Minecraft at 15-ish: here’s what people thought of the game when it first went public

When you think about the age of Minecraft, it’s tempting to just round up to it being roughly a decade old, maybe a little bit more. Despite its huge impact on the gaming industry – retaining a dominant position for years – it’s easy to forget that Mojang’s sandbox sensation is older than many of us can recall.

Wikipedia has it down as a game that came out in 2011, which would make it around 13 years old (or it will be in November). That puts it on par with Skyrim. But that’s just taking into account the final release. Just before that, Minecraft had a beta version and before that still, it was very much in its alpha phase.

That particular build of the game was released unto the world on May 17, 2009. That puts it at roughly 15 years old, at the time of this writing. The story goes that over on TIG Forums, a user called Notch (a name we’re all familiar with now – not always for the best reason, it has to be said) uploaded a Java applet for an early version of a game they’d been working on. The game in question was, of course, Minecraft.

To celebrate this momentous occasion (how many other games can say they’re still going strong after a decade and a half?), developer Mojang has launched a 15-day celebration. The video above gives us a glimpse of what’s to come, which includes deals, discounts, and surprises, all kicking off from today.

Such humble beginnings

The most interesting thing about that original forum post was what others thought of this newfangled thing called “mine…craft.” Other users were quite enthused by this alpha build of some one-person project.

People seemed to enjoy the building mechanics, while others uploaded photos of some of the structures they’d been working on. I also love that one user that simply says, “THIS IS THE BEST GAME I’VE PLAYED EVER! BETTER THAN SPELUNKY!” One other person said, “Well, when an alpha keeps drawing me back to play it, you know you’ve got something good.” These comments go on for 96 pages, with the last message being posted in April 2017.

Praise indeed, but little did these people realize just how enormous the game would become. Minecraft‘s sole creator took inspiration from Bullfrog’s comically dark ’90s RTS game Dungeon Keeper, an obscure block-based game called Infiniminer, and a bit of Dwarf Fortress, and put it all into their passion project.

You don’t need me to tell you the rest of the story. Minecraft has gone down as one of the best-selling video games of all time, second only to Tetris. By October 2023, it had sold more than 300 million copies since launch. While Tetris boasts a staggering 540 million copies, that game has had a lot longer to rack up such huge numbers.

In terms of sales alone, Minecraft is more successful than GTA 5, Skyrim, Wii Sports, and Mario Kart 8. And all this began from a single post on a forum which encouraged people to try out an alpha build of a new game from an unknown developer.

It’s fun to see what everyone thought of that simple build 15 years ago, as well as the plans Notch was making for future versions (which included the Creative Mode and Survival Mode staples).

Since then there have been a number of spin-offs, such as Minecraft Stories, Minecraft Dungeons, as well as plenty of ports of the OG game, including on mobile. There’s even been an episode of the Simpsons that parodied the visuals in one of the episode’s openings, plus a parody of the game in South Park.

Look, maybe Minecraft isn’t quite as in the mainstream limelight as it once was. Since Microsoft bought the IP back in 2014, it’s become a much bigger beast, but it sort of feels like it’s plateaued now. Doesn’t seem like it could possibly get any bigger. However, statistics show that millions of people are still logging in on a monthly basis, so it must be doing something right.

Again, all this from a game that’s a decade and a half old. What was I doing back then? I was about to graduate from university. I was about to be spat out into the real world during an economic crisis (yes, another one). The PS3 and Xbox 360 generation of consoles were halfway into their respective lifecycles. And the world was about to realize that colorful blocks and infinite creative potential were what we really needed in those early parts of the 21st Century. Or as user rj said on April 8, 2017, “cool.”

For a little nostalgia, here’s the first official trailer for Minecraft that went live just after the beta version of the game was released in November 2011.