Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox indie game in the beginning produced by Swedish programmer Marakus "Notch" Persson and later produced and published by Morgan. It was publicly published for the PC on May 17, 2009, as a developmental alpha version and, after gradual updates, was printed every bit a full release version on November 18, 2011. A version for Android was released a month earlier on October 7, and an iOS version was released on November 17, 2011. The game was put out on the Xbox 360 as an Xbox Live Arcade game on May 9, 2012, and on the PlayStation 3 on December 17, 2013. The game was put out on the PlayStation 4 on September 4, 2014, launching on the Xbox One the next day. All versions of Minecraft receive periodic updates, with the console editions being co-developed by 4J Studios.

The creation and building aspects of Minecraft allow players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Other actions in the game include exploration, gathering resources, crafting, and fighting. Multiple gameplay modes are available, including survival modes where the player must acquire resources to build and maintain his or her health and hunger, a creative mode where players have unlimited resources to build and the ability to fly, and an adventure mode where players can create custom maps for other players to play.

Minecraft received five awards during the 2011 Game Developers Conference. Of the Game Developers Choice Awards, it won the Innovation Award, Best Downloadable Game Award, and Best Debut Game Award; from the Independent Games Festival, it won the Audience Award and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. In 2012, Minecraft was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the category Best Downloadable Game.

As of June 25, 2014, over 12 million copies of the game on the Xbox 360 and 15 million copies on PC have been sold; nearly 54 million copies have been sold across all platforms.

On September 15, 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to purchase the game's developer, Morgan, granting the company ownership of the game's intellectual property. The all-cash trade is worth $2.5 billion.