The mind behind Minecraft, Notch, has announced that Minecraft will be making the move from alpha to beta on December 20th. The change will come with a price rise and will mark a shift in development focus, with extra modding support and some story elements already in the works.
Writing on his blog , Notch outlined the additions he's planning for the Minecraft beta. "With Beta comes a larger focus on polish and content, and we'll start early on with adding proper modding support with a stable API", he says, adding "We'll also add some kind of non-intrusive narrative to the game to help drive the game experience early on, and to provide some kind of late game goal."
The price of Minecraft will also rise from 10 Euro to 14.75 Euro, and those who wait to buy the beta version won't necessarily get all future updates for free. "We will also change the license to remove the line that promises all future versions of the game for free. Please note that this change only affects people who buy the game after December 20, so if you got the game for during alpha, you will still get all future updates for free, despite this change. A promise is a promise. Buying the game during beta will include all updates up until release, of course, and bug patches will be free."
There's another Minecraft update planned before December 20th, which will add some fixes to the inventory system. To find out why you might want to grab a copy of the game before it hits beta, check out Tom's Minecraft adventures .
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Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.
