20 years of GPORTAL: the Minecraft success story

First steps of Minecraft

In 2009, Minecraft was actually released for the first time as an Early Access title and at that time it still went by the name "Cave Game" and was quite sparsely developed. Swedish programmer Markus Persson, better known as "Notch", single-handedly built the game with his company called Mojang and thereby laid the foundation for any other sandbox games.

On June 30, 2010, the official release of Minecraft was upon us, and as of that day, it has sold over 238 million copies. With further updates over the years, more blocks, objects, animals and everything we know from the game today were then gradually added. At the end of 2010, Minecraft entered the beta phase and the Mojang company grew steadily with more and more employees who still put their heart and soul into the popular block game today. Since the end of 2011, the name of the creative minds is Jens Bergensten and even today he is the lead developer of Minecraft.

Since 2013, Minecraft is no longer launched via the website, but only in the Minecraft Launcher, through which you can update the game from and also select and play all possible and older Minecraft versions. A year later, in 2014, Mojang was bought by Microsoft for a whopping $2.5 billion.

Rising popularity and Minecraft Convention

Minecraft has been causing very big waves since its release, and that's no surprise in Germany, especially thanks to one of Germany's biggest streamers and YouTubers named Gronkh. Gronkh started a Let's Play of Minecraft in the fall of 2010 and has published well over 1000 episodes on YouTube with this series - the first episode has nearly 17 million views and can be re-watched here.

Also since 2010 and the release of the game there is an own Minecraft convention, which took place unofficially and for the first time under the name MinecraftCon and had only about 30 participants. In 2011, things started to look different at the first official MineCon, as 5,000 visitors took part there and Minecraft was officially taken out of beta, with none other than deadmau5 providing a good atmosphere in Las Vegas. In the following years, MineCon kept breaking records, be it with tickets sold out in seconds or attendance numbers. Since 2017, the "conventions" have only been streamed live and now form the Minecraft live streams, where new updates are presented as a priority.

Minecraft versions

So the first official Minecraft version was launched in 2010 and is known today as Minecraft Java Edition. With the Java Edition you can play together with your friends cross-platform on Windows, Mac and Linux and have especially through countless and incredibly varied mods, skins and texture packs the possibility to create your own Minecraft according to your wishes.

Another Minecraft version is the Minecraft Pocket Edition, which is now known as Minecraft Bedrock Edition. Minecraft Pocket Edition was first launched in 2011 and was only available for mobile devices at the time. Then in 2017, with the Better Together Update, it was announced that Minecraft Pocket Edition became Minecraft Bedrock Edition, which now lets you enjoy the block world with your friends across platforms on consoles, Windows, and mobile. With the Minecraft Bedrock Edition you also get access to the Minecraft Marketplace and can clear achievements and trophies in the game.

Minecraft as a school subject

This is actually no joke and certainly a dream for some students, because Minecraft is available as a so-called Minecraft: Education Edition. Through the MinecraftEdu organization, which has been working with Mojang since 2011, the game is being made more accessible and affordable for schools to use Minecraft as a teaching tool in the classroom through different versions. The versions are designed to help students understand the complex processes of building and give a sense of time and resource management and sustainable construction. In one Swedish school, Minecraft is even a required subject.

The Minecraft world and game modes

There are three different worlds in Minecraft. One is the upper world, where you also start at the beginning and where you will spend most of your time, be it mining stone, wood or ores or building a house or giant objects. Here you will also encounter some NPCs like peaceful sheep or cows used for harvesting meat and wool, or hostile NPCs like zombies or the ever-famous Creeper who likes to be in a bombing mood as soon as you approach. The second world is the Nether, which is a kind of hell and awaits you with different blocks, functions and especially monsters. You can only travel there with a Nether portal and collect resources, which you can then use to create a boss.

The third and final world is the End World, which is a dimension where you can defeat the final boss called the Ender Dragon. You can only get to this world through an end portal, which you have to find in a fortress - if you jump in, you have to throw an Ender Pearl into the portal to get to another portal very far away, and you will end up in a world you have never seen before. Once you have defeated the Ender Dragon the first time and then jump into the exit portal, a credits written by Irish author Julian Gough appears, suggesting that this is now the end of Minecraft.

Meanwhile, Minecraft has five game modes that you can choose from. These are listed below:

• Survival mode: this is the classic mode in Minecraft. You will be shown a bar with your health, which will decrease due to attacks from monsters, fall damage, freezing, suffocation or drowning. In addition, you will get a hunger bar, which you should keep a constant eye on and refill periodically by eating food. If you are wearing armor, its condition will also be displayed in your HUD
• Creative mode: the opposite of survival mode, as there is no hunger or health, you can fly and mine blocks with one click. This mode is mainly used to build huge structures
• Hardcore mode: only playable with the Java edition of Minecraft and stops at the most difficult level of Minecraft, the level can also not be changed. If you die once, you cannot respawn again
• Adventure mode: handy for players who have created a world and want to open it up to other players, because here you can set what players can interact with on your map and they need certain tools to be able to mine blocks. You can use commands here and choose which and if at all tools are available for other players to use
• Spectator mode: in this mode the player cannot interact with the world in any way and can only fly through blocks and just watch

Minecraft updates and mods

Minecraft is supplied with proper updates even after more than 13 years and involves its community in decisions. For example, the last two updates called The Wild Update and the latest Trails & Tales added some new creatures that were also voted by the community in advance - including the helping spirit named Allay or the Sniffer. In addition, the updates added new blocks and, most importantly, new biomes: the Deep Dark biome, the Mangrove Swamps, and a Cherry Grove biome in which cherry trees form a forest, creating a very relaxing atmosphere.

Not to forget, of course, the mods, skins, texture packs and custom maps already mentioned above. The Minecraft community is huge and always behind with all sorts of new mods that take the Minecraft gaming experience to a new level. The biggest site for downloading mods is probably CurseForge and offers over 10,000 plugins, mods, etc. We at GPORTAL also have an understanding of Minecraft mods and therefore offer you over 250 pre-installed modpacks when you order a Minecraft Java Server. If you want to learn more about Minecraft modpacks, you can also take a look at our Wiki.

Rent your GPORTAL Minecraft server

The story around the gaming superstar Minecraft is exciting and the development is even better. We are happy that we can offer this game in our portfolio from the very beginning and pass this on to you with powerful and performant game servers. We support you with 24/7 support, strong DDoS protection and a large selection of Minecraft modpacks.