Just over a year ago, I wrote a well-received article about Minecraft, an indie game that few in the ‘proper’ games industry had even heard of that sold a million copies. This game-mixed-with-sculpture garden had broken all the rules. It was hard to get into, was (at the time) selling in a bare alpha state and hadn’t even had the decency to put together a proper website with a nice shop window. Instead, the developer had just thrown up a PayPal button and that was that.
Many at the time said it was lucky, niche, a kind of fringe market reaction. That, yes, a million copies meant something but not necessarily compared to a Zynga. Meanwhile Minecraft has continued to grow. Just this morning, in fact, Jens Bergensten tweeted that the game is but 500 copies away from 5 million sold. Most ‘proper’ games never sell that many.
I’ve always maintained that Minecraft is a symbol of something resonant in the games market, a deep shift in how it works that changes everything. It is yet further proof that we’re not really in the business of packaged goods and experiences any more, but of services, communities and emergent worlds. The question is are you willing to see that, or can you only see the world in terms of ‘proper’ and ‘fluke’?
Comments