Notch: “No sane person can be for SOPA”
A growing chorus of developers, publishers and even congressmen are voicing their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act currently working its way through US Congress. Notch, creator of Minecraft, is one of those people.
Under existing legislation, the creators of copyright-infringing material can be sued by the copyright owners. SOPA would extend this liability to any site that carries the copyright-infringing material as well. If someone posts a film on Youtube, the film company that owns the film could sue Youtube for carrying it. If someone then links to the film on a forum, that would expose the forum provider to court injunctions from the copyright holders as well.
ISPs and search engine companies can gain immunity from prosecution by blocking sites accused of carrying pirated material, and as it’s unlikely that Google or Youtube would go to court to defend content creators they’re barely associated with, this would likely result in huge amounts of material being taken down based on the mere accusation of an infringement. This would have devastating implications for Minecraft’s thriving fan community, the e-sports streaming community, and any forum that posts screenshots or videos. Beyond gaming, it’s a scary bill for sites like YouTube and Reddit, too. You can read the bill in full here Read on for Notch’s take on the act.
Minecraft review
Minecraft, as if you’ve never heard of it, as if we haven’t been telling you to play it for years, as if we didn’t already give it Game of the Year in 2010, is a game about building things out of blocks with your friends.
The game world is rendered in cubes, every one of which can be destroyed, stored in your inventory, and placed back down anywhere you like. The map generates more terrain as you explore in a new direction, almost infinitely (you will run out of hard disk space at some point). That terrain is a quilt of discrete environmental regions, or biomes: as you travel, the thick forest you spawned in will give way to veldt or cliffs, or a desert peppered with cacti. You might reach the ocean, or a marsh clogged with exploding monsters and lily pads, or an ice floe leading to a wintry island.
Notch makes Minicraft in 48 hours for Ludum Dare
The latest Ludum dare competition challenged developers to create a game in 48 hours based on the theme “Alone.” Minecraft creatory Markus ‘Notch’ Persson has turned in his entry already. It’s called Minicraft, a top down, 2D take on Minecraft. You have to roam the world, punching trees, blocks and zombies in your way as you try to find the only other sentient being in the world, the Air Wizard, so you can kill him.
Notch steps down as Minecraft lead designer, plans to start new projects
Notch has mentioned on his blog that he’ll be handing over the Minecraft design reigns to Jens Bergensten, the Mojang developer who has been working alongside Notch on Minecraft for the last year. “He will have the final say in all design decisions, so he will kinda sorta become my boss,” says Notch. “I’ve promised him to not pull rank. ;)”
Team Fortress 2 gives Notch his own hat
When he’s not tweeting, Minecraft developer Markus “Notch” Persson loves to indulge in a little Team Fortress 2, according to his tumblr blog. He was recently invited to take part in the third TF2 Mixup, with famous Team Fortress 2 personalities such as Valve’s Robin Walker and YouTuber Freddie Wong blasting each other to bits.
Notch was enjoying the game, earning the Primeval Warrior medal, when suddenly he was awarded with his very own hat. It resembles Notch’s own visage, if it were made in Minecraft and then copied onto a cardboard box, and – so far – he’s the only owner. “I am never quitting TF2 again, and you should all go buy it right away,” said Notch. “How much is it, you ask? It’s FREE! YES!”
Minecraft’s Notch versus Yogscast: the story so far
Minecon wasn’t quite the Minecraft celebration developer Markuss “Notch” Persson was expecting. In fact, it’s the fallout that followed that’s put it in many gaming sites’ headlines – including Edge’s. It seems Notch and Minecraft-centric video podcast Yogscast had something of a falling out at the show.
Seemingly, it all comes down to Yogscast’s behaviour during Minecon. Notch started subtly without naming names, tweeting: “I’m very sorry about the behavior of the people we won’t work with any more. Celebrity or not, you don’t f-bomb kids.” This was rapidly followed up with, “Yes, Yogscast.”
Minecraft in insanely big numbers, 241 million logins a month, 11,000 skin downloads a second
If you haven’t got time to watch the 86 minutes of Minecon videos we posted earlier, here’s a brief guide to the kind of numbers involved in Minecraft.net, fresh from GameFront. You might want to prepare your eyes – these are some fairly hefty figures.
- There are 241,920,000 logins per month. That’s the equivalent of every person in Indonesia – the fourth most populous country on the planet – logging in.
- Some 1,000 people login per hour on average, with 4,000 people logging in per second after the 1.0 launch.
- Two billion files have been downloaded by the launcher. Two billion.
- In game, 11,000 skins are downloaded per second.
At the moment of writing, Minecraft has 16,804,266 registered users. 4,129,151 have bought the full game. It’s a good thing Minecraft doesn’t look like Crysis, as it would have broken the entire internet by now.
