Minecraft passes 1 million sales.

3500 concurrent players, the server load doesn't seem that big so the dev doesn't have big costs wrt keeping the game online. In other words, this game's ROI will put (already did) the entire industry to shame.
 
The_Technomancer said:
Eh...I think a huge part of the appeal of Minecraft is the tactile feeling of interaction that you have with the world, of building a castle while fighting off monsters.
Dwarf Fortress is fun, but at its heart its a ultra-complex management and building sim, which is always going to be niche.
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Adventure mode!

edit: i'll stop de-railing the thread. it's awesome that the guy sold that many copies of his game, it's inspiring for other indie-devs. i just think that there is potential for good discussion about why minecraft makes more money than dwarf fortress.
 
Zizbuka said:
Minecraft = one of those 'games' I'll just never be able to understand being popular.

Oh well, my loss no doubt.
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It's basically just LEGO taken to the next level. Do you also not understand how LEGO is popular?

As a 'game' it's completely open-ended like The Sims and SimCity. If you don't consider those games then i suppose that's your right, but it seems pretty silly.

For me, Minecraft (much like SimCity) is a game that I enjoy a lot when I play it, but I can't really muster the motivation to play it often. Not because I think it's bad or boring, but because if I'm going to partake in an unstructured activity I'd rather it be something more substantial (drawing, writing, programming, etc.).
 
_Bro said:
Adventure mode!

edit: i'll stop de-railing the thread. it's awesome that the guy sold that many copies of his game, it's inspiring for other indie-devs. i just think that there is potential for good discussion about why minecraft makes more money than dwarf fortress.
Click to expand...

MC is infinitely more accessible than DF. Its as easy as that. MC is as complex or simple as you want it to be. DF is always balls to the wall hard. Also its in ASCII. No one likes ASCII.
 
_Bro said:
Adventure mode!

edit: i'll stop de-railing the thread. it's awesome that the guy sold that many copies of his game, it's inspiring for other indie-devs. i just think that there is potential for good discussion about why minecraft makes more money than dwarf fortress.
Click to expand...
Because MC is accessible. Minecraft originally started as basically Dwarf Fortress in 3D but he began to simplify it and change it until it became what it is today. I'm sure Dwarf Fortress is a great game, but it's not my cup of tea.
 
Pinko Marx said:
MC is infinitely more accessible than DF. Its as easy as that. MC is as complex or simple as you want it to be. DF is always balls to the wall hard. Also its in ASCII. No one likes ASCII.
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I disagree.
And even if you dont like it, there are quite good graphical mods out there. The biggest problem for Dwarf Fortress is the complexity. There is no game matching it. So of course its a niche game and if it werent it would be less complex. I like it and I like Minecraft.
Good that there are two sides of the spectrum.

Fredescu said:
I like Minecraft but the appeal for me was never about Lego.
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More like playing Lego while fending off your sister, who wants to destroy your creaBOOM.
 
Pinko Marx said:
Well thats cool, but you're wrong. I've done a study on this. No one likes ASCII.
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Fact is I am (and many others) the living proof that you are wrong though :lol Many DF veterans prefer Ascii. Just because you dont like it, doesnt make it true.
Its true that most people dont like it but I really hate over-generalizations. Its also a good development tool because it gives Toady more time to concentrate on implementing features instead of graphics. The community takes care of the rest.
 
Pinko Marx said:
MC is infinitely more accessible than DF. Its as easy as that. MC is as complex or simple as you want it to be. DF is always balls to the wall hard. Also its in ASCII. No one likes ASCII.
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I just think that it's hilarious that people call this game of the year, century, forever, and then when someone has something on display in the game, like the Star Trek ship, and then they question how impressive it is because someone didn't spend eternity mining the materials.

That's the hilarious flaw. It's this super accessible game where you build castles and people are surprised. Well, ya, staring at walls and holding your left mouse button over it is easy. It's simple, yet in the long run it becomes this gigantic time consuming obstacle you have to hurdle just so you can raise the initial wall of your fortress one level. You spend so much to constructing this castle you end up not doing much else. Your only obstacle in the game is whether or not you want to dedicate time which is the one thing you really need to do to have fun. You essentially begin playing an unpopulated MMO.

