Title Update 27 for the Xbox 360, Content Update 15 for the Xbox One, and the patch 1.18 for the PS Vita, PS3 and PS4 are available for download. Most of this patch involves bug fixes, but it also includes arcadia and dark oak furniture. This patch also includes the Greek Mythology Mash-up DLC which includes features like different player interface, special soundtrack, a custom set for texture, and 39 additional skins. The Greek Mash-up pack costs £3.29/$3.99 and is already available on the Xbox marketplace and PSN.
Minecraft

Minecraft movie director
At London’s MineCon, McElhenney is chosen to direct the Minecraft Movie which comes out in 2017.
Some of you may have seen this guy hanging around MINECON in London a couple weeks ago. He’s Rob McElhenney, and he’s going to be directing the upcoming Minecraft movie
Xbox One Title Update 21
Title Update 21 is released for Minecraft on XBOX One . It comes with play improvements and bug fixes, such as Redstone fixes and a fix for the horses that disappear. There is also an increase limit on the Minecart,
Character model update
Minecraft developer Jens Bergensten tweets a possible update to the Minecraft character skins which involves changing the arms from four to three pixels in width. He explains that it would be an optional feature.
Testing a possible feature for the future, an optional (via your profile) 3-pixel arm model for players: http://t.co/EqfvH9pIjA
— Jens Bergensten (@jeb_) July 15, 2014
Mineorama postponed
Mineorama, an unofficial Minecraft convention set to happen in New York on July 12-13, is postponed until further notice. Thousands of tickets are sold and Mineorama does not give any explanation or information about refunds.
1080p Resolution
Microsoft Studios’ Roger Carpenter confirms that Minecraft will run at 1080p and 60fps on both the XBox One and PS4. The graphics are not the only enhancement as the game will also support larger world sizes and map seeds up to 36 times larger than Xbox360 and PS3 versions. This enhanced version of Minecraft will be out in August 2014 at a price of $19.99.
Magic: The Gathering card by Notch
An image of the 2015 Magic: The Gathering card designed by Notch is released, along with cards by fourteen other people in the gaming industry, such as the developers of Plants vs. Zombies and World of Warcraft. Notch’s card is called Aggressive Mining.
Wii U/3DS Minecraft release possible
Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinya Takahashi, managers of Nintendo’s Analysis & Development and Software Planning & Development departments respectively, tell Kotaku that they are interested in bringing Minecraft to Wii U or 3DS:
We’ve always thought internally that using the [Wii U] GamePad would probably make for a Minecraft that’s very easy to play. And, of course, if we were to do something with Minecraft on the 3DS, similarly we would probably do it where it would be easier to play and could probably reach a lot of kids.
However, they do not give any details regarding negotiations with Mojang or a timeline for release:
Maybe we’re meeting with them [Mojang]! Who knows?
Minecraft for PS4
A trailer for the PlayStation 4 version of Minecraft is shown at the 2014 E3 conference. Old saves from the PlayStation 3 version will be compatible with this update, but people who bought the PS3 version of Minecraft will have to pay a small fee to get the PS4 version. New features in the PS4 version include 36 times larger worlds, new controls, and a four panel split screen for multiplayer.
Pocket Edition infinite worlds
Mojang releases the 0.9.0 snapshot for Minecraft Pocket Edition, which includes infinite worlds, new physics mechanics for gravel, sand, lava, and water, and many new blocks including mycelium and emerald. Before this point, the Pocket Edition smartphone application only supports worlds that are 256 by 256 blocks wide and lacks many of the blocks present in the PC game. The snapshot is posted on the Mojang blog for users to download:
The Pocket Edition team are a hard-working bunch. Their most recent snapshot is the biggest update to Minecraft: Pocket Edition so far! It really is massive.
Server monetization guidelines
Mojang sets guidelines for how servers can raise money in order to pay for their operating costs. They say server administrators are allowed to charge for access to servers, accept donations, and have advertisements on their servers, but are not allowed to give users who donate unfair advantages:
These rules are making attempts to prevent Minecraft servers becoming “pay-to-win.” We hate the idea of server hosts restricting Minecraft’s features to players who have already bought our game! It seems really mean.
