Minecraft Movie Targeting Jurassic World Audience - IGN
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No word yet on when Steve will get his big screen debut.
Warner Bros. Pictures'
movie is in its scripting stage, producer Roy Lee announced at DICE 2016. Lee—who produced The LEGO Movie—added his team is "also doing visual designs to show the studio what the world will look like." And according to , Minecraft developer Mojang will be "very involved" in the film's development. Warner Bros. and Mojang will work in collaboration, sharing ideas so the film stays connected to updated versions of the game's world.
"Minecraft would be part of a multiverse where humans can enter," Lee said of the film, "that has the feel of what the live action version of a Minecraft experience." Warner Bros. Minecraft film is looking to target the same audience as Jurassic World. And as
noted, it's unclear whether this means it'll be rated PG-13 like Jurassic World, or PG like The LEGO Movie. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia co-creator and star . There is no set timeline as of yet, but Lee reported the movie should go into production later in 2016.
Nicole is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow her on .
IN THIS ARTICLE
Minecraft: The Movie
From the distributor that brought you the LEGO Movie comes the big-screen adaptation of Minecraft, the hit videogame franchise.
IGN RecommendsInside the geeky, revolutionary world of “Minecraft”
Can a video game change the world? At the "Minecraft" convention in Las Vegas, crazily costumed obsessives say yes
Video Games, ,
The revolution will be pixelated. It will be digital, yes, but also lo-fi and open-ended. And it’s underway right now in the virtual world of “Minecraft,” the deceptively simple online video game that has conquered the gaming world by stealth. Well, it was stealthy until one November weekend, when 5,000 die-hard fans converged on Las Vegas for Minecon and the celebration of “Minecraft’s” official launch.“Launch” is a bit of a misnomer, as the game already has 16 million registered users in its beta form. The day before the announced launch, Mojang, the small Swedish company that created “Minecraft,” quietly released its new smartphone app — and within 24 hours it became the No. 1 selling app in the U.S. With an Xbox version of the game coming this spring, another 30 million Xbox Live subscribers will be jumping into the “Minecraft” Nether. The Minecraft Generation has officially begun.As “Minecraft” is a user-driven experience, the convention’s organizers decided to let the fans decide where to hold Minecon. Vegas must have sounded good on paper, but the heart of empty consumerism was a strange place to drop 5,000 Utopian-minded geeks. Each day there was a long, pasty parade through Mandalay Bay’s casino en route to th bleary-eyed gamblers and prostitutes didn’t know exactly what to make of gamers in costumes and capes. At one point, a popular panel let out and Minecon enthusiasts found themselves outside a theater where Katy Perry was about to play. The anti-consumerist virtual army marched past a hyper-sexualized horde of sparkly-eye-shadowed tweens.So what the hell is “Minecraft”? And what brought together these 5,000 die-hard fans from 23 countries? What’s difficult to explain to those who haven’t spent time with “Minecraft” is that it is not simply a game, but an open-ended virtual world, one that has spawned a massive and rapidly expanding online community. The gamers believe that “Minecraft” is a powerful force for creativity in an overly prescribed world. I went to Minecon with my guide and translator, namely my son, just shy of 13 years old, a “Minecraft” early adopter and veteran who has taught himself programming simply to manipulate the game.But despite making Time magazine’s Top 50 Inventions of the Year, “Minecraft” has spread mainly by word of mouth and social media. I was the only journalist at Minecon who didn’t work for a blog or gaming magazine. It’s especially popular on YouTube, which has seen an explosion of screen-capture videos with voice-overs produced by “commentators” who do everything from show off their latest massive builds, “walk-throughs” of challenges and humorous send-ups of things like “Lord of the Rings” within “Minecraft.”Unlike the all-time bestselling online game, “World of Warcraft,” you play “Minecraft” as yourself, not as a fantastic version of oneself. Therefore, when interacting with other players, you are interacting with humans, not someone acting out their fantasy of being a muscle-bound warrior with flowing locks, or a bosomy blood elf, or a 7-foot-tall slathering goblin. This lack of artifice makes for genuine, personal bonds and it was great to watch as people who’d known each other virtually for months (if my kid is any indicator) meet in person.It was also interesting to hear parents of kids with Asperger’s relate how “Minecraft” has enabled their kids to socialize in a way they never could before in the real world. Even more surprisingly, the kids have been able to translate these newfound skills into the physical world. One mother said that because her kid, who was brilliant but had trouble in school, spent so much time explaining aspects of “Minecraft” to his mother, he was able to translate this patience and work on his homework from start to finish for the first time.
