented towards supporting HTC Vive hardware. On 15
August 2016, Microsoft launched official Oculus Rift support for Minecraft on Windows
10. Upon its release, the Minecraft VR mod was discontinued by its developer due to
trademark complaints issued by Microsoft, and Vivecraft was endorsed by the
community makers of the Minecraft VR modification due to its Rift support and being
superior to the original Minecraft VR mod. Also available is a Gear VR version, titled
Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7
September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 version of the game
would be getting PlayStation VR support in the same month. The only officially
supported VR versions of Minecraft are the PlayStation 4 version, Minecraft: Gear VR
Edition and Minecraft for Windows 10 for Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality
headsets.

== Reception ==

=== Critics ===

Early versions of Minecraft received critical acclaim, praising the creative freedom it
grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have
praised Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect
of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's
"blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". Reviewers also
liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance
between exploring and building. The game's multiplayer feature has been generally
received favorably, with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with
friends". Jaz McDougall of PC Gamer said Minecraft is "intuitively interesting and
contagiously fun, with an unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences".
It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world,
insofar as its basic game mechanics are logically analogous to computer
commands.IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up
multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Critics also said that visual glitches occur
periodically. Despite its release out of beta in 2011, GameSpot said the game had an
"unfinished feel", adding that some game elements seem "incomplete or thrown
together in haste".A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record,
called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it. Jim Rossignol of Rock
Paper Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative
8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a
series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. The Xbox 360
version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise
as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as
mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a
tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more
user-friendly. The Xbox One Edition was one of the best received ports, being praised for
its relatively large worlds.The PlayStation 3 Edition also received generally favorable
reviews, being compared to the Xbox 360 Edition and praised for its well-adapted
controls. The PlayStation 4 edition was the best received port to date, being praised for
having 36 times larger worlds than the PlayStation 3 edition and described as nearly
identical to the Xbox One edition. The PlayStation Vita Edition received generally
positive reviews from critics but was noted for its technical limitations.The Wii U version
received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for a lack of GamePad
integration. The 3DS version received mixed reviews, being criticized for its high price,
technical issues, and lack of cross-platform play. The Nintendo Switch Edition received
fairly positive reviews from critics, being praised, like other modern ports, for its
relatively larger worlds.Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from
critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were
disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as
well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticized.
After updates added more content, Pocket Edition started receiving more positive
reviews. Reviewers complimented the controls and the graphics, but still noted a lack of
content.

=== Sales ===

Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta
phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has
never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid
references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011,
Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with
800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta
version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16
million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become
the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014, the game had sold 17
million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. On 25 February
2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. By May 2019, 180 million copies
had been sold across all platforms, making it the single best-selling video game of all
time. The free-to-play Minecraft China version had over 300 million players by November
2019. By April 2021, Minecraft sold more than 238 million copies worldwide.The Xbox
360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first day of the game's release in
2012, when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online.
Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold upwards of a
million copies. GameSpot announced in December 2012 that Minecraft sold over 4.48
million copies since the game debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. In 2012,
Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most
played title on Xbox Live based on average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014, the
Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has
reached a figure of 21 million in sales. The PlayStation 3 Edition sold one million copies
in five weeks. The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted Minecraft
sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest
Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console. The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital
copies in Japan within the first two months of release, according to an announcement
by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of Minecraft were sold in
Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children
purchasing the PS Vita version. As of 2022, the Vita version has sold over 1.65 million
physical copies in Japan, making it the best-selling Vita game in the country. Minecraft
helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second
quarter.The game, including all of its versions, had over 112 million monthly active
players by September 2019. On its 11th anniversary in May 2020, the company
announced that Minecraft had reached over 200 million copies sold across platforms
with over 126 million monthly active players. By April 2021, the number of active
monthly users had climbed to 140 million.

=== Awards ===

In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In
December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best
Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as
well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the
"game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as
chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most
Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC
Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical
Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games
Festival and won the Grand Prize and the community-voted Audience Award. At Game
Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut
Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which
it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011,
Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the
Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that
opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the
award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In
2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the
GAME Award of 2011 category and Persson received The Special Award. In 2012,
Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game
category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013,
it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games
Awards. Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014.
In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016,
Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list.Minecraft was
nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It
was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to
Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the
2015 Kids' Choice Awards. In addition, the Java Edition was nominated for "Favorite
Video Game" at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards, while the game itself won the "Still
Playing" award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as the "Favorite Video
Game" award at the 2020 Kids' Choice Awards. Minecraft also won "Stream Game of the
Year" at inaugural Streamer Awards in 2022. The game later garnered a Nickelodeon
Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Video Game in 2021, and won the same
category in 2022 and 2023.