Notch clarifies that this includes servers with custom gameplay modes that are not present in vanilla Minecraft:
@PandaToothGamin You can't made paid games based on our engine. That's the entire point.
— Markus Persson (@notch) June 7, 2014
Realms available worldwide
Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service by Mojang, is released worldwide for the Mac and PC versions of the game. The service costs $13 per month and does not require setting up a LAN network or configuring IP addresses to start a server:
We’re proud to announce that Minecraft Realms for PC and Mac is now available worldwide! Realms is the easiest way for you to host a Minecraft world online. You and your friends can work on an awesome creation, adventure into the depths, or play one of our featured mini-games with just a few clicks.
Notch against Facebook
Notch posts on his blog that he will not develop for the virtual-reality device Oculus Rift because Facebook acquired the company behind it. Before this, he considers creating a version of Minecraft or another game for the platform:
I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook. Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven’t historically been a stable platform. There’s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.
Japanese lessons
James York, an English teacher and language acquisition PhD student, releases a Japanese course called Kotoba Miners using Minecraft as a classroom. The lessons involve various objectives which require players to read and speak to each other in Japanese to progress in the game. York says this is more beneficial than traditional classrooms for gaining fluency because it forces players to interact in Japanese:
The biggest advantage for Kotoba Miners is the fact that people can log in from all around the world at the same time and connect with other Japanese learners and actually practice SPEAKING the language. The majority of students that come to Kotoba Miners that have been studying Japanese in the past invariably say something along the lines of: “I’ve been studying Japanese for a while, but I’ve never actually spoken it…”
Minecon 2012
Minecon 2012 is held at Disneyland Paris and about 4,500 fans attend. People wear costumes, meet other fans, and get to see Minecraft Youtubers like Vareide, CaptainSparklez and SethBling in person.
2012 Golden Joystick
The Yogscast wins the 2012 Golden Joystick award in the Youtube Gamer of the Year category. The award is decided by votes on the Golden Joystick website.
Held onto Yogscast golden joystick for so long that the gold started wearing off. Dear god. pic.twitter.com/2PHpqdYJ
— Simon Honeydew (@SimonHoneydew) October 27, 2012
Notch against Windows 8
Notch criticizes Microsoft for its regulations regarding which games can appear on the Windows 8 app store. Microsoft must approve all games to ensure that they are coded properly and do not contain adult content.
Got an email from microsoft, wanting to help "certify" minecraft for win 8. I told them to stop trying to ruin the pc as an open platform.
— Markus Persson (@notch) September 27, 2012
One billion views
The Yogscast becomes the first YouTube channel in the UK to reach one billion total video views.
Bukkit team joins Mojang
Warren “EvilSeph” Loo, Erik “Grum” Broes, Nathan “Dinnerbone” Adams and Nathan “Tahg” Gilbert, the developers of the Bukkit server implementation mod, are hired to work on the official Minecraft server API:
The plan is to build a fresh server API, and then extend it to support client-side modding (in one way or another). We will try to make it easy for bukkit users to convert if they wish to do so, but backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.
SOPA protest
The official websites of Mojang and Minecraft are shut down to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Users are unable to purchase Minecraft or play the browser-based version, but they can play the game if they have the client downloaded. Notch tells PC Gamer:
No sane person can be for SOPA, I don’t know if we’re sane, but we are strongly, uncompromisingly against SOPA, and any similar laws. Sacrificing freedom of speech for the benefit of corporate profit is abominable and disgusting.
Jeb becomes lead developer
Notch announces that he is stepping down as lead developer of Minecraft and giving Jeb the job. Notch’s position as the head of Mojang remains unchanged and he says he will start working on a new project soon:
We’ve been working together on Minecraft for a year now, and I’m amazed at how much in synch we two are when it comes to how to design the game…Personally, I will now rest for a while, then get back to work refreshed and eager. I’ll be helping out with Minecraft, of course, but also starting work on some new project.
