Minecraft Creator Markus Persson receives Special Award | BAFTA Games Awards 2012

Delights to be giving a special world award to a special person in a special industry a thing despite all the challenges we’re going through transition these are very exciting teams and maybe just this year could be the year of the London bus nothing happens for years and years and suddenly we get

Computer science on the school’s next to curriculum we get super super high-speed broadband and who knows in the budgets next week who knows it may be finally we might get something from the Treasury regarding production tax credits fingers crossed anyway in the meantime these days when

It comes to video games there are very few people who can claim to have changed the world the role of Technology has all has changed the way we perceive and experience games today and with development teams numbering in the hundreds for almost all big selling titles picking out individual heroes is

Almost an impossible challenge which is why the recipients of this year’s award is so special and why the way in which has changed the world of games are so fantastically unique to our amazing industry the title he is best known for isn’t a graphical powerhouse and doesn’t

Require top-end hardware to run but it’s caught the imagination of millions with its iconic look and satisfying gameplay enabling pure accessible creativity with startling results using nothing more than text it cubes just check out YouTube whether it’s dwellings made of mud that serves primarily as a place to

Shelter from rowan zombies at nights or a complete recreation of entire zone from another game in 8-bit glory painstakingly crafted over the course of unsold week’s Minecraft rewards you with a sense of achievement and pride that few high-definition titles can aspire to indeed the story of Minecraft has become

A legend detail in an industry that thrives on telling legendary tales and of course we’re not yet near the final chapter we hope while the game continues to find its way onto new platforms and new audiences a range of new titles and now and developments Mojang’s headquarters in sweden inspiring a

Growing number of indie developers hell-bent on disruption in a new golden age of games an indie hero undoubtedly and a man whose vision has without question changed the landscape of games block by block let’s take a look at his work Ladies and gentlemen this year’s recipient of the BAFTA special award Markus notch Persson Wow that’s happy so let’s picture okay it tells me to start with start with Wow so I will do that this is obviously huge this is have a serious ping actually celebrating games like a serious ceremony pointers it’s very good who else do it but the British so I’m

Actually gonna start by saying thank you to some people first of all if my wife has been very patient and loving while I’m doing this kind of crazy thing then my parents of course who are the reason I’m here another Mojang I really want to thank

Jacob who’s a dear friend and the Cal co-founder and he was the best man at my wedding and it’s really helped me like through on my hard times and then of course Karl our CEO is here let’s make sure I don’t have to deal with the business side of things and then James

Who’s now there’s a new lead on Minecraft but then of course everyone else of mojang who are slightly too many to name but I promise not to name all stuff then we have everyone out there who is making games I mean everyone from big studios to small studios I think

Things are finally starting to go back to the old days because when I grew up I played a lot of games and they were new and they were kind of interesting and they did new things every game was different the first game i bought was march tail and back then I didn’t speak

Any English it was very difficult to understand what’s going on but I still played it and I never beat it of course then later on I played a game called populous which was very open and then and very you’d like to do basic anything it the base the game was about editing

The map which I guess is kind of the seed of Minecraft in a sense and then of course in the 90s we had games like doom games that really embrace new technology and a great new way to really expand it a new gameplay and really perfect that

Gameplay and I think those times are back now we have a time where games for only about huge studios which is awesome but it’s also route for innovation now we have small titles coming up they’re really interesting like says the game the people who want their idea for words

Never have a Proteus really interesting game made by Ed it’s a British game and I think is and then of course products on board which is very it’s looking very good despite the crashes so I guess I just want to thank everyone involved in games for making this possible and if I could

Be a small part of making sure games are innovative again then I’m happy to do so so thank you very much our next award in the category of sports slash Fitness that flash is very important solo I don