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Book Review: Minecraft
He certainly has the money to make many of his empire dreams come true, as Minecraft remains a strong seller more than four years after its Alpha debut. The game features a "survival" mode, in which the blocky hero attempts to survive against hordes of enemies, as well as a "creative" mode where players can mine blocks and use them to build pretty much any structure. The latter mode has unleashed some spectacular displays of creativity, including enormous replicas of the Egyptian Pyramids and the Empire State Building.
While the authors clearly had some access to Persson, they didn’t use that face-to-face time to plunge deeply into his character: there’s precious little insight into how his occasionally messy childhood informed his worldview, for example, or the duality that clearly exists between his more insular self and his ambition to build a massive company that, at its heart, rests on interactions between millions of people. On the other hand, by avoiding the plunge into that psychological thicket, they also prevent their work from falling into the tedious armchair-psychiatry that’s doomed many a biography.
The book is at its best when describing the Swedish gaming industry (from its giants down to the indie studios), and how Minecraft went from bedroom-developer project to worldwide phenomenon. That’s almost enough to overlook how much of a cipher Persson remains, even in the final pages.
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I think people have a need to read about lives that resemble their own, as well. Persson is living the "shut-in gamer boy" version of a princess fantasy come to true. Girls grow up with tiaras and promises of prince-suitors. Today's disenfranchised 20-something guys have nothing like that. People like Persson are naturally bound to become the rockstar idols of self-insert dreams for these people.
Who among you can honestly say he would not love to swap lives with Persson? Multimillionaire after writing a relatively simple computer game? Sign me up for that dreamboat.
"...To a frustrated game developer who feels the software conglomerates are stifling his creativity..."
Are we talking about the same person here? Notch takes Infiniminer, adds some new features and extensibility to the basic gameplay, which becomes his one and only claim to creative success. And it's the software conglomerates' fault that he doesn't have an original idea out yet?
Lucking into the Angry Birds /FarmVille style sweepstakes does not a gamer genius / tycoon make. He wants to build a Valve? Good luck.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
A guy does something he thinks is fun. He manages to convince other people to pay for using the thing. He works on it until he doesn't think it's fun anymore. Then he goes to try his hand at more fun things. Isn't this normal? What's all these calls about him having a "bad work ethic"?
Also, people will only write books about successful people, because they're fun and it's fun writing it. Again, not strange.
What the game was. How he made it. How he sold it. How he continued developing it. How this method brought about a worldwide phenomenon.
To the niche audience of geeks and gamers who likes that type of game. Persson on the other hand made a game which is played by millions of eight to eighty year olds, and is still a big seller almost four years after its initial release. With Minecraft, we are clearly dealing with a significantly different gaming beast.
May the Maths Be with you!