Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox-building independent video game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Perssonand now developed by his company, Mojang. In 2011, Jens Bergensten, also known by his pseudonym Jeb, took full creative control over Minecraft.

Minecraft is focused on creativity and building, allowing players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. Gameplay in its commercial release has two principal modes: Survival, which requires players to acquire resources and maintain their health and hunger; and Creative, where the player has an unlimited supply of resources, the ability to fly, and no health or hunger. A third gameplay mode, named Hardcore, is essentially the same as Survival, but the difficulty is locked on the hardest setting and respawning is disabled, forcing the player to delete his or her world upon death. An outdated Classic version is alsoavailable for free, although it is no longer being developed. Creative Minecraft resembles Classic, but with many more features.

The gameplay is heavily inspired by Infiniminer by Zachtronics Industries, and Dwarf Fortress by Bay 12 Games.

Minecraft was released as an alpha on May 17, 2009, with a beta version on December 20, 2010. Official versions foriOS and Android have been released and the full version of the PC game was released on November 18, 2011 at MineCon 2011. The Android release was temporarily exclusive to the Xperia Play but is now available to the rest of the Android Market. On May 9, 2012, Minecraft was released on Xbox 360 as an Xbox Live Arcade game, co-developed by 4J Studios. All editions of the game can be bought as a one-time purchase (not monthly).

As of May 25, 2012, the game has sold over six million copies on PC and over nine million copies across all platforms.