Minecraft celebrates 15 years: From humble beginnings to a billion-dollar phenomenon!
Exactly 15 years ago, the first version of Minecraft was released to the public. Its creator, now 44-year-old Swedish developer Markus “Notch” Persson, didn’t believe in its success at first. Eventually, however, this seemingly simple title became a worldwide phenomenon.
Minecraft was developed by Mojang and launched on 17 May 2009. Notch, as the main creator calls himself, thought the game would be a complete flop due to its trivial graphics. This was because at the time, development studios were trying to offer the most realistic graphics possible, while Minecraft was made only of simple dice.
Notch even contemplated whether he should quit his steady and secure job and pursue development full time. In the end, it turned out to be the right decision. In 2014, the 30-year-old programmer turned his dream into a billion-dollar fortune. Minecraft’s popularity rose dramatically, and in 2014, as a result, the Swedish studio was bought by the US Microsoft for $2.5 billion (almost 57 billion CZK). Since its first release, approximately 300 million copies of Minecraft have been sold worldwide. In addition to traditional computers, the game is also available for game consoles, smartphones and tablets.
After selling the game studio, Notch went into seclusion. He left Mojang, saying that he “didn’t want to be responsible for such a large project and an ever-growing team of people”. He hasn’t left programming completely, however, and has been working on smaller projects in Sweden, but they haven’t achieved as much global success. So the modern history of Minecraft is being written under Microsoft’s tutelage, but they haven’t changed the basic concept. Even though new versions are released, the world of dice with simple graphics is still the main one.
However, in collaboration with Nvidia, an improved RTX version has been unveiled, which attracts more faithful graphics. The game supports ray tracing technology, i.e. various lighting effects and reflections.
Photo source: www.pexels.com
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