DF is also just as 'awesome' as you choose to make it. Yes, you could just make a fortress that runs efficiently, a military that works, have a good farm going, and get a good trade business up. Yes, on it's surface, it is still far more game than Minecraft. The deeper you go the more you get to the heart of it, story creation. Legacy mode is a fine example. The game is, at most, crap phrasing with lots of description, but you can roll with that and have your own little stories.

Or make stories like Something Awful does with their Let's Play series.

DF has lots of bugs, a crap coder, and a decent wall of difficulty -- but I still believe it'd sell more than Minecraft if it had improved visuals and a purchase option instead of just a donate.
 
I'm not sure which is the more appealing part of Minecraft for most of the people who have bought the game: the Lego-building, or the 3D roguelike aspects. The former is not interesting to me, while the latter I think could be done better.

Hmm...time to make a new game.
 
hydragonwarrior said:
someone bring the Minecraft thread back to the Gaming side :/
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Using subscriptions should be mandatory for all GAF members. When you use them properly where a thread is located has little bearing on anything.
 
Pinko Marx said:
MC is infinitely more accessible than DF. Its as easy as that. MC is as complex or simple as you want it to be. DF is always balls to the wall hard. Also its in ASCII. No one likes ASCII.
Click to expand...

Goddamnit Toady improve the goddamn interface
 
I'm happy to see the milestone passed, and I hope Notch keeps improving and adding features, including official modding support. I'm also glad that he is still keeping updates on Twitter and his blog. Despite being a multimillionaire or whatnot, he still seems like a pretty decent guy. :)
 
(._.) said:
I shake with anticipation when I think of the final retail version on Steam.
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I can't wait to see Towering pillar of hats in Minecraft too, as a bonus for TF2 owners.
 
Dang all this time I thought the MC thread just wasn't being updated. :(

Meh, subscriptions don't do it for me as I'm never that vested in a game. I like to check in on threads depending on my mood. :lol
 
Pumpkins said:
The game's concept has some sort of wildfire quality when you tell people about it.

A friend of mine saw a Minecraft video in my YouTube favorites and started asking me about it.

Friend: "What's this?" *click*
Me: "Oh, that's Minecraft."
Friend: "What do you do in it?"
Me: "You build stuff, explore, make things, it's a lot of fun. At night monsters come out and you have to build a shelter."
Friend: "So you can build like castles and stuff?"
Me: "Oh yeah, you can build anything you want really."

When he got home he immediately bought the game and we played together on my server with another friend of mine who convinced ME to buy it. We all had a crazy amazing adventure. We found this awesome cave that just kept going and going, and eventually we found gold and diamond (my first time seeing it). We were flipping out.

I really felt a sense of discovery. It's a pretty interesting feeling to have considering it's a video game.
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This just made me want to buy the game. I have not seen or heard of such 'adventure' since the golden days of Asheron's Call.
 
Pinko Marx said:
Well thats cool, but you're wrong. I've done a study on this. No one likes ASCII.
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Your right, but to be politically correct, the vast majority does not like stupid bullshit ASCII nonsense. And that IS a fact.

LyR said:
well, it didn't work for Frictional Games (Penumbra, Amnesia) ...
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Well, you cant bank on that all. Quality, accessibility and appeal matter too, you know. That just tells you Minecraft had a little bit more of one of those three, as evidenced by the much higher sales numbers.
 
And it deserves it.

I've been playing offline for a week now and I'm about to jump into the Multiplayer wagon. Deserves every dollar spent on it. Such a fantastic game.
 
What a great year for indies 2010 was. It'll probably be viewed as some sort of indie game tipping point, once it is far enough behind us that we can view the year's events with some sense of perspective.

Minecraft sells 1 mil, Recettear, Amnesia, VVVVVV, Gratuitous Space Battles, radiangames, Dwarf Fortress, AI War, loads of iPhone/iOS stuff... these are all very big indie game success stories, to varying degrees.

Maybe I'll make a topic about it soon...
 
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