Minecraft is an independent video game created by Markus "Notch" Persson that allows players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a procedurally generated 3D world. It was originally created in Java and released as an alpha in 2009. The game has different gameplay modes including survival, creative, and hardcore. Players can explore, gather resources, craft items, and build shelters while defending against hostile mobs. There is also an optional goal of traveling to "The End" dimension to defeat the Ender Dragon boss. The game became popular through word-of-mouth and has sold over 200 million copies worldwide.

1. The Case Study
By
Michael Moursi

2. WHAT IS MINECRAFT?
• Minecraft is a sandbox-
building independent video
game written in Java
originally by Swedish creator
Markus "Notch" Persson and
now by his company,
Mojang.

3. WHY MINECRAFT?
• I chose to do a case study on Minecraft because
I play the game myself for almost a year.
Moreover, I have a substantial amount of
knowledge about this game.

4. ABOUT 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 themselves and
maintain their health and hunger; and Creative, where
the player has an unlimited supply of resources, the
ability to fly, and no concept of 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.

5. GAMEPLAY
• A player in Minecraft has a lot of freedom to choose
how to play the game, with the primary goals being
surviving attacks by monsters (known in-game as
"hostile mobs") and building shelter. The core
gameplay revolves around construction. The game
world is essentially made of cubes arranged in a fixed
grid pattern which represent different materials, such
as dirt, stone, various ores, water, and tree trunks.
While the players can move freely across the
world, objects and items can only be placed at fixed
locations relative to the grid. The player can gather
these material blocks and place them elsewhere.
Therefore, you can potentially create other various
constructions.

6. WHERE TO START?
• The game starts by placing the player on the surface
of a huge procedurally generated game world. The
player can walk across the terrain consisting of plains,
mountains, caves, and various water bodies. The
world is also divided into biomes ranging from deserts
to snowfields. The in-game time system follows a day
and night cycle. Throughout the course of the game
the player encounters various non-human creatures,
referred to as mobs. During the daytime, non-hostile
animals spawn, which can be hunted for food and
crafting materials. Hostile monsters, such as large
spiders, skeletons, zombies and the dangerous
exploding Creeper will spawn in unlit areas, such as in
caves or during the night.

7. THE WORLD
• The game world is procedurally generated as
the player explores it. Although limits exist on
vertical movement both up and
down, Minecraft allows for an infinitely large
game world to be generated on the horizontal
plane, only running into technical problems
when extremely distant locations are
reached. The game achieves this by splitting
the game world data into smaller
sections, called "chunks", only created or
loaded into memory when the player is
nearby.

8. Dimensions
• Apart from the original world you spawn
in, there are different dementions the
player can come across, for example a
hell dimension which is called ‘The
Nether’, and an unusual dimension
called ‘The End’, the home of the ‘mobs’
known as ‘Endermen’.
• ‘The Nether’ can be found by traveling
through a portal, which you have to
make with obsidian and light it with fire
to make the portal.
• However, with ‘The End’, one must
locate underground ruins of an ancient
civilization (referred to ingame as
Strongholds) which can be found on the
main overworld. They must then
activate the stronghold's portal using
two different items, one dropped by
Endermen and one dropped by Blazes
from the Nether dimension.

9. CAN YOU BEAT MINECRAFT?
• Although Minecraft is mostly a sandbox game, it
contains some adventure elements. And, with that, a
primary win condition, which is achieved by traveling
to ‘The End’ and defeating the powerful ‘Enderdragon’
that flies around the map.
• Upon beating the boss creature (and claiming an
exclusive reward), the player is allowed to leave the
dimension via a portal, which will cue the game's
ending sequence, and credits roll. The player is then
teleported back to their original spawn point in the
overworld, and, if certain criteria are met, will receive
the exclusive ‘The End’ achievement.

10. SKINS
• Originally, your character is default player
is known as "Steve?" (Notch puts the
question mark because the name "Steve"
is still not confirmed to be his real name).
The player's skin can be changed, so it
enables to make it your own personal
character. Again, you can download skins
from various sites and forums, then
change your skin on the Minecraft website.

11. MODS
• To make the game an even more immersive
experience, various ‘modders’ have made mods so
you can be able to add them onto the game. Popular
mods, such as ‘Mo Creatures’ (a mod which includes
more mobs/hostile mobs to the game) have made the
whole Minecraft experience that more enjoyable.
• Other ‘modders’ have set up a compilation of mods.
The most popular one to date is ‘The Yogbox’. It is a
carefully chosen compilation of mods which the user
can download straight from the program (run in Java).