Yogscast, Notch settle differences
The Yogscast responds to allegations by Notch that they behave inappropriately at Minecon 2011:
We are very disappointed by these tweets from someone we admire and respect. We can understand that it was the morning after the deadmau5 party and Notch was very tired, but we are still fairly upset. The quotes and actions that Notch attributed to us were not said by us or published anywhere by us.
Notch apologizes:
It's likely the entire Yogscast scenario is just stress related misunderstanding. I apologize for bringing it online before talking to them.
— Markus Persson (@notch) November 24, 2011
The Yogscast releases a video saying that “he was very tired . . . so we can let him off for that.”
Notch: Yogscast ‘total dicks’
Notch accuses the Yogscast YouTube duo of being rude to kids at Minecon 2011 and acting like they are better than the other speakers at the event:
And they claim they're the reason minecraft is big and that we should thank them more than anyone else in the community. They're total dicks
— Markus Persson (@notch) November 21, 2011
The Yogscast does not have time to respond immediately:
Minecon 2011
Minecon 2011 is held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, and almost 5,000 people are in attendance:
On Friday, the exhibit hall and game room will open at 10am and the first keynote address will begin at 1pm. Both days will be jammed packed with exciting events such as contest, exhibits, classes covering all different Minecraft topics (with special quests speaking on panels), the Indie Developer theatre, special announcements and much more.
Official release
Minecraft 1.0 is officially released during Minecon 2011. Though the game sells millions of copies before this point, technically it is considered a beta game until 1.0. The 1.0 update also includes several new features including a dimension where players fight the Ender Dragon, the final boss of the game.
Notch, Ez marry
Notch marries Elin “Ez” Zetterstrand. To celebrate their marriage, Notch creates a promotion in which people can buy one copy of Minecraft and get one free to give to someone they love.
First kiss as married http://t.co/kyxEVQA
— ez (@ezchili) August 15, 2011
Pocket Edition
Daniel Kaplan announces on Mojang’s blog that Minecraft Pocket Edition, a version of the game for smartphones, will be demonstrated at E3 2011. He says the first device to get Pocket Edition will be the Xperia Play. A representative from Mojang tells TouchArcade that changes are needed to make the game compatible with smartphones:
When playing on smart phones you will have a different screen size compared to PC, different hardware, different attention spans and thus the game needs to be customized to fit the mobile specifications
One million sales
Beta
Minecraft officially enters beta with the 1.0 update. The price increases from €9.95 to €14.95 (about $14 to $20). The beta 1.0 update mostly consists of minor bug fixes but also includes a patch for an inventory duplication glitch that existed previously.
Well, holy moly, beta is out. We'll update the website and increase the price now. 😀
— Markus Persson (@notch) December 20, 2010
Jeb hired
Jens “Jeb” Bergensten joins Mojang as a server programmer. He has experience working for a number of small independent game development studios as well as his own online role-playing game called Whispers in Akarra:
Now I’m looking forward to work with Mojang as a server programmer, and hopefully I will get the chance to help improving Minecraft as well 🙂 Server programming is mainly about writing Spring configurations and data access objects anyway. 😉
Classic returns
Notch puts Minecraft Classic back on the Minecraft website for people to play. It is free, but lacks all of the features present in Minecraft Alpha including survival mode.
Daniel Kaplan hired
Kaplan is hired to take care of business and financial matters at Mojang. Notch reveals he is actually the third member of the company but he does not disclose the other employee’s name because they are working on a secret project. Kaplan has experience working with the independent game development studio Ludosity:
At Mojang I will work with different things. First I need to get to know you guys and your needs and what makes Minecraft special for you and how we can make Minecraft an even better game! So my first days at Mojang will be to look for alternative solutions for Paypal and I will eventually also take on the support so Notch can concentrate on what he does best: code and design Minecraft.
