Indie darling Minecraft took a big step towards a final, proper release today, with the game officially leaving “alpha” stage and entering “beta”. Next time you play, you’ll be playing Minecraft v1.0.
The shift to beta was made with the promise of improvements and additions to the game, and the first of those come in the form of a server-side inventory system (which will hurt “cheaters” hacking the game to gain unlimited items) along with…the ability to throw eggs.
https://kotaku.com/minecraft-transforms-beta-and-changes-kick-in-soon-5712115
As the game moves to v1.0, it’s worth taking a look at where it’s come: from its beginnings as a quirky little game released in 2009, it’s since spread exploded in popularity – almost solely through word-of-mouth – to the point where, at time of writing, Minecraft had sold 850,000 copies
For a game made by one man and maintained by only a handful, with no advertising budget, that’s…well, it’s undoubtedly the success story of the year.
[Notch]