=== Controversies ===

==== 2014 EULA changes ====

Microsoft and Mojang announced in 2014 that it would be changing the Minecraft
end-user license agreement (EULA) to prohibit servers from accepting donations or
payments in exchange for the donating or paying players receiving in-game advantages
on such server, essentially banning servers from enacting "pay-to-win" (PTW) servers.
Mojang spokesperson Owen Hill provided examples of what it would and would not
allow, saying company would allow for pay-to-play servers in which a player is required
to pay a fee to access the server, or for cosmetic enhancements (such as in-game
costumes or pets), but that Mojang would be cracking down on paying to obtain
powerful swords or potions. The new crackdowns were supported by Persson, citing
him receiving multiple emails from parents of children who had spent hundreds of
dollars on servers. The Minecraft community and server owners, however, heavily
despised the new change in enforcement and protested en masse, which included
comparing Mojang to monolithic video game publishers like Electronic Arts and
Activision, gaming companies often criticized online for their highly restrictive digital
rights management and user license agreements. Many argued that the crackdown
would force smaller servers to close their doors, and some blamed the crackdown on
Mojang attempting to suppress competition for its own Minecraft Realms subscription
service.
==== Account migration ====

In 2020, Mojang Studios revealed that it would begin the process of requiring that
Microsoft accounts be used in order to log into the Java Edition of the game, and that
older Mojang Studios accounts would be sunsetted. The move to Microsoft accounts
also required Java Edition players to create Xbox network Gamertags. Mojang Studios
defended the move to Microsoft accounts by saying that improved security could be
offered, which included Java accounts being able to use two factor authentication,
players could block cyberbullies in chat, and improve parental controls. The community
responded with intense backlash against this announcement, particularly taking issue
to the various technical difficulties encountered in the process and how account
migration would be mandatory, even for those who do not play on servers. As of March
10, 2022, Microsoft requires all players to migrate in order to access the Java Edition of
Minecraft.

==== Java Edition chat reporting ====

In June 2022, Microsoft and Mojang Studios announced it would be releasing a player
reporting feature in all future builds of Java Edition. In earlier development builds,
players could report other players on multiplayer servers for sending messages that are
prohibited by the Xbox Live Code of Conduct; report categories included profane
language, substance abuse, hate speech, threats of violence, and nudity, though
Microsoft in later builds has since excluded the profane language category from the
player reporting feature. If a player was found to be in violation of Xbox Community
Standards, the player would be banned from all servers for a specific period of time or
permanently. The update containing the report feature (1.19.1) was released on 27 July
2022.Microsoft and Mojang Studios received substantial backlash and protest from
community members, one of the most common complaints being that banned players
would be forbidden from joining any server, even private ones. Others took issue to what
they saw as Microsoft increasing control over its player base and exercising censorship,
sparking some to dub the version "1.19.84", in reference to the novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four.

== Cultural impact ==

In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of (the
first two decades of) the 21st century, and in November 2019
Polygon called the game the "most important game of the decade" in its 2010s "decade
in review". In December 2019, Forbes gave Minecraft a special mention in a list of the
best video games of the 2010s, stating that the game is "without a doubt one of the
most important games of the last ten years." In June 2020, Minecraft was inducted into
the World Video Game Hall of Fame.Minecraft is recognized as one of the first
successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release
version to help fund development. As Minecraft helped to bolster indie game
development in the early 2010s, it also helped to popularize the use of the early access
model in indie game development.

Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit played a significant role in
popularizing Minecraft. Research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's
Annenberg School of Communication showed that one-third of Minecraft players
learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to
gain influence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain
screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos
includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of
works in popular culture. By May 2012, over four million Minecraft-related YouTube
videos had been uploaded. The game would go on to be a prominent fixture within
YouTube's gaming scene during the entire 2010s; in 2014, it was the second-most
searched term on the entire platform. By 2018, it was still YouTube's biggest game
globally.Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a
gaming video company that owns a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube.
The Yogscast is a British company that regularly produces Minecraft videos; their
YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at Minecon 2011 had the
highest attendance. Other well-known YouTube personalities include Jordan Maron,
who has created many Minecraft parodies, including "Minecraft Style", a parody of the
internationally successful single "Gangnam Style" by South Korean rapper Psy.
Minecraft's popularity on YouTube was described by Polygon as quietly dominant,
although in 2019, thanks in part to PewDiePie's playthrough of the game, Minecraft
experienced a visible uptick in popularity on the platform. YouTube later announced that
on 14 December 2021, the total amount of Minecraft-related views exceeded one trillion
since the game's inception in 2009.Minecraft has been referenced by other video
games, such as Torchlight II, Team Fortress 2, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat
Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, The Stanley Parable, FTL: Faster
Than Light, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the lattermost of which features a
downloadable character and stage based on Minecraft. It was also referenced by
electronic music artist deadmau5 in his performances. The game is also referenced
heavily in "Informative Murder Porn", the second episode of the seventeenth season of
the animated television series South Park.

