Minecraft: Mojang AB As A Java Game Development Company

Introduction to Mojang

Mojang AB is a Java game development company founded in 2009 by Markus Alexej Persson – publicly known as ‘Notch’. Mojang is most commonly known for their 3D sandbox game “Minecraft”, although other games they have developed include Scrolls/Caller’s Bane (2014), Cobalt (2016) and Crown and Council (2016). Notch was the main developer for Minecraft in its early days and came up with the main idea and vision for the game, however, as the game’s popularity rose, Notch began to distance himself and his involvement in the development of the game as everyone focused their anger about anything to do with the game towards him.

Early Success of Mojang

When Minecraft was released to the public for the first time in 17 May 2009 on a game development forum named “TIGSource”, the game was known as “Cave Game Tech Test”. In early 2011, just two years after their initial release of the game, Mojang sold their 1 millionth copy of Minecraft

Background of Notch

Markus “Notch” Persson is a Swedish game developer, born in 1979 in Stockholm, Sweden, to his Finnish mother and Swedish father in a small town called Edsbyn.

From as young as 8 years of age, Markus had begun getting into programming, he had always been fascinated with programming games and computers in general, Markus never graduated high school, however, when he turned 18 he landed a programming job.

Mojang’s Milestones or Significant Events

• On the 17th of May 2009, Notch released the first public version of Minecraft.
• January the 12th 2011, Minecraft surpasses 1 million sales.
• In November 2014, Notch sold Mojang to Microsoft for 2.5 billion US dollars.
• In 2016, Minecraft reached 100 million sales.

A Timeline of Computer Science

The emergence of computer science can’t necessarily be said to have occurred in the 1940’s, because some forms of computers can be traced back as far as 2400BCE, however, the development of computers is constantly getting faster and faster so it makes sense as to why people would commonly think computers emerged recently because of the significant trend and growth in the development of computers. Computer science has had multiple meanings in the past, it was once an occupation mainly women worked as where they essentially did what a machine does for us today, they were commonly hired by the government for physics calculation and for economy related mathematics.

• 1939 – The Turing Machine In 1939, the first ever form of computer was created to decrypt the encrypted messages made by the Nazi’s enigma machine in World War II.
• 1947 – The Transistor The transistor was invented by Bell Telephone Company. Transistors are a vital component in modern day computers.
• 1953 – First IBM Computer International Business Machines released their first electronic computer.
• 1958 – The Computer Chip A joint effort between Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce produced the invention of the integrated circuit, more commonly known as the computer chip.
• 1963 – The Mouse The mouse is invented by Douglas Engelbart, he named it the mouse because it has a cord coming out of it like a tail.
• 1968 – RAM In 1968, RAM; standing for random access memory, was created by Robert H. Dennard. This was revolutionary at the time due to the speed in which it could read and write data, however, this speed came at the cost of losing the data stored when the computer was powered off, so this could only be used to store certain types of data e.g. temporary cache files, graphics to be sent to a CPU and fonts to be displayed. A lot of the uses of ram involve the copying of data from a drive so it can then be accessed a lot faster once it is on the ram.
• 1972 – C In 1972, the programming language “C” was created by Dennis Ritchie at the AT&T Bell Labs. C is now one of the most widely used languages in the world.
• 1972 – Pong. Pong is widely known as being one of the first widespread video games. Pong was revolutionary for its time as computers had never really seen their use for recreational purposes before the creation of pong.
• 1975 – Microsoft is founded. Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked together to develop the programming language they named BASIC for the Atair 8800
• 1989 – The Expansion of Microsoft. Microsoft develops a program that was able to run on IBM computers. This opened Microsoft up to a much larger audience.
• 1990 – The World Wide Web. In 1989, Tim Burnes Lee demonstrates his version of the internet which will later be adopted as the world wide web with over 4 billion people with access to the internet globally.
• 1996 – Mobile phones. Nokia introduces a tiny handheld device that had internet capabilities. This essentially started the modern age of technology, inspiring companies such as Apple and Samsung to develop their own versions of the technology.

Lead Software Developer for Minecraft (at Mojang)

Key Responsibilities

• Quality control of team members’ code.
• Organisation of team members.
• Implement main features.
• Help manage and organise the distribution and action in response to bug reports.

Skills Required

• Extensive knowledge of Java:
  • Background in using the https://www.lwjgl.org/ Java library or it’s included API’s. (this library includes the following API’s)
    • OpenGL (graphics engine)
    • Vulkan (graphics engine)
    • OpenAL (audio engine)
    • OpenCL (parallel computing engine)
  • At least 10 years of experience in programming in 3D one or more of the following languages:
    • C#
    • Java
• At least 4 years of experience in Java.
• Ability to think logically and solve problems
• Must have natural leadership skills. This consists of:
  • Ability to openly listen to members of your team.
  • Ability to manage and organise your team to ensure maximum productivity.
  • Ability to communicate your intentions and plans clearly to your team.
  • Ability to keep a good individual relationship with each team member.
• Creative ideas and vision for Minecraft.
• Training Required
  • Masters of Science in Games Development or the equivalent.

EEO

Job applicants from all backgrounds are welcome at Mojang, although due to their location (Stockholm, Sweden), workers there are predominately Swedish, German, Swiss etc. Furthermore, the ratio of males to females at working at Mojang are around 50% female and 50% male which is more or less what you would expect in a non-discriminatory work environment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Mojang is proven to be an iconic company and one of the faces of the gaming sector of the Computer Science industry. Mojang has way people think when it comes to what makes a hit game, it doesn’t have to include amazing HD graphics, guns etc. It just has to be instinctively entertaining and open up your creative side. It is evident that one of the main reasons for Mojang’s success with Minecraft is that it is so accessible in the sense that you can run it on pretty much any device, such as a tablet/phone, a handheld console or a desktop PC. On top of this, Minecraft is a game played by all age groups from 7 to 50 years of age.

The time I have put in to research for this report has opened my mind to what I can achieve in the field of Computer Science and has inspired me to peruse my interests in the subject into the future and not stopping at the end of year 12. My plans for the near future are to study at UTS for the bachelor’s degree of science in game development and work for a game development company, probably in America, full time.

References

1. Biography. (2015). Markus Persson. [online] Available at: https://www.biography.com/people/markus-persson [Accessed 19 Mar. 2019].
2. En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Minecraft. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft [Accessed 19 Mar. 2019].
3. En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Mojang. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang [Accessed 19 Mar. 2019].
4. Minecraft Wiki. (2019). Cave game tech test. [online] Available at: https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Cave_game_tech_test [Accessed 19 Mar. 2019].
5. Softschools.com. (n.d.). Computer History Timeline. [online] Available at: http://www.softschools.com/timelines/computer_history_timeline/20/ [Accessed 19 Mar. 2019].
6. Warren, T. (2016). Minecraft sales top 100 million. [online] The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/2/11838036/minecraft-sales-100-million [Accessed 19 Mar. 2019].