One of the most successful games in the world only needed a weekend to develop

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Minecraft is still one of the most popular games worldwide. In 2009, the sandbox game was developed by a single person – the raw form was created in just one weekend.

Markus Persson, better known as “Notch”, started developing Minecraft in May 2009. At the time, he was working as a game developer at King.com, as he says in an interview (via Youtube). The site is known for browser games, with Candy Crush as its biggest hit. King is now owned by Activision Blizzard.

Minecraft was born as a hobby on the side

Persson programmed his own games at home as a hobby. In April 2009 he was working on a game called “RubyDung” which was inspired by Infiniminer. Many only know this name today because Persson calls it his source of inspiration for Minecraft. It’s an open-world block game that lets players build and dig tunnels (via Minecraft Wiki).

On a single weekend in May 2009, also at Persson’s house, Minecraft was created – called “Java Edition” at the time. Unlike Infiniminer, his game should have RPG elements.

In the video you can see the story of the inventor of Minecraft:

The Story of Notch – The Man Who Invented Minecraft

More videos

After several tests, the full version of Minecraft came out in 2011

Since then, the creative survival game has slowly picked up speed:

  • On May 17, 2009, Persson released Minecraft on the TIG Source forum, a platform for indie developers. Persson improved the game based on feedback from the forum.
  • Several pre-alpha tests were conducted in 2009 and 2010.
  • The beta started in December 2010.
  • On November 18, 2011, the beta became the official full version of Minecraft.

    • Meanwhile, Persson had also started his own video game company, Mojang, and left his regular job to focus on Minecraft full-time. The game has sold over 238 million copies since 2009 (via Xbox.com)

    Mojang is still responsible for Minecraft today, but has been part of Microsoft since 2014. $2.5 billion went over the table in the deal.

    The game is now also available for consoles and as a pocket edition for Android and iOS. Minecraft still receives regular updates today, most recently “The Wild Update” in mid-2022.

    What do you think of the fact that Minecraft was created in its raw form in just one weekend? How long have you been playing the game and what platform are you using? Write it to us in the comments here on MeinMMO!

    If you are looking for more survival games, you should check out Smalland: Survive the Wilds:

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