=== Applications ===

The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in

the fields of computer-aided design (CAD) and education. In a panel at Minecon 2011, a
Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public
buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly
for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and
parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody
Sumter, said: "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning
to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to
be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and
RepRap.In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation
with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows
young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes
they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas
of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own
neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect
tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support
UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by
2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the
environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's
informal settlements and is in the planning phase. The Block by Block project is based
on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave
young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change
their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban
planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented
by the citizens were a template for political decisions.

In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in
Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the
flattest countries with the highest point at 171 metres (561 ft) (ranking as the country
with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft is around
192 metres (630 ft) above in-game sea level.Taking advantage of the game's
accessibility where other websites are censored, the non-governmental organization
Reporters Without Borders have used an open Minecraft server to create the
Uncensored Library, a repository within the game of journalism by authors from
countries (including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam) who have been
censored and arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building was
created over about 250 hours by an international team of 24 people.Despite its
unpredictable nature, Minecraft has become a popular game for speedrunning, where
players time themselves from being dropped into a new world to reaching The End and
defeating the Ender Dragon boss. Some the speedrunners use a combination of mods,
external programs, and debug menus, while other runners play the game in a more
vanilla or more consistency-oriented way.

==== Education ====

Minecraft has also been used in educational settings. In 2011, an educational

organization named MinecraftEdu was formed with the goal of introducing Minecraft
into schools. The group works with Mojang to make the game affordable and
accessible to schools. The version of Minecraft through MinecraftEdu includes unique
features to allow teachers to monitor the students' progress within the virtual world,
such as receiving screenshots from students to show completion of a lesson. In
September 2012, MinecraftEdu said that approximately 250,000 students around the
world have access to Minecraft through the company. A wide variety of educational
activities involving the game have been developed to teach students various subjects,
including history, language arts and science. For an example, one teacher built a world
consisting of various historical landmarks for students to learn and explore. Another
teacher created a large-scale representation of an animal cell within Minecraft that
student could explore and learn how the cell functions work. Great Ormond Street
Hospital has been recreated in Minecraft, and it proposed that patients can use it to
virtually explore the hospital before they actually visit. Minecraft may also prove as an
innovation in computer-aided design. Minecraft offers an outlet of collaboration in
design and could have an impact on the industry.With the introduction of redstone
blocks to represent electrical circuits, users have been able to build functional virtual
computers within Minecraft. Such virtual creations include a working hard drive, an 8-bit
virtual computer, and even a smaller-scale version of Minecraft that is playable and able
to be built completely in survival mode with no external modifications. In at least one
instance, a mod has been created to use this feature to teach younger players how to
program within a language set by the virtual computer within a Minecraft world.Another
computational mechanic in Minecraft is the command block, a block that is only
accessible in creative mode and can alter game logic. It has been used to create
emulators for the Atari 2600 (including one by YouTube personality SethBling) and the
Game Boy Advance.In September 2014, the British Museum in London announced plans
to recreate its building along with all exhibits in Minecraft in conjunction with members
of the public. Microsoft and non-profit Code.org had teamed up to offer Minecraft-based
games, puzzles, and tutorials aimed to help teach children how to program; by March
2018, Microsoft and Code.org reported that more than 85 million children have used
their tutorials.

=== Clones ===

After the release of Minecraft, other video games were released with various similarities
to Minecraft, and some were described as being "clones". Examples include Ace of
Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, BlockWorld 3D, Total Miner, and
Minetest. David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his
2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in
Minecraft, which resulted in "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of the
alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has
been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of
the system. In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP,
various developers announced further clone titles developed specifically for Nintendo's
consoles, as they were the only major platforms to not officially receive Minecraft at the
time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival
(Cypronia), Discovery (Noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D
(Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). Despite this, the fears of fans
were unfounded, with official Minecraft releases on Nintendo consoles eventually
resuming.Markus Persson made another similar game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare
competition in 2011.

=== Minecon ===

Minecon is the annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first Minecon
was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The
event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by
Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits
by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and
autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from
the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with
the following years featuring annual livestreams instead.

== Notes ==

== References ==
=== Further reading ===

Gallagher, Colin (2014). Minecraft in the Classroom: Ideas, Inspiration, and Student
Projects for Teachers. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press. ISBN 978-0-13-385801-3.

Garrelts, Nate (2014). Understanding Minecraft: Essays on Play, Community and

Possibilities. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-7974-0.

Goldberg, Daniel (2013). Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the
Game That Changed Everything. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN
978-1-60980-537-1.

== External links ==

Official website

Minecraft Classic