Minecraft: Institutions and Audiences which explores all these things in written form, with images, videos and links using your findings from the reading

Minecraft is different from other video games in many ways. It is described as the “digital version of Lego” and its success has grown considerably. It is “a game that’s been downloaded more than 100m times on PCs, consoles and smartphones since its launch in 2009.” With its reference to Lego “both are creative platforms; they are about self-expression.” Although there are other games that let the player build things, Minecraft let’s “you build in the first-person perspective,” for example only being able to move one block at a time. At the same time it’s “very open-ended. It doesn’t tell you what to build.”

The game is considered to be gender-neutral, this puts the message across that all players are welcome and this plays a part in the game’s success. It isn’t gender specific and this is shown by having diverse staff as many of them are women and this reflects the equality in the game itself. Also “when you attend a Minecon event, you see just as many girls as boys.” The inequalities of the game result in a positive way, for example “the game’s awkward, blocky aesthetic” allows some users to be “less self-conscious” when playing the game. Many of people’s experiences when playing the game can be described as not being just “a game to play, it was a place to be.”

Its appeal was so effectively spread without professional promotion, and this was down to the amount of experiences it had with a variety of people who had a disability or not. Allowing people to have “an escape, a safe space” to go to and enjoy their time simplisticly but yet another world. It hugely had an effect on people with disabilities, especially people with autism. Parents shared their experiences with their children on how they started to communicate more with their parents all because of the impact of Minecraft. It’s “specific value for autistic children who respond to its simple visuals, open design and logical, interlocking systems.” Minecraft “released an education version” that allowed “teachers to set up classroom servers where students build scale models of their own towns; learn about geography, agriculture, architecture and physics.” This provided them with new skills that had a link with the world around them but introducing these skills to them in an exciting and interesting way. For example, adding cotton to wood created a bed on Minecraft. Another reason for its amazing success was that “Minecraft is up there with Pokémon as a truly universal gaming experience”, additionally it welcomed all genders which made its audience grow larger.

Microsoft’s $2.5 billion takeover of Minecraft has shown to be “one of the biggest acquisitions in gaming history” this purchase has “stunned the game’s millions of fans.” Markus the creator had considered what the Minecraft fans would think of him. The possibility that they may be “angry, others would feel abandoned” and he would be “labelled a sellout, someone who’d abandoned his ideas in exchange for a big pile of cash.”

The Microsoft takeover inhibits the brand hugely because the co-founders have left and they were the heart and soul of the company. “The company projected an image of itself as a closely knit, easygoing group of friends.” However, most employees felt this changed dramatically and felt “betrayed by Markus’s decision.” They felt underpaid as the “Management has been really good at keeping wages down”, therefore most of the staff felt “dissatisfied" with the paycheck from Mojang. There was “a shared feeling” amongst the staff that they were “not really seeing their fair share of Minecraft’s astounding success.” Even though the employees went on a few trips, it was rare.

Employees felt that their hard work “mainly benefited Markus, Jakob, and Carl.” Although “the three founders were yet to make anyone else a shareholder in the company,” not even the ones who were there at the very beginning. Resulting in massive profits generated by Minecraft still went “straight into their pockets,” employees expressed their pain especially as “Markus himself hadn’t done any actual work on Minecraft for over two years." All employees had to deal with “a normal salary, plus whatever perks or bonuses" were given when Markus "felt generous.” Overall, even though Minecraft became purchased at a huge amount, it resulted in the hard working employees feeling betrayed and annoyed that they loyalty over the years had not been considered when Markus kept the selling from them and made particular employees keep quiet so he could finalise the deal.