Minecraft question- 03/02/21

 Explain the significance of economic factors in the gaming industry. Use Minecraft to support your answer (15)

Economic factors are very significant within the gaming industry. As technology has evolved, games have had to evolve too, which has required a lot of financial investment to be required to allow for the innovation of games. 

This is evident in the game 'Minecraft' which has evolved as the industry has changed. The creator of Minecraft, Markus 'Notch' Persson initially released 'cave game' in 2009 which was attractive to people who liked to code and design gaming worlds. Once it started to take off, Persson and his company Mojang Studios, then re-released it as an updated format 'Minecraft'. The game was still very basic as it had very simple graphics which allowed for costs to be low as well as allowing the game to be easily customized by users. This meant that it had a very niche audience of coders and programmers as they enjoyed the customizable aspect of the game. Due to this community ethos, it allowed for piracy to be reduced which therefore meant that Minecraft wasn't losing any money to illegal actions. This meant that Mojang's finance could be used to develop the game to become better and therefore appeal to a wider audience and generate more revenue,  highlighting the importance of economic factors in the gaming industry.

Minecraft was a huge success as in November 2011, prior to the game's release, Persson estimated that $33 million dollars of revenue had been generated as Minecraft had over 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. Due to Mojang being a small company with a low marketing budget, most of the early advertising for Minecraft was done through word of mouth between gamers. Audiences would also share their own game footage across web forums and YouTube, which highlighted their excitement for the game and allowed the team at Mojang Studios to receive 'earned media'. This allowed for Minecraft to quickly grow and become more successful. This shows how economic factors are significant in the gaming industry as the low costs of the marketing of Minecraft allowed for Persson to continue to work on the game to ensure it was continuing to grow bigger and better, resulting in it then having a more mass audience appeal. 

Minecraft was doing so well that it appealed to the conglomerate company 'Microsoft'. This resulted in Microsoft purchasing Minecraft for $2.5 billion in 2014. Due to Microsoft being a huge conglomerate company, this meant it had a large budget to spend on the game as well as having a high status which encouraged companies to synergise with it. With their large budget, Microsoft went into a publishing frenzy as they put Minecraft onto all of their systems: Xbox, PlayStation, Wii U then mobile platforms and Windows 10. This allowed for the game to grow as it now had access to a wider audience due to it being digitally convergent. The game was able to easily be cross platform as it was created using JAVA which enabled this easy editability. Microsoft then were able to use their large budget to synergise with other companies. For example, Microsoft worked with 'Tell-tale Games' who helped create Minecraft Story Mode, which would allow for Minecraft to appeal to a wider audience and therefore generate more revenue. When Persson owned Minecraft, he said he would not be working with 'Oculus' to develop a VR version of Minecraft due to 'Oculus' being owned by Facebook and not by 'grassroots game developers' as Persson wanted to help provide more economic finance to smaller companies- highlighting the importance of economic factors in the industry. But once Microsoft bought Minecraft, they agreed plans with Oculus to develop a VR version of Minecraft to appeal to more audiences and generate more revenue, showing the importance of economic factors in the gaming industry. 

Overall, Minecraft has been a global phenomenon as it currently has 200 million copies sold, which continues to increase. Microsoft continues to synergise with other companies to increase Minecraft's exposure as a film with LEGO and Warner Brothers is set for release in 2022. Mojang Studios were really successful with Minecraft but it is due to the big budget of Microsoft that has allowed for Minecraft to continue to grow and become the success that it is. This shows that the economic factors within the gaming industry are very significant as due to it being a very competitive market with fast changing technology, a large budget is needed to ensure that any games created can keep up with the changing market, or will risk failing. 

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