Page 47 - PC Gamer - UK (February 2020)

G AMES O F THE D ECAD E

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H IS T O R Y HAL L O F F AME E A R L Y A C C E S S I LO C A L P L A Y TA C T I C S I PRE D I C TI O N S

MINECRAFT

RELEASED November 18, 2011 | DEVELOPER Mojang | PUBLISHER In-house

Chris: Selling a game before it’s finished is practically
the industry standard these days, but before
Kickstarter, Steam Early Access, Fig, and other
crowdfunding tools became popular, there was
Minecraft. In 2009 it was in an alpha state, nowhere
near feature complete with years of development still
ahead. But its barebones free alpha had received a
positive, excited response, and developer Markus
Persson decided it was time to start making the money
needed to fuel the rest of its development. The alpha
went on sale in June of 2009, with the promise that
those who bought it for a few dollars now would get all
future updates at no additional cost.
It’s a format we now take for granted: buying an
incomplete game at a discount in the hopes it’ll
XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN someday be finished and we’ll have saved a few bucks
– and maybe we’ll also get to suggest new features that
will end up in the game. The initial trickle of sales
quickly became a flood, to the point where Persson’s
RELEASED October 9, 2012 | DEVELOPER Firaxis | PUBLISHER 2K Games
account was frozen by PayPal, which became
suspicious of the massive influx of money. By 2011
Tom: Sometimes a game can rescue That might seem frivolous, but Minecraft had sold a million copies. By 2013, 10 million.
an entire genre. We enjoyed some that reboot has gone on to inspire In 2014 Persson sold Minecraft to Microsoft, and it’s
niche turn-based strategy games many new XCOM-style games in now the best-selling video game of all time, with sales
before Firaxis’ spectacular XCOM different settings. There are obvious somewhere around 180 million copies on just about
reboot, but this game pulled the examples like Phoenix Point, but every platform available. Minecraft’s design, its
genre closer to the mainstream with we’ve also seen weirder games like procedural open worlds, and its deep crafting systems
cinematic production values, a Mutant Year Zero. You could even have been heavily influential to scores of other games,
friendly art style, and – most look at games like Into the Breach but it also set the stage for a decade of Early Access,
importantly – a set and claim that paid alphas, crowdfunding, and two distinct promises
of XCOM recruits THAT REBOOT HAS XCOM: Enemy that aren’t always kept – for customers, you can buy in
that inspire Unknown opened a early, save money and influence the final project, and
tremendous GONE ON TO INSPIRE door to new for devs, you can fund your game’s development by
empathy across the audiences that selling it before it’s done.
course of a long MANY NEW XCOM- would appreciate
and gruelling such a balanced
campaign. STYLE GAMES IN tactics game.
You can build a Turn-based
beautiful numbers DIFFERENT SETTINGS tactics games have
system based on done surprisingly
gear power and well on console, if
chances to hit, but you take into
it’s something else to translate those account Pokemon, Advance Wars,
stats into drama. It’s the drama that Shadow Emblem, Final Fantasy
makes you hold your hands to your Tactics, Tactics Ogre and more.
head and cry, “Noooo!” when XCOM: Enemy Unknown went back
Sergeant ‘Balls Balls’ misses a to the source – an old, obtuse, but
Chryssalid at point-blank range and brilliant game – and modernised it
is immediately murdered halfway perfectly, bringing tactics games back
through a mission. to their old home on the PC.

SEP 15, 2014 NOV 1 1 , 2014 DEC 5, 2014
MICROSOF T AS SAS SIN’S THE G AME
BU YS CREED UNIT Y AWARDS 2014
MINECR AF T Graphical issues and Following his split
Creator Markus bugs plague this from Spike TV, Geoff
Persson aka Notch sequel’s release, Keighley puts on his
cashes in on his most memorably in first independent
smash hit indie game the form of game awards. Dragon
by selling his studio nightmarish facial Age: Inquisition gets
Mojang to Microsoft. distortions. the top prize.

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