12. TEXTURE PACKS
• Apart from mods, texture
packs which people have
made in the Minecraft
community makes the game
more visually interesting.
Texture packs change the
look/texture of Minecraft.
There are HD texture packs,
and even realistic texture
packs which makes Minecraft
look more ‘real’ in a way.

13. CUSTOM MAPS
• Custom Maps are maps created by other players who then upload the
files online to share. You can then download them, insert them into a
folder and play. Again, some maps create an adventure feel to the
game, and some create a more survival feel. One of the most popular
custom maps available is ‘Survival Island’. You are stranded on a
island with no resources on you. However, there is one tree, hidden
chests, plus tasks for you to complete.

14. RELEASE
• Minecraft was released as an alpha on May 17, 2009, with a beta
version on December 20, 2010. Official releases for iOS 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. A version of the game for
the Xbox 360 with Kinect support is under development by 4J
Studios, to be released as part of the Xbox Live Arcade Next
promotion in May 2012. The game was officially released at
MineCon on November 18, 2011. Minecraft was developed for about
a week before its public release on May 17, 2009, on the TIGSource
forums, where it gained a considerable level of popularity. It has
been continually updated and patched since then, and while it was
still in alpha release, it gained several hundred thousand sales and
received critical notice and acclaim from many reviewers. It passed
a million units sold on January 12, 2011, less than a month after
reaching Beta. By February 18, 2012, the game had sold more than
5 million units.

15. Development
• The developer of Minecraft, Markus Persson aka Notch, had previously worked on games such as
Wurm Online and as a game developer for King.com for over four years. Minecraft development began
in May 10[not in citation given], 2009, soon after Persson had quit his job at King.com.
• Minecraft was first released to the public on May 17, 2009, as a developmental "alpha" release.
Although Persson maintained a day job with Jalbum.net at first, he later moved to working part time and
has since quit in order to work on Minecraft full time as sales of the beta version of the game have
expanded. Persson continues to update the game with releases distributed to users automatically.
Persson plans to continue these updates after the
release of the full game as long as there is still an active
userbase. These updates have included features such as
new items, new blocks, an alternate "Hell" dimension (accessible through
construction of a portal) that Persson terms
"The Nether", tamable wolves that assist the player, and
changes to the game's behavior (e.g., how water flows). Persson plans to
eventually release the game as open-source after sales
have dropped off and when he wants to
move onto other projects.

16. • In September 2010 Persson announced that he and a friend were
starting a video game company, Mojang, with the money earned
from Minecraft. This company was intended to back the
development of Minecraft and an unrelated game, Scrolls, which his
friend would primarily work on. As part of creating the
company, Persson has hired "an artist, a web site developer, and a
business guy", additional programmers, and established an office in
Stockholm. The four additional employees hired in 2010 were Jens
Bergensten, a programmer; Daniel Kaplan, the "business guy";
Jakob Porser, who will be working on the other game for Mojang;
and Markus "Junkboy" Toivonen, a pixel artist.
• On December 11, 2010, Persson announced, via his personal
blog, that Minecraft would be entering its beta testing phase on
December 20, 2010, and that the price would increase to €14.95. He
further stated that users who bought the game after this date would
no longer be guaranteed to receive all future content free of charge
as it "scared both the lawyers and the board." However, bug fixes
and all updates leading up to and including the release would still be
free. On April 7, 2011, Persson made a post on his blog that Mojang
has decided to move the game out of Beta on November 11, 2011;
however this would not be the "finished product", as the game would
be continuously updated before and after the release.

17. Cost AND PRODUCTION
• To make Minecraft, it literally cost
nothing, due to the fact that it is an indie
game, and ‘Notch’ mainly made the
game, just through code.
• Not many people worked on Minecraft. The
main people behind this game are Markus
"Notch" Persson and Jens Bergensten. The
game was made in Sweden.
• Minecraft is written primarily in Java.

18. IS THERE A FREE VERSION OF
MINECRAFT?
• There is a free version of Minecraft on the
Minecraft website. Classic is a title given for
this version as it is a released version of
Minecraft when it was before in development.
It was the first development phase in
Minecraft.
• Moreover, in this free version, you do not get
the latest updates and blocks. You get some
blocks