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Microsoft Has Built Its New Campus In Minecraft To Introduce Employees (cnbc.com)
Microsoft is using Minecraft to help employees get acquainted with a refresh of the company's campus in Redmond, Washington. CNBC reports: Earlier this year, Microsoft enlisted Blockworks, a company that uses Minecraft's digital building blocks for designing real-world projects, to create a miniature rendering of the campus facelift, which is scheduled for completion in 2022. They're using graphics that are far more immersive than two-dimensional photos and videos.
While Minecraft was designed for gamers, its immersive nature and the ability to quickly move around and construct edifices makes it easy to see how new buildings will look when inserted into an existing landscape. [James Delaney, a managing director at Blockworks] said Minecraft forces designers to sacrifice some accuracy because structures in real life don't always have the game's squared-off look, but the speed and ease of use more than made up for those deficiencies. It might take just 10 minutes to wrap up a single building, he said. Microsoft employees -- and anyone else with the education edition of Minecraft -- can now take a digital tour of the new campus and see how plans are developing. Outside of Microsoft, that access requires a subscription to Office 365 Education.
While Minecraft was designed for gamers, its immersive nature and the ability to quickly move around and construct edifices makes it easy to see how new buildings will look when inserted into an existing landscape. [James Delaney, a managing director at Blockworks] said Minecraft forces designers to sacrifice some accuracy because structures in real life don't always have the game's squared-off look, but the speed and ease of use more than made up for those deficiencies. It might take just 10 minutes to wrap up a single building, he said. Microsoft employees -- and anyone else with the education edition of Minecraft -- can now take a digital tour of the new campus and see how plans are developing. Outside of Microsoft, that access requires a subscription to Office 365 Education.
These has got to be one of the least interesting things I've seen posted on /. in a while, and that it really saying something.
I'm imagining a guy working at Microsoft right now getting the email telling him about how you can explore the next Microsoft campus in Minecraft, and he's saying "Go fuck yourself" to whoever sent it.
I'm going to grief all their shit then walk for 4 hours and build my own campus in the middle of no where.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
Well, after Microsoft had spent $2.5 billion on purchasing Minecraft, they would have had to use it for something.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley