BUSINESS CASES
The Case of Minecraft: The “Perfect” Brand?
Who hasn’t ever played Minecraft? The game became popular again in 2019, for the influence of returning players when Minecraft announced new updates for its 10th anniversary.
How did everything begin?
Markus Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 1, 1979. His Finnish mother, Ritva, worked as a nurse, and his Swedish father, Birger, was a railway employee. He spent seven years in Edsbyn, a small town surrounded by forests, before moving back to Stockholm with his parents.
Growing up, He spent his playtime building complex Lego designs. Until his father brought a Commodore 128 computer, he at 8 years old, wrote his first computer program, a text-based adventure game, after experimenting with several programs.
Persson never finished school, but he taught himself how to write code, while his mother made him take an online programming course for his natural talent. When he was 18, he found his first job in Midasplayer, later known as King.com, a company famous for created successful games like CandyCrush. At Midasplayer, he met Jakob Porsér. Their friendship would redefine the life of Persson.
Persson and Porsér were receiving attention for their games, but their bosses didn’t like it. In 2009, Persson left Midasplayer for jAlbum. He founded the company Mojang AB, Mojang (means gadget in Swedish), in May of the same year, along with his friend Porsér, they began developing games under this brand. He shifted from full-time to part-time at jAlbum, and spending his free time programming, he created, in just a week, his first successful game, Minecraft, he rushed to launch Minecraft to continue to the next one.
With the game not completely finished, Minecraft was loved by the players, and soon it became a phenomenon, with 400 copies selling per day about 6 dollars per download. Persson quit his job to focus solely on Minecraft. The number of sales was incrementing, and with it, the community of gamers, Persson became a gaming superstar in the community (known as Notch or xNotch).
In December 2011, his father committed suicide, and his marriage to Elin Zetterstrand came to an end a half a year after. He announced his second, 0x10c, a sandbox science fiction, video game, in 2012, and the followed abandonment of the game due to lack of concentration and the beginning of a creative dry spell. In May, its sales Xbox release sold more than a million units in the first week. That year, Mojang had around $230 million in sales. But even with the incredible success of the company, Persson was getting burned out. In June 2014, he sent a tweet: “Anyone wants to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life?”
In November, he sold his company Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. Many people were sad and outraged that Minecraft was no longer in its original owner’s hands. Some were worried that Microsoft would change the experience of the gamers. However, the changes made were not drastic, and the game would keep its original feel.
According to Google Trends, online searches for Minecraft peaked in 2012 and 2013. The graphics were declining from then until 2019. Google searches for the game boosted to 76 percent of their all-time high, surpassing Fortnite, arguably the most famous game in the world.
Minecraft is a sandbox video game that started with two basic modes: Creative and Survival. Later, Minecraft added three more game modes: Adventure, Spectator and Hardcore. Players can create and break apart various kinds of blocks in three-dimensional worlds.
In Survival: Players need to find resources and food.
In Creative: The supplies are given to you, and you don’t have to eat to survive. Also, you can break all kinds of blocks immediately.
In Adventure: You can interact with objects, such as levers and buttons, but you only can break blocks with tools having CanDestroy data tag and place blocks with the CanPlaceOn tag. Max reach is 5 blocks.
In Spectator: Players are invisible to all players and mobs except for other spectators, but you can’t interact with blocks, entities, or your inventory.
In Hardcore: Is the same way as Survival mode, but the difficulty is set permanently to “hard” when the player dies. The only choice is the map must be deleted, or the player is set permanently into spectator mode.
5 Simple Reasons Why People Love Minecraft
- Create and build your own world.
- Minecraft is a literal sandbox with infinite replayability.
- Social interactive.
- It’s not limited; by age or genre.
- Strong community.
Conclusion
- It’s platform agnostic. It first built a loyal PC fanbase, and then eventually, it was released on other platforms.
- It has been co-opted by children. Made it a household name, families can play together with their children.
- The player’s creations and diffusions on Social Media are Minecraft’s own marketing campaign.
- It doesn’t have a specific goal. Promote a feeling of ownership over the game.
- Minecraft with its game sends a specific message: “You don’t have to be a child to enjoy a good game.”
A little story…
When I was researching Minecraft and its origin, I saw many comments on Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, saying the same thing: Minecraft is AMAZING! Minecraft is not only a game is a community of players enjoying and interacting with each other, creating beautiful buildings to share to the world. It shows how a brand can transform a game into an educative, creative, and funny childhood memory.
Reference Websites
The references I used for the Case of Minecraft.
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Gina Chan is a freelance writer who offers brand writing, copywriting, and blogging services. She works with B2B and B2C businesses providing digital marketing content that increases their search engine visibility.
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