Minecraft

First public release 17 May 2009; version 1.0 on 18 November 2011

Video games — the best-selling video game ever made

A sandbox game of cubic blocks created by the Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson, first put online in May 2009 and released as version 1.0 in November 2011. Players mine and place blocks in a procedurally generated world that is effectively endless, either surviving against monsters at night or building freely in creative mode. Persson founded Mojang to develop it; Jens Bergensten took over as lead developer in 2011, and Microsoft bought the studio in September 2014 for $2.5 billion. It has sold more copies than any other video game.

How to spot them

▸A world made of metre cubes, generated procedurally and effectively without end
▸Creepers, Endermen and zombies at night; survival mode against creative mode
▸The Nether and the End, and an Ender Dragon as the nearest thing to an ending
▸Ambient piano and synthesiser by the composer credited as C418

Key facts

First put online in May 2009 by a Swedish programmer working under the name Notch (2009)

Markus Persson; he drew on Infiniminer, Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper

Version 1.0 launched live on stage in Las Vegas in November 2011 (2011)

At the first MineCon convention, on 18 November 2011

A green exploding creature that began as a coding accident, when a pig model had its length and height swapped

The creeper, the game's unofficial mascot

Mojang bought by Microsoft in September 2014 for $2.5 billion, after which its creator left (2014)

Persson had provoked the sale himself with a tweet asking someone to buy his share

The best-selling video game ever made, at well over 300 million copies

Grand Theft Auto V is a distant second

Ambient music by a German composer credited as C418

Daniel Rosenfeld, whose album Volume Alpha is among the best-known video game soundtracks

A final dimension entered through a frame of ender eyes, ruled by a dragon

The End; defeating the Ender Dragon rolls the game's poem and credits

A 2025 feature film with Jack Black and Jason Momoa that took close to a billion dollars (2025)

A Minecraft Movie, directed by Jared Hess, with Black as Steve

Quick-fire facts

•Created by Markus 'Notch' Persson; first public release 17 May 2009, version 1.0 on 18 November 2011
•Persson co-founded Mojang in 2010; Jens 'Jeb' Bergensten became lead developer at the end of 2011
•Microsoft acquired Mojang in September 2014 for $2.5 billion
•It is the best-selling video game of all time, with over 300 million copies sold
•The creeper was the result of a modelling error while making a pig
•The soundtrack is by Daniel Rosenfeld, who records as C418
•The three dimensions are the Overworld, the Nether and the End
•Java Edition and Bedrock Edition are the two main versions, built on different codebases
•An Education Edition is used in schools for teaching everything from chemistry to town planning
•A Minecraft Movie, directed by Jared Hess and starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, was released in April 2025

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources

Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson — Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus 'Notch' Persson
Variety — 'A Minecraft Movie' box office reports Consulted for the 2025 film's performance; cited without URL