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[lansing]

http://texyt.com/minecraft+persson+notch+indie+game+success+00127

Go Notch!


edit: see also http://m00d.net/minecraft/sales/

[iffi]

That is... a lot of sales. o_O
I had the impression that it would sell well (even though I personally don't really like it), but that's much more than I was expecting.

[lansing]

http://psychochild.org/?p=999

"In a Twitter update, I wrote: "Short take: interesting, but not purchasing it." It's not that it's a bad game, but if I'm going to spend hours making something I should probably focus on something that keeps rent paid and food available. I've got more game ideas than lifespan to make them in at this point, and I want to do my own work. As a result, I usually don't get deep into sandbox type games. I enjoyed playing Minecraft over the weekend, but I can't justify spending a lot more time on the game."

I somewhat agree with this, I did buy minecraft and after 30 minutes of playing it I thought "what the hell am I doing with my life digging virtual holes in the ground?", I guess it's all about balance.

[phubans]

Honestly, that's just ridiculous. I mean, I'd be pretty happy to make that much off a game in it's lifetime and split it with someone... But to earn $250k a day all to yourself... That's... I don't really have words for it. I'm kinda jealous, kinda disgusted, kinda hoping that he'll use some of the money to help the indie community. I haven't played the game but judging by the graphics alone it doesn't really appeal to me. All the more reason to regret all my projects that had potential getting dropped :/

[Chris Whitman]

I understand he's putting together a studio with the money.

So yes, jobs and awesome games: these are basically the best ways to help the community.

[deathtotheweird]

Honestly, that's just ridiculous. I mean, I'd be pretty happy to make that much off a game in it's lifetime and split it with someone... But to earn $250k a day all to yourself... That's... I don't really have words for it. I'm kinda jealous, kinda disgusted, kinda hoping that he'll use some of the money to help the indie community. I haven't played the game but judging by the graphics alone it doesn't really appeal to me. All the more reason to regret all my projects that had potential getting dropped :/

It's a good game and all, I sure enjoyed it. But it does make me sad for other game developers who are having such a much harder time and have games that are much more interesting.

A good way he could help other indies is by doing a sale with his game in it. Maybe participating in one of those indie bundles??

[Ashkin]

So... Much... Money. I'm happy for him, and I feel he deserves it, but I do hope he does something beneficial to others with the money... He should run a charity run: One week in which all proceeds go to charity. Or TIGsource.

[Alec S.]

I would argue that one indie game selling well is, in itself, good for indie games in general.  What we need is more people who've purchased and enjoyed an indie game, as those are now people who will be looking towards the indie scene for their games.  Many of those people who bought Minecraft may not have been paying much attention to the indie game scene before, or may not have thought to buy an indie game.  And this might have made them more interested in buying more indie games in the future, which is a good thing.

[Mipe]

I believe this will encourage more people to develop games. I mean, a lifetime worth of moolah within ONE day?

Expect a surge of "HOW DO I MAEK GAM" posts, closely followed by "I want to make a game like Minecraft" stuff.

I, for one, feel encouraged to try that idea that had been rolling around within my mind for quite a while. But alas, time and commitment.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm a bit jealous too since i make about $200 a month on immortal defense sales and was the one who suggested the name "minecraft" to him when he was asking for names of it, and didn't even get a free copy of the game out of it

i think there's a lot to learn from how this game is sold though, how it was marketed and promoted can be emulated by other indie developers. i think it was a combination of a popular something awful thread on it and a valve blog post on it that started the snowball effect: so perhaps getting mainstream game developers to notice and mention indie games occasionally would be a good thing to go for

another thing is involving the community in a game's development (having frequent updates and reading people's requests) seems to help a lot: i don't think the game would sell as well if he just released it when it was finished and weren't being continuously updated

one thing i think he could do to help the community out would be to promote tigsource on his site or something; like currently the minecraft forums are 10x as big as the tigsource forums, so a mention in his blog that there are other indie games too that they may want to check out here couldn't hurt

another thing that i should note is that minecraft has now exceeded the sales of many mainstream games. for instance, persona 4 only sold 110,000 copies in the west, and i believe minecraft either has or is about to exceed that number. i think it has also sold more or about as much as cult classics like ico and psychonauts and planescape torment (they were all in the 100k range if i remember).

[unsilentwill]

The reason for the sales is because this is a very well designed games that attracted a large community. Then, everyone (except that guy) who has played it has bought it and immediately suggested all of their friends buy it. Seriously, I have been trying to get my friends to stop talking about it before everyone on campus is playing it and losing GPA.

It is an indie miracle: the dream game that everyone has thought of actually comes out and satisfies the creative adventurer in everyone who loves games.

[Ashkin]

one thing i think he could do to help the community out would be to promote tigsource on his site or something; like currently the minecraft forums are 10x as big as the tigsource forums, so a mention in his blog that there are other indie games too that they may want to check out here couldn't hurt

Wait, do you WANT all those twelve year-olds (No, they're not ALL twelve year-olds, but many are rather immature) to come over here? No. Nuh-uh. Never.
If only we could filter the nice, intelligent people out of their community and into ours...

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

sure, i want more people to play indie games, no matter what their attitude or age. i don't necessarily want their bad behavior, but i think the good of gaining more members outweighs the bad. i think our goal should be to make tigsource bigger than kotaku and joystiq combined.

[phubans]

I believe this will encourage more people to develop games. I mean, a lifetime worth of moolah within ONE day?

Expect a surge of "HOW DO I MAEK GAM" posts, closely followed by "I want to make a game like Minecraft" stuff.

I, for one, feel encouraged to try that idea that had been rolling around within my mind for quite a while. But alas, time and commitment.

Yeah, well it's already bad enough that everybody these days is already like "OMG I WANT 2 MAEK GAM LOL". At least for me, because it's been my dream to "maek gam" since I was 7 years old, and I'm now 29. It's why I left my entire life, family and friends 2700 miles behind to move out to California. When I was in highschool, I didn't know a single soul who wanted to do this, that was in the late 90s.

Suddenly, EVERYONE wants to make games, and the people who are really passionate about it just kind of slip into obscurity among the sea of countless other "indie game developers"... It's depressing. I've lost my individuality and the only redeeming quality about myself; that I was a good game designer. Now that's a dime-a-dozen title, apparently, which is the truth behind why I'm so jealous and bitter when I see other people succeeding at it.

[Gnarf]

i'm a bit jealous too since i make about $200 a month on immortal defense sales and was the one who suggested the name "minecraft" to him when he was asking for names of it, and didn't even get a free copy of the game out of it

Activision Blizzard invented the word "craft" and he's going to need them money when they sue. So if you want you can think of it like also you fucking got him.


Good on him, anyway. It's a pretty cool game. (And sure, there are other games that are maybe even cooler yet make less money and so on, but out of all the games that do pretty well, Minecraft isn't one I'd complain about.)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there are non-blizzard games with -craft: gemcraft for instance. so i don't think it'll be a problem

[Gnarf]

Yes yes. Was not serious concern.

[Christian Knudsen]

Notch basically won the lottery. There's no way the massive success of Minecraft can be planned or rationalized. Sure, it's a great game, I guess (I haven't personally played it, but seen a bunch of videos of people playing and read countless threads, but am intentionally staying away from it for fear of losing countless productive hours into a black hole), but there are plenty of equally great games out there. Sometimes attention and the Internet collective just comes together to create this critical mass kinda thing. It's really interesting, but I don't think people should try to pick apart what's happened in an attempt to rationalize or copy what's happened here. I think the only lesson that can be learned from this is to make games that you think are fun and that you believe in. Don't try to copy other people's success.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

oh, i don't think the game should be copied, but i do think the way it spread can be learned from. for instance, i heard notch once gave coupons to everyone who bought the game that they can give to a friend to get the game for a discount: why don't more indie developers do things like that?

also, in a more general sense it shows that the public have an appetite for sandbox games where you can build stuff in and affect the environment, and i'm sure more games where you can do that will start popping up now, and perhaps those devs would have very unique/interesting takes on the 'affect your environment and build stuff' idea; it's at least a genre that could be explored more

perhaps, too, the mainstream industry will sit up and take notice of a game that cost almost nothing to make and made more money than many of the games they spent millions developing, and learn something from indies

[Christian Knudsen]

True, true.