Minecraft: $15,000 per hour?

According to this, Markuss Persson is selling one copy of Minecraft every three seconds. That's about $15,000 per hour - for a downloaded game, still in alpha, developed almost entirely by himself alone. Apparently, he's reached $350,000 in a single day! No doubt that's because of my posts, huh? Heh, heh.

Note that this is nothing like mainstream games, and not just because of the blocky graphics. The game is not difficult, but it doesn't hold your hand, either. If you die, use that as a learning experience. You just respawn at your original starting place, anyway.

And there's no story. You can make your own story as you play the game. Personally, I consider it a Robinson Crusoe sort of situation: shipwrecked in a dangerous land, with nothing but your bare hands and your wits.

Mainstream game developers spend millions on fancy graphics, voice actors, and the rights to some blockbuster movie title, but independent developers tend to have the gameplay. Certainly, they often have unique gameplay, while mainstream developers would never take a chance on a new idea, even if they had one.

Will this kind of money catch their attention? Will we start seeing Minecraft clones? I guess we'll see.

Minecraft is cheap - only €9.95 (about $13.50 in U.S. dollars) right now. If you decide to try it, check out my beginner's guide. OK, there are lots of guides online, but I've embedded a YouTube video there and a few useful links to get you started.

PS. There are all sorts of Minecraft YouTube videos, of course, but I thought I'd embed this one. This isn't typical gameplay, not even close. Instead, this guy is building a working 16-bit computer in the game. Heh, heh. Wild, isn't it? I can't say I understand most of what he says, but I really admire the imagination of people like this.