It tells a story based in the well-known world of Minecraft. As a female or male character called Jesse, players solve puzzles, fight zombies, and talk to other characters to progress the story. Conversations involve choosing from multiple potential responses that each have consequences for the story and relationships in the game. Action is played out with quick-time events.

While Minecraft: Story Mode is visually similar to Minecraft itself, it plays more like other episodic adventure games from the developer, Telltale Games, like The Walking Dead.

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The story revolves around Jesse and their group of friends, who want to find a group of four adventurers called The Order of the Stone, who have slayed an Ender Dragon, in order to save the world from oblivion. Each member of the Order is the best at what they do, and represents a different kind of Minecraft player: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Grief-er, and Architect.

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Each episode tells a self-contained story as part of the larger whole of the series, and each is a couple of hours long.

Although the focus is on narrative, some decisions and action moments have time limits that may leave younger players unable to choose a response in time, in which case a “no response” action is triggered.

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Although Minecraft itself is aimed at younger players PEGI 7+ the Story Mode adventure looks to engage an older audience with its controversial PEGI 12+ rating. Although the rating is mainly from language in the game, it also includes suspense moments and jump scares that may unsettle younger players. Zombies and spiders attack characters including a helpless friendly pig.

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Positively, Minecraft Story Mode engages with themes of friendship, survival and creativity. With professional voice acting and musical score there is considerable substance to the experience. The developers aimed to combine the feel of The Goonies, Ghostbusters and Pixar films. The resulting adventure is appropriate for a similar aged audience.

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Minecraft is an incredibly popular game, and different people play it for different reasons. Players who have an emotional attachment to the world of Minecraft will enjoy the opportunity to experience a story based in that world.

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Minecraft is a sandbox game, created and developed by Swedish based Mojang Studios. The game has been described as a virtual world of Lego that involves following simple instructions in order to play it: explore, mine and build. Users only have to log in and proceed to create a world full of textured 3D cubes. There are predominantly two game modes: Creative or Survival, although more recent additions include Adventure, Spectator and also Multi-Player modes.

Minecraft’s Swedish creator, Markus “Notch” Persson started creating the game in May of 2009 having been inspired by similar games such as Dwarf Fortress, a singleplayer construction and management game; his goal was to produce a RPG variation of such a game. Minecraft’s initial reception wasn’t commercially viable, seen more as a niche product for players with expert knowledge of computers and programming. Without the commercial backing of a mainstream publisher, and no money spent on advertising revenue, the game relied on word of mouth between gamers and featured on sites such as the Penny Arcade web comic to generate interest amongst gamers. Consequently, by January 2011, the beta-version of the game had passed over one million purchases in just only a month, and by April 2011 Persson estimated that US$33 million of revenue had been made.

In November 2011, prior to the game’s official release, Minecraft had over 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. Due to its popularity, Minecraft was released across multiple platforms becoming a commercially viable franchise with increased interactivity. In particular, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released on Sony Xperia Play, available on Sony Xperia smartphones. Minecraft also become available on Android and iOS devices shortly after. Formats: By 2012, Minecraft was available for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. In 2013, Minecraft: Pi Edition, meant for educational purposes for novice programmers and players, was also released. In 2014, Microsoft acquired Minecraft intellectual property for $2.5 billion. In 2015, it reached 30 million copies sold. To date, over 121 official copies of the game have been sold across a variety of formats and platforms.

Distribution: Versions of the game can be purchased over the internet using such outlets the Playstation Network or Xbox Live Arcade. Recent additions include the Nintendo platform which was excluded from the initial Minecraft releases; available to download from December 2015 with physical copies from June 2016 and most recently for Nintendo Switch (May 2017) and Nintendo 3DS (download only from September 2017).

The Minecraft: Story Mode - A Telltale Games series is also available via Steam.

Critical reception: On its release, the game won five awards at three conferences, including an Innovation Award, Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, Audience Award and Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Genre - Sandbox game: A game free of structure and constraint; players are free to roam and make choices about how they use available content. Sandbox games are often described as having open world settings. Minecraft later created a hybrid genre with the story versions and is sometimes categorised as sandbox, survival.

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Youtubers

PewDiePie - Subscribers: 103 million

Yoqscaste - Subscribers: 7 million

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Marketing 

The way that Minecraft has effectively managed and maximised its audience is the foundation of its success. Initially, Mojang relied upon word of mouth from its users and the online community of computer programmer and gamers. Since the Microsoft takeover, Minecraft has developed plenty of opportunities to market the brand and its gaming features. If a company buys the intellectual rights to a video game in a deal running into billions of dollars, then it expects a sizeable financial return.

Minecraft had originally debuted as a downloadable game with no money for its marketing budget. In 2011, Minecraft became a gaming giant because Persson built the game with his community. As he recalls:

 It’s a weird way of making a game. You just put it out and keep working on it as you’re making it … I tried to make sure it’s clear that ‘This is not the game [that the buyers will see]. I’m just working on it, and you can play it while I’m making it.’ (Source: http://observer.com , 14 March 2017)

He found, however, that his early adopters helped improve the game. Users reported bugs and, more importantly, created ‘mods’ (game modifications) that were new worlds, characters and items for gamers to play with inside Minecraft .

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Minecraft had originally debuted as a downloadable game with no money for its marketing budget. It had only five worlds for users to explore and was a single-player game. In 2011, Minecraft became a gaming giant because Persson built the game with his community. As he recalls: It’s a weird way of making a game. You just put it out and keep working on it as you’re making it … I tried to make sure it’s clear that ‘This is not the game [that the buyers will see]. I’m just working on it, and you can play it while I’m making it.’ (Source: http://observer.com , 14 March 2017) He found, however, that his early adopters helped improve the game. Users reported bugs and, more importantly, created ‘mods’ (game modifications) that were new worlds, characters and items for gamers to play with inside Minecraft . The game’s early community provided the initial growth and adoption through the power of collaboration and connecting with other users – filtering content and shaping the game’s development. Now that Minecraft has been subject to global success and management by its technology partners, it is sold as a leading video game brand. This is evident from a quick search of the internet in examples that both market and synergise the product. The Minecraft website ( https://minecraft.net/en-us ) enables the user to explore and buy the game’s features. Under the main heading, the option to buy the product is prominent on the homepage. The website is the community location to download and explore realms and buy add-ons to the game. The introduction of the Minecraft Realms service in 2013 was an attempt to give the producers more control over the distribution and circulation of the game. Realms are servers that are created specifically for players and are intended to keep players’ Minecraft world online, accessible and safe to allow them to create, survive or compete. This invokes a sense of belonging, community and play amongst its users. It is the establishment of a community within its marketplace that signals Minecraft as a lead video game. Any successful media product requires a marketing strategy and, in the online age, a symbiotic relationship with social media. Minecraft ’s Twitter feed ( https://twitter.com/minecraft ) exemplifies its highly developed use of online technology and has 1.8 million followers. Its banner is creatively and professionally animated. It is effectively a marketing platform for Mojang Studios, offering free giveaways, design information and what appears to be gaming advice to fans. With its highly commercial appearance, it represents a successful branding exercise for the game and company. Tweets frequently reference what is available in the Minecraft market and tie-ins with Microsoft consoles, with messages offering information such as behind the scenes previews about new products. The Minecraft community then tweets brief replies in response to the development of concepts and technologies, creating awareness online of the products – which is exactly the aim of the Minecraft publicity machine.

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Minecraft has also exploited the use of YouTube as a broadcast platform to promote its products, introducing game trailers and encouraging a video community willing to share its craft online. This prosumer community has aided online discussion of the game and improved viewers’ abilities to play, create and share in it. Minecraft gamer celebrities have also emerged via YouTube, which in itself has attracted attention to the way the game is played and popularised it with online young, video-savvy media audiences. For example, reviews of games by popular YouTube vloggers such as PewDiePie are important for the future production of games as their feedback influences producers’ thinking for future releases. This is exemplified in the game’s survival mode, in tips on how to find food or how to stop the threat of creepers (exploding zombie-like creatures). Minecraft Wiki ( http://minecraft.wikia.com/wiki/Minecraft ) is a free-to-use website referenced by Minecraft users to find out how to craft an item or realm in Minecraft . Users ask for help in the online forum. There is a history of the game’s development on the site and a wide range of fans’ feeds. This networked community of users exchanges ideas, finds free game resources and asks questions in relation to problemsolving and creativity. Away from established and recognised internet platforms, Minecraft reddit is a forum widely used and lists websites for add-ons and game features. Educational value In addition to the marketing and exchange of Minecraft , its educational worth is valued by users who create, play and share. This ethos is reflected in global projects and the educational value embedded in its program design. For example: Minecraft has also been linked to non-profit projects such as the UN’s Block by Block project, which encourages communities around the world to redesign their neighbourhoods using Minecraft . An educational version has also been developed, Minecraft Edu (2012), which has several applications to help teach subjects and develop a culture of computer programming among digital natives. This cultural impact of Minecraft is significant in terms of creative and community use, with audiences sharing their own game modifications (‘mods’), and game footage being made available across web forums and video-sharing sites such as YouTube. Different versions of Minecraft have been released to entice different audiences, moving away from creation-only narratives to include Story modes, spectator modes and multiplayer functionality across Minecraft Realms. Audience participation has increased the appeal of Minecraft as users create new in-game content via beta-testing processes, producing shareable, downloadable mods, and texture and resource packs.