The Minecraft Timeline

The story of Minecraft seems like a perfect movie script. Notch as the protagonist genius programmer, who was an underdog from an (indie) position was the only person to change the game industry by just doing what he was passionate about. Also, he made a lot of money along the way. He even made more after he was fed up and decided to sell Minecraft. Perhaps a movie is unnecessary. It's well-documented. The story is well-known to many people. A large part of the story was told online. Thus we have blogs, websites, forum posts, tweets, and YouTube videos. What we do not have is a beautiful graphic timeline depicting the history (until now).I was introduced to Minecraft somewhere in 2010. I became more interested in Minecraft and its creator. Because it was an amazing story. One man and his computer changed the world. My favourite kind of story! I remember being awestruck when Notch took part in a contest for game-coding and then live-streamed the entire thing. minecraft This was something I cherish to this day. (Mind you, the link is an abbreviated version, the whole thing lasted 48 hours). This guy was something else! The magic of game design were revealed right in front of you. It was way too fast to comprehend the full picture, but it gave a great sense of what it means to make an online game. He and his PC with Java IDE Eclipse Eclipse and Paint.net. The same tools he used when creating Minecraft. I later discovered, through the contest that there are other skilled programmers who are just like him. It's not easy for everyone to strike it rich. However, many such as Notch and others, aren't in it because of this.

Minecraft is a story that is unique that deserves a nice looking timeline. Since I couldn't find a good one, I created my own:

These are a few of the most important things about this timeline.

- Notch began working on Minecraft just a few weeks before he was offered a new job at jAlbum, the same software this site uses! - It took a year of development before he finally quit his 'real' job to focus on Minecraft. It was estimated that about 20.000 copies were sold by the time. The game was still in its early stages. Promising to say the least. The second half of 2010 was insane as was the beginning half of 2011. They started the company around Minecraft: Mojang, hired many people, released a lot of updates to the game, released a second game (completely different) and sat down with Valve, organised MineCon and even faced an unjustified lawsuit to their name and in the midst of it all, they sold millions of copies of Minecraft! Many important Minecraft events seem to be happening on June 1 a few years in the past (this also coincides with the birthday of Notch).

The Minecraft story isn't done yet. Minecraft is still going strong and breaking new records. However, Notch and Minecraft were once part of the same narrative, but are now moving in distinct timelines.

Whatever happens, the story of Minecraft will remain an inspiring tale and the impact it has had on the gaming and entertainment industry will be heard for many years to come. That makes it even more special that trough the wonders of Youtube we have this video from 2009.