– – – – – – – – – –So how popular is this game? Many of the most popular commentators have become massive game-world celebrities and are now employed by the gaming video company Machinima (which boasts the most-viewed entertainment channel on YouTube, with nearly 950 million videos posted to date). The Machinima “Directors” make long, elaborate videos, often featuring electronic dance music soundtracks by artists like DeadMau5 and Skrillex. The most popular commentators, the Yogscast, are beyond even Machinima. Starring Simon and Lewis, a very funny British duo (who have a running shtick of their avatars bumbling through adventure maps), Yogscast now has over a million subscribers, and employs four people to keep up with the relentless demands of fans. At Minecon, Simon and Lewis were the elusive prey. Fans lined up for three hours or more for an autograph, and their presentation was easily the most well-attended panel of the weekend.The game itself is an eight-bit, super-pixelated Java-built universe where you are a generic character (“Steve,” which you can personalize with your own skin) armed with nothing but a pickax. That’s it. Just Steve and the pickax. There are no instructions. It falls to the players to make the most of the randomly generated pixelated landscapes, which naturally involves, you guessed it, mining. You dig for various elements — from gravel to gold to obsidian — then combine (“craft”) elements into mine carts, tracks, doors, windows, and then build anything you want above- or below ground, including towers, Taj Mahals or music-generating trip-wires powered by intricate “redstone” circuitry.The constructions can be truly spectacular. Sky towers of remarkable complexity, beautifully elegant, geometric, massive structures resembling cathedrals or Miasaki-like flying fortresses. Engineering marvels of circuitry that create whimsical “pig slot machines” or even other games within the game. “Minecraft” gives you the tools, and almost all players love to MacGyver more than anything.Whereas “World of Warcraft” has set missions that you must complete to advance, the genius of “Minecraft” lies in its mutability and adaptability. Its creator, the Swedish game designer Marcus Persson, aka Notch, encourages outside coders to modify and subvert the game. This includes developing “mods,” which can be inserted into “Minecraft,” introducing everything from werewolves to nuclear power.“Minecraft” can be played in single-player mode, allowing for uninterrupted construction, or in multi-player mode with a running chat feature. Collaborative spirit is one of “Minecraft’s” main emotional engines. The game is played on a seemingly endless number of servers, both public and private, which you can then open to friends, virtual or otherwise.“Minecraft” is revolutionary because it has no real goals, no real end. At least until Minecon, where Notch decided to announce “The End.” Notch, a self-effacing, charming, gnomish Swede in his ubiquitous fedora and polo shirt, told me, “I always imagined ‘Minecraft’ would have an end. I like games with an end. But,” he smiles amiably, “I’m not taking it too seriously.”And neither did the gamers. Most were willing to indulge Notch his end. As it turns out, after playing “The End,” which involves defeating an “Enderdragon,” a menacing black dragon, which, in Classic mode took the assembled geeks anywhere from one to 15 minutes to dispatch, the gamers jumped right back into the heart of the game. For “Minecraft” users, it is all about the journey, not the destination.After test-driving the new version on any of the hundreds of free computers set up in the exhibit hall, most gamers returned to creating their own worlds — and to the all-consuming mission at Minecon: meeting the rock stars of their universe, the Directors. There was also buzz about who was actually going to get into the closing party, where wildly successful 23-year-old British artist DeadMau5 himself, a “Minecraft” über-fan, with a Creeper (the green, phallic, zombie-like creatures that prowl the “Minecraft” night) tattoo on his arm and a green Space Invader on his neck, would be playing.As with any geeky gathering, part of the joy is getting to be with your own people and letting your freak flag fly. In that spirit, many participants brought homemade pickaxes, diamond swords, boxheads and full-on costumes. The chaotic costume contest, judged by fan applause, was a highlight. There were plenty of Steves, Creepers, black-clad Endermen, boxes of TNT and even the online avatar of DeadMau5 — a blue mouse-head with beady red eyes. Since the crowd was half teenage boys, a “Sexy Wolf,” wearing only a few strips of fur, won going away.