MinecraftCon 2010
Notch announces a Minecraft meet-up called MinecraftCon 2010 about a week before the event:
I have all day on August 31 free in Bellevue, and I’ve gotten several requests from people who want to meet me. I figured we could call it MinecraftCon 2010 even it’s just three people sitting around in uncomfortable silence for 20 minutes. 😀
Minecraft fans show up and ask him many questions about the development of the game:
MinecraftCon 2010 is over, thank you everyone for attending! I had a great time, even though you spammed me with questions. 😉
— Markus Persson (@notch) September 1, 2010
Infdev
Minecraft officially passes from the indev (in development) phase to the infdev (infinite development) phase. This phase is focused on getting infinitely large terrain to generate properly:
There’s a lot of bugs and a lot of missing features, but here, have some infinite maps. _please_ don’t report bugs in this yet, I am aware that it’s extremely buggy.
‘I will add infinite maps’
Notch decides to add infinitely large maps to Minecraft. He admits that technically maps are limited to 324 nonillion blocks large but says that any computer will run out of disk space before approaching that limit:
There’s going to be a LOT of work to be done after this initial release of infinite maps, and that release might be a pretty big step backwards in functionality in some aspects (water might not work at all in it, for example), but I think I can reach this first release pretty fast.
Dock fired
Dock is let go from his job as the official artist for Minecraft. Notch acknowledges his skill as a game designer but says he prefers to develop alone:
I went from doing Minecraft on my own to suddenly having to wait for someone else before I could move on. We had repeated problems getting anything animated to load into the game, and eventually I decided to just go ahead on my own.
Crafting
Crafting is added to Minecraft in the indev 0.31 update. Users arrange items in a grid to create other items. Notch creates a video to help players understand what to do:
It’s not very intuitive yet, but it kinda actually works!
Indev
Minecraft enters the indev (in development) phase with the 0.31 update. Paid users are able to test the latest survival updates, but Notch warns they may be buggy:
This is not official in any way, but I’ve gotten several requests that people who paid should be able to play the latest version, even if it’s horribly buggy and crashes all the time. And I agree. They should be able to do that, at their own risk.
Dock hired as artist
Hayden Scott-Baron, also known as Dock, becomes the official artist for Minecraft. He has experience drawing for the LostWinds Wii game and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 PC game. He creates a new logo for Minecraft as well as a new character model:
It isn’t as square and blocky as the old models, and that kinda scared me at first. But when the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was the way to go. Given enough square edges, the models will fit in fine, and these are much more customizable and have much more personality.
Survival test
Survival test officially begins with the 0.24 update. It is only available to people who pre-pay for the game at €9.95 for a few weeks but then Notch decides to make it free. This version includes more interactive mobs, allows users to save and load survival maps, and adds Creeper enemies:
You have to pre-purchase the game to be able to participate in the test. This test is not an accurate demonstration of how the final survival mode will be. It does, however, contain many of the gameplay elements that will be included in Survival Mode. I’m making it available for you both to get some feedback while I’m in Indonesia for three weeks, and to thank you for pre-purchasing the game.
Multiplayer
Forums open
Notch creates official Minecraft forums on Mojang’s website. Users can give input about the game and share save files with each other.
First public release
Minecraft 0.0.11a version is released for public testing. Before this point, people have to contact Notch on IRC to be invited to test it. The game is browser-based and free to play.
Minecraft: Order of the Stone
Cave Game is renamed Minecraft: Order of the Stone at the suggestion of one of Notch’s friends on the Independent Games Wiki IRC:
The awesome but insane people in #tigirc helped me come up with a title for this game, and it’s Minecraft: Order of the Stone. Minecraft because it’s a good name. Order of the Stone because it sounds like Order of the Stick, one of the best things on the internet.
Cave Game
Notch releases a blog post with a link to a YouTube video showcasing an early test version of Cave Game. It features a world made of stone and grass cubes. In the description of the video, he describes it as an “Infiniminer clone” and says he is undecided about whether or not he will finish the project: