Minecraft Didn’t Sell Itself

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 6, 2015

It’s popular (in indie circles) to say that Notch did everything wrong with Minecraft, yet it still managed to become the biggest indie success story of all time. The game was confusing to players until they’d checked out some kind of out-of-game tutorial (or had someone sitting next to them explaining it to them). It was written in Java. Distribution was weird. Notch didn’t go through the traditional channels. He didn’t even try to get his game on Steam, for crying out loud! (In fact, I think he refused the offer).

Oh, and he didn’t market it.

Except… really… he did. He marketed it quite well, and cleverly. And this should be a lesson to indie developers across the board. He marketed the game in a very indie way, bypassing some of the conventional wisdom and methods. But some furious marketing was good. Something for all of us to learn from. Not that exactly imitating him would yield the same results – we’ve all gotta find out own style and niche, adapting to (rather than following) current trends and technology.

Konsolo has a fantastic article about exactly how Minecraft was marketed that I’ve been meaning to share:

How Notch Marketed Minecraft

Filed Under: Biz, Game Development - Comments: Read the First Comment



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