– – – – – – – – – –But this online world has applications in real life as well. On one panel, a Swedish developer discussed using “Minecraft” to redesign and rebuild dilapidated public housing. He said that the “Minecraft” rendering was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of the new buildings and parks. The physical results exceeded everyone’s expectations.Jason Levin, aka “the Minecraft Teacher,” founded MinecraftEdu and uses the game in his curriculum. He’s discovered that students go beyond their assignments when “Minecraft” is introduced to the classroom. The game’s applications range from simple ones — foreign-language classes where students build a world and label everything with their new vocabulary words — to elaborate. Students have made entire cell structures, or created the equivalent of a living, breathing book report of the “Lord of the Flies” island, re-created with all of its characters. “If the kids are already going to be playing ‘Minecraft,’ why not incorporate these challenges?” he said.Collective, virtual problem-solving that can be applied to the physical world is most certainly the future. Game theorist Jane McGonical, author of “,” is convinced that an entire new generation raised playing collaborative games will help solve the world’s greatest challenges. In online games, she argues, we are at our best and most optimistic selves. Real-world goals of money, fame and beauty are more and more hollow to young people, she suggests. They’re much happier collaborating on “epic wins” in the virtual world. She believes that we are well on our way to harnessing this energy and creativity to tackle real-world issues.It’s an argument that dovetails with Rachel Botsman’s economic utopian theories. Botsman, the author of “What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption,” argues that we are moving away from endless consumerism. Economic necessity and finite resources, she writes, have gen many people are now more interested in “uses versus possessions.”
At Minecon, this utopian idealism was pervasive. The participants ranged in age from 4 to 77, and there were many, many families present, usually one parent with one very happy teenager. A majority of the parents were players themselves, while a sizable number came to find out more about this all-consuming passion. Via Twitter, I noticed that Lauren Myracle was in the building with her 13-year-old son, who is only a few months older than mine. Myracle, who had been disnominated for the National Book Awards YA category in a colossal blunder on the part of the NBA, decided to attend Minecon rather than accept an invitation to the awards ceremony. When we spoke, our sons talked about which Directors they had met, and we tried not to embarrass ourselves in front of our kids as we compared notes about the phenomenon. Like most of the parents at Minecon, we found that we are much more willing to indulge endless hours of “Minecraft” as opposed to first-person shooter or role-playing games.I also tracked down Alex Leavitt, who is working on his Ph.D. at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California. His thesis is on “Minecraft” and its popularity. (I studied the psychology of sport in grad school, so I know the incredulous eyebrows Alex gets.) Leavitt is onto something quite profound. As an academic subject, “Minecraft” is endlessly fascinating, and changing by the second. “Two years ago this couldn’t have happened,” Leavitt told me. “The infrastructure was not there to support this.” Leavitt told me that one year ago there were a few thousand “Minecraft” YouTube videos. Today, there are well over a million. And with the rise and cult of the Directors, these videos are heavily curated with instantaneous feedback. “Captain Sparklez,” one of the most prominent Directors (his “Revenge” video, based on the Usher song “DJ’s Got Us Fallin’ in Love,” about the dangers of Creepers, is a “Minecraft” legend with over 16 million YouTube views) says that within minutes of posting a video he has thousands of comments. “You are my content,” he told a cheering crowd of fans.Minecraft Miles, who has the daunting task of running the constantly updated Official Minecraft Wiki and Forum, came to Minecon straight from Occupy Portland. He was very happy to have his first shower in two weeks. You might think that a populace that spends a lot of time in a Lego-like virtual world wouldn’t be in tune with current events, but the Occupy movement was very much in the Minecon air. Everyone who works for the tech company IGN, the official online streamers of the convention, were wearing “Occupy Minecon” T-shirts, and there was more than one overheard conversation along the lines of “How do we take Occupy into ‘Minecraft’?”For all the utopian, anti-consumeristic idealism, the most popular booth at Minecon was Jinx, the official swag retailer, which had a nonstop line for T-shirts. There’s nothing like a physical manifestation to show which tribe you belong to.Indeed, Minecon attendees left with a new sense of how profoundly meaningful the community is to so many players. With the new app and the Xbox versions, the “Minecraft” revolution is only going to spread further and deeper. While I’m looking forward to all of the incredible new “Minecraft” creations, what I’m particularly interested in is what the Minecraft Generation is going to do in the virtual and real worlds. My son and several million other kids are coming of age playing a utopian game with no limits and no rules. Their creations are going to change the world in ways we cannot imagine.
