Minecraft To Be Released On 11/11/11

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Minecraft has gotten $33 million in revenue and moved over 2 million units, and it’s not even out yet. After being in Alpha and Beta for what seems like forever, Notch, head of developer Mojang and generally known as the “Minecraft guy” has announced on his personal blog that the lovable building block game that has taken the gaming world by storm is coming out on November 11^th, 2011 – or 11/11/11. Set your calendars.

Even though that’s the “release date” over 2 million people already have access to the game, and won’t be required to pay for it again. Notch did what many indie developers do – pay for the game at reduced cost during developer, get access to the beta, play early and help fund further development. The game first started being developed around May 10^th, 2009, and has grown considerably since the first few versions.

Notch is aware that 11/11/11 is also the release date of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, he writes:

We picked November 11, with the unofficial tagline “us too”.

As aforementioned, Notch recently stated that the game has made $33 million in revenue, with over 2 million “units” sold. That’s respectable for any game, and amazing for an indie construction game that has Doom-grade graphics (I love Minecraft, but it ain’t Crysis). Notch promises that him and the development team will continue to support the game post-“Release” with free updates.

The game is pretty polarizing. We here at the TFTS offices have had debates over it, and it seems that you either love it and think it is a paradigm shift for the video game industry or some overhyped indie thing. Either way, it’s good to see it finally come out of beta.