Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything Read Online Free PDF

ActionScript?”
    The job interview at Midasplayer began really badly. Markus couldn’t dodge such a direct question, and the only honest answer was a straight no. He had experimented with most existing programming languages used to create small online games, but not ActionScript. Unfortunately, that was the only one used at the company where he wanted to work.
    Markus got the job anyway, an indication of how quickly Midasplayer was growing at the time. Each day, the line of commuters from the subway station to Midasplayer’s main office on Kungsholms Square in Stockholm grew longer. The year was 2004 and the company was just a year old.
    Markus had to spend his first week at his new job learning ActionScript before he could begin working on his own projects. He mostly sat quietly staring into his screen, partly because he was focused, and partly because he had quickly noticed that the powers that be at his place of work were nothing like him. He began, for the first time, to glimpse the contours of a gaming world quite different from what he had dreamt of since childhood.
    To understand how he felt, you need to lift your gaze a bit and look more closely at the professional gaming industry. In Stockholm, one company exemplifies the Goliaths of that world better than anything else.
    On the other side of the inner city from Midasplayer’s offices are the headquarters of the game studio DICE. On dark evenings, boats entering Stockholm from the south are greeted by a brightly lit neon sign displaying the company’s logo, high up on the glass facade of the building next to the Slussen locks. At that exclusive address, nine floors above the street, some of Sweden’s most successful export items have been created. From inside the offices you can view Gamla stan and the sea approach to Stockholm through panoramic windows.
    DICE is owned by Electronic Arts, one the largest video game publishers in the world. Daily life there is markedly different from the amateur programming that Markus was used to. The company’s games are products, adapted to target audiences down to the smallest detail, backed by billions of dollars in marketing, and delivered with elaborate planning in order to boost the parent company’s quarterly profits and stock market value. DICE’s cash cow is the game series Battlefield , a realistic, tactical war simulator that has sold over 50 million copies. The first part in the series, Battlefield 1942 , was released in 2002. Since then, DICE has honed and tweaked the concept in sixteen different sequels, with wars being alternately staged in Vietnam, the Europe of WWII, and a fictional future conflict between the United States and Russia.
    In late 2011, the company was gearing up to launch its latest title in the series: Battlefield 3 . The release would be an internationally acclaimed event in the gaming world, as elaborate as a major Hollywood premiere, coordinated by an international team of marketers and PR experts. For several months, expectations were raised with ad campaigns and articles in gaming magazines. Particular emphasis was put on the game’s new, completely redesigned engine, which allowed DICE to create a more realistic war experience than ever before. “All the sights, sounds, and action of real-world incursions,” the ads bragged. In trailers, backed by grinding heavy-metal guitars, virtually photorealistic soldiers could be seen rushing around through urban environments that were promptly shot to pieces.
    At the same time, the stock market was massaged with gilt-edged information about the new game. Electronic Arts’ well-dressed CEO, John Riccitiello, spoke often and inspirationally about how Battlefield 3 would push up Electronic Arts’ market value. The competition was Call of Duty , a war game from archrival Activision Blizzard.
    “ Call of Duty did 400 million dollars in revenue on day one. Battlefield 3 is designed to take that game down,” John Riccitiello told the audience at