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Watch ThisWhat’s Behind Microsoft's $2.5 Billion Mojang Acquisition?
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Kevin Werbach on Microsoft's Mojang Purchase
What’s behind Microsoft’s $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, the video game developer that created Minecraft, an open-ended building environment? When the purchase was announced on September 15, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the deal would bolster the company’s mobile efforts, as well as fortify its standing in video games. “Gaming is a top activity spanning devices, from PCs and consoles to tablets and mobile, with billions of hours spent each year,”Nadella . Pointing to the more than 100 million downloads of the game on the PC since its launch in 2009, and the two billion hours played on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game system alone, Nadella argued that Minecraftis “rich with new opportunities,” noting that it is “more than a great game franchise —it is an open world platform.”
In an interview on the Knowledge@Wharton show , Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor
said that Minecraft’s origins set it apart from other popular games. “Minecraft is different. It didn’t come from gaming companies like Electronic Arts, King or Zynga,”Werbach noted. “Minecraft came from a tiny company and one developer who built a company with a few of his friends. One reason a big company didn’t build Minecraft is because they didn’t think something so simple would be so enduring. Minecraft isn’t linear. It’s easy to understand, but sophisticated.”(Listen to the full interview using the player at the top of this page.)
In many ways, Microsoft’s primary challenge is not to mishandle Minecraft. After news of the sale of Mojang became public, many of the game’s diehard fans took to the Internet to bemoan the news, worried that the tech giant would do just that. The success of the Microsoft acquisition of Mojang will hinge on the long-term prospects for the platform: Is Minecraft near the end of its growth trajectory? Or can it become an enduring franchise akin to Lego, and cultivate the learning, engineering and programming skills of children and adults for years to come?
“If you look at the product life cycle and where Minecraft fits, it’s unclear whether the kids will move onto something else,” says Wharton emeritus management professor . “Minecraft can be enduring, but my gut feeling is that it’s a video game at the mid-point to end of its lifecycle.”
“If you look at the product life cycle and where Minecraft fits, it’s unclear whether [its users] will move onto something else.” –Lawrence Hrebiniak
As Microsoft announced the acquisition, Mojang detailed how co-founders Markus “Notch” Persson, Carl Manneh and Jakob Porsér would depart once the deal was complete. Microsoft will have to install new management to replace CEO Manneh and hold onto Mojang’s remaining developers. Persson said selling Mojang was about his sanity more than the money: The business of Minecraft had grown far beyond just the game he created .
“I’ve become a symbol,”. “I don’t want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don’t understand, that I don’t want to work on, that keeps coming back to me. I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately.”
A Strategic Fit
Strategically, Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang allows the software giant to beef up content for the Xbox and its game developer division. Minecraft is also popular on multiple mobile platforms, including Apple iOS and Android. Nadella’s strategy for the company is oriented around cloud computing, mobile platfo Microsoft is increasingly interested in selling its software as a subscription, even if it’s not going to be used on the company’s Windows operating system.
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Minecraft, the top game on Xbox and the leading paid app on iOS and Android in the U.S., could join Microsoft Office as a cross platform juggernaut. In addition, the acquisition of Mojang ensures that Minecraft will have a version for Microsoft’s Windows Phone mobile operating system.
In addition, buying Minecraft gives Microsoft the chance to become relevant to a younger generation that has thus far paid little attention to the company’s products beyond the Xbox. “For Microsoft, the demographics of Minecraft users would have been a big factor,”Wharton operations and information management professor
says. “Minecraft is used heavily by kids under 15. For Microsoft, this is a great way to remain relevant to that demographic and even introduce many of them to Xbox.”