Minecon keynote and closing ceremony features Minecraft 1.0 and a marriage proposal
Notch pulled a giant ACTIVATE MINECRAFT lever on stage at Minecon this weekend, finally releasing Minecraft 1.0 into the wild. See that moment in Gamespot’s video of the Minecon keynote event. It also features Hat Films’ video retrospective, which takes a charming jaunt through Minecraft’s journey from a game about placing blocks into the phenomenon it is today full of netherworlds, villages, dragons and amazing multiplayer mega-builds.
The closing ceremony was also filmed by IGN, featuring a great big cheque for the Make a Wish foundation, and a man proposes on-stage 15 minutes in with the words “will you be my pork chop?” Does she say yes? Find out in the video below.
PCG PSA: Minecraft officially out of beta
Minecraft’s been stealing gamers’ time and replacing it with pure, unbridled joy for more than two years, but that – as they say – was only a test. Today at Minecon, Notch officially flipped the switch on the full release, showering streamers on an audience that’d probably kill just to touch a person who touched the rim of Notch’s hat.
As is only proper for newly launched games, Minecraft is now experiencing customary crippling server troubles due to extreme demand. Aaaaaw, they grow up so fast.
New Minecraft documentary trailer sneak peek—watch Notch code exploding arrows
Submitted for your delight, an exclusive clip of 2 Player Productions’ documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang. We’re thrilled to share this with you as a part of our special Minecraft episode of PC Gamer Digital, which hit Steam moments ago.
It’s really something to see Notch pick Minecraft apart in realtime. It’s like seeing the game face-up on a surgeon’s table, code exposed through a gaping chest cavity, as the kindest Swede in the world sifts its guts and tries to find a place to fit an organ that spews exploding arrows.
Look forward to the full film in Summer 2012. Follow its progress at 2playerproductions.com or by following the talented team on Twitter.
Minecraft 1.0 strikes gold, is officially complete
Among other things, Minecraft’s won countless awards, moved four million copies, and invented a whole new gaming genre. Pretty good for a game that’s not even finished, huh? In a few short (or – depending on the potency of your Minecraft addiction – unbearably long) days, however, the “beta” tag’s going into permanent retirement.
Today, Notch tweeted the modern classic’s latest milestone: “So, yes, Minecraft has gone gold. :D,” he said. That, of course, doesn’t mean he’ll suddenly stop building new bits onto his block-based masterpiece when the “final” version is released on Friday. There’s 1.1 to look forward to, after all. But everyone deserves a chance to pop some champagne and celebrate the fact that their twisted mind gave birth to the most frequent star of my nightmares. So then, next stop? Vegas.
Minecraft pre-release build includes Ender boss fight, download it now
Mojang have just released a new Minecraft 0.9 pre-release build, which is incredibly close to the final Minecraft 1.0 release, and even includes the boss fight. “Please help us test the ender fight in multiplayer as much as possible. :)” tweets Notch. Mojang dev Jens Bergensten tweeted a link to the latest pre-release build, which you can grab here.
Minecon will celebrate the release of Minecraft 1.0 next week. Mojang are almost ready. “Left to do: The new sounds, fixing bugs from this prerelease, some minor polishing. And we’ll do that on Sunday,” says Notch. “We’re getting closer…” says Jens.
Minecraft trailer teases Minecon with huge reconstruction of the Mandarlay building
Minecon kicks off next Friday in Las Vegas and Hat films have released the official Minecon trailer. A few weeks ago they launched a competition seeking character skins from their YouTube followers, which is where they got the spectacular outfits worn by the party guests. The Yogscast guys get a cameo, too, and it takes place in a fantastic boxy recreation of the Mandarlay Bay building, which you can download here and explore for yourself.
The Las Vegas event also marks the launch of Minecraft version 1.0, which is exciting. And it means we get to review Minecraft! The Hat films chaps made a making of video that goes behind the scenes on the massive Mandarlay build. You can watch that below.
Minecraft sells four million copies, “4milyay” says Notch
When the little sales ticker on the Minecraft homepage ticked over from 0 to 1, it no doubt dreamed of one day becoming seven numbers wide and bigger than all its friends. Minecraft passed the one million mark long ago, and has now climbed all the way up to the giddy heights of four million. More than sixteen million have registered to play the free version, and no doubt many more are waiting for Minecraft’s imminent release on November 18.
Minecraft creator, Notch mocked Twitter’s 140 character limit by recognising and celebrating the milestone in the space of just seven characters. “4milyay,” he Twittered. If you’re one of the four million Minecraft owners, you might be interested in our updated selection of the 25 best Minecraft mods.
Are you one of the seven odd billion remaining humans who hasn’t bought Minecraft? Are you tempted to get hold of it?
The 25 best Minecraft mods
Minecraft has the best modding community in the world. Despite no official mod tools being released, players are constantly expanding and adding an astonishing amount of new content.
We’ve tracked down the very best Minecraft mods to transform your game into something extra-amazing. This list combines the up to date mods from our previous installments and ten new ones into a list of the top 25 Minecraft mods the internet has to offer.
