In May 2009, the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios unveiled a simple PC title called Cave Game. Here players would explore a flat world filled only with cobblestone and grass in the form of pixelated, square blocks. The only gameplay for this title at the time involved destroying and placing these blocks. Little did Mojang or the gaming world know that Cave Game would quickly become a global phenomenon that millions still play to this day. That game is Minecraft.
Minecraft Fan Bakes the Game’s Cake in Real Life
Minecraft's cake texture easily stands out as one of the most iconic cakes in the world of gaming, and one creative fan crafts it up in real life.
Minecraft’s Humble Indie Origins
For gamers today, it may be hard to picture a world without Minecraft given its widespread appeal, easy accessibility, and diverse gameplay options, but it wasn’t completed in a few years like its AAA counterparts. Rather, it was a game that continuously evolved and was expanded upon as its players too grew over the years.
From 2009-2011 Minecraft was tested and expanded in Alpha and Beta forms. At first only other types of blocks were introduced, such as dirt blocks, but development quickly proceeded to creating the basic form of Minecraft many 2013 console players would be familiar with. Multiplayer allowed players from across the globe to see others' creations, basic animal mobs brought life to the blocky world, and trees became the bridge for the game’s namesake: crafting.
This process wasn’t without its challenges or happy accidents, however. Famously, Minecraft’s mascot mob, the creeper, was created by accident when a coding error caused a pig mob to stand vertically with all four legs at the bottom of its body. A slight color and face change and the addition of a explosive defensive mechanism, quickly made this coding error into a gaming icon that causes instantaneous fear for millions of players.
Minecraft's Expanded Adventure
Beyond expanding the world and crafting capabilities in these three years, several original concepts were introduced to the game. While players had to fight against zombies, skeleton archers, and spiders at night, with a few blocks of obsidian and a flint and steel, people can enter a fiery hellscape known as the Nether. Inspired by a form of traversal found in the book series The Wheel of Time, in the Nether’s first incarnation, players would have only found a few zombie pigmen and flying ghasts in a dimension filled with netherrack, bedrock, and gravel. The simple original Nether is a far cry from the colorful, bountiful, and mob-filled landscape the Nether is today.
If players didn't want to venture into an underworld-like dimension, players could have explored their technical ingenuity with the use of redstone. Essentially Minecraft’s ore-based version of electricity, redstone allowed players to create simple to complex mechanisms with the use of pistons, dust, torches, and eventually more. While players could create simple mechanisms such as powered rails or dispensers through the crafting table, others have gone beyond the constraint of the crafting table to create truly spectacular feats such as giant working computers that play other pixel-based games within Minecraft itself.
Later, a new hostile, teleporting mob was created, inspired by one of the internet's most infamous horror icons, Slenderman. The Enderman would teleport throughout the world, picking up blocks at their whim, and only attack players if people stare at them in the eye. At first, the Endermen were just another enemy to fight in the game, but Mojang developers expanded upon their enigmatic nature to create another dimension: The End. Here, players would have to use all their combat and crafting skills to take down Minecraft’s final boss: the Ender Dragon.
Minecraft’s Global Takeover
By late 2011, Minecraft was fully released on PC with its 1.0 build and would quickly jump to other gaming platforms. These include but are not limited to Android and IOS in 2011, Xbox 360 in 2012, PlayStation 3 in 2013, Wii U in 2015, and 3DS in 2017. Over the following decade, Mojang added numerous updates to Minecraft, adding various features and settings to the game, including the jungle biome, trading with villagers, riding horses, potion making, enchanting armor and weapons, pillager mansions, and more.
Today, Minecraft is one of the most played and sold video games of all time, alongside industry juggernauts Tetris and Grand Theft Auto 5.
Minecraft’s Many Varied Spinoffs
In 2014, Microsoft, seeing the profitable potential of Minecraft, purchased the game’s IP and Mojang for $2.5 billion. In 2015, Minecraft would venture into the realm of spinoff games with the episodic release of Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode. While the game was received moderately compared to Telltale’s more acclaimed games like The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us, Story Mode proved popular enough to receive a second season in 2017 and even saw a release on Netflix in 2018 before Telltale was shut down.
Several other spinoffs for Minecraft were released following the acquisition by Microsoft. These include the augmented reality game Minecraft: Earth in 2019, the Diablo-esque dungeon crawler Minecraft: Dungeons in 2020, and most recently the real-time strategy Minecraft: Legends in 2023.
Minecraft Beyond Games
Minecraft hasn’t been bound to the gaming world, however. In 2012, Lego released its first Minecraft themed set with the 480 piece Micro World product. Minecraft Lego sets can still be found on store shelves today. In 2016, Mojang debuted Minecraft: Education Edition, designed for schools to teach through the game. The game has helped teachers worldwide educate students about navigating online platforms safely, how to code, the potential of esports, and even about traditional subjects such as science and language arts.
In 2014, Mojang revealed that it was working on a movie adaption of Minecraft with Warner Bros. That project remained stagnant until 2022 when production resumed. The live action Minecraft movie is expected to release in April 2025 with Jack Black reportedly starring as Steve.