“When those Minecraft customers are older, they can move to Halo, to the Surface [tablet], to Microsoft Word.” –Kevin Werbach
Werbach noted that Minecraft’s demographic sweet spot is children ages eight to 15. “Five years from now, that sweet spot will include totally different people,”he pointed out during his interview on SiriusXM. “There is no reason to think there won’t be [future] interest in Minecraft, and when those Minecraft customers are older, they can move to Halo, to the Surface [tablet], to Microsoft Word.”
But Hrebiniak is skeptical about the cross-selling potential from the Minecraft customer base. “If the preteen customer base is what Microsoft is buying into, it’s unclear whether they’ll grow up and pursue other products.”
Cultural Hurdles
The cultural issues clouding the deal were highlighted as soon it was announced. Mojang issued a statement stating the founders would leave the company, but noted “there are only a handful of potential buyers with the resources to grow Minecraft on a scale that it deserves.” Mojang leadership also said that it has worked closely with Microsoft since 2012 and has been impressed with “continued dedication to our game and its development.”
But can Microsoft enhance the game without being accused of ruining what makes it unique? “Microsoft has shown in the past that it gets involved when it acquires a company. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to meddle,” says Hrebiniak.
Werbach added that Microsoft will inevitably change Minecraft, but has to tread lightly. “The story of Mojang is tied to the notion of thumbing noses and staying true to a vision. It’s difficult for big companies to act that way.”For instance, if Microsoft made Minecraft exclusive to the Xbox “it would destroy goodwill” with the game’s players. “Microsoft will keep Minecraft on other platforms,”he predicted. “Remember, Microsoft is trying to be cool here and wants to be on the lips of kids who will [soon] be in college and then the workforce.”
Forrester analyst James McQuivey said in a note that Microsoft will struggle with letting “Minecrafters be Minecrafters.”He noted that “Minecraft is what it is because its users are free to make it whatever they want it to be. Will Microsoft be able to let the people run free with Minecraft the way the founders did and continue to do? The right answer, to preserve the value of the property, is yes,” explained McQuivey. “But that is not usually the corporate answer, whether at Microsoft or elsewhere.”
“The first step for Microsoft is to figure out how not to kill [Minecraft].” –Kevin Werbach
The struggle for Microsoft’s Minecraft integration partially revolves around how the company is organized, according to Hosanagar. Because Microsoft has so many hardware and software units, the Minecraft deal highlights how being cross platform can cause internal strife, says Hosanagar, adding that Microsoft has an interest in selling its Nokia phones with Windows Phone mobile operating systems, but Office benefits from being on Android and iOS. Thus, one product does well at the expense of another.
“Similarly, Minecraft is available on devices that compete with Microsoft: On Sony’s Playstation that competes with Xbox, as well as Android and iOS, both of which compete with Windows Phone,”he notes. “So that inherently puts two divisions at odds with one another.”
The Future of Minecraft
Though the Minecraft purchase has its risks, the $2.5 billion price tag was reasonable relative to other purchases. Microsoft paid $9.5 billion for Nokia. Mojang’s revenue was roughly $290 million annually with Minecraft generating more than $100 million in profit, according to press reports. Microsoft said the purchase would be neutral to its fiscal 2015 earnings.
“Minecraft has had a good run, but it’s scary that it has been up there for a long time,” says Hrebiniak. “Will something else come along?”Werbach notes that there are a number of Minecraft knock-offs, and Microsoft will have to defend the franchise, as well as add new features to the game.
However, Werbach views Minecraft as more than just a game—it’s just as much a community and a social network. He noted that schools are using the platform to teach concepts ranging from architecture to computing. Minecraft players have created numerous how-to videos that gain large followings online.
If all goes well, Minecraft DNA could fit into every unit of Microsoft, Werbach noted. In a decade, it’s conceivable that Minecraft will be used in corporations for training and education. After all, Second Life, an online virtual world that faded in popularity after a brief surge of enthusiasm, was initially seen as a corporate collaboration tool. “Minecraft can potentially be a new kind of virtual environment platform,” Werbach said. “The first step for Microsoft is to figure out how not to kill it, and then figure out how to grow, develop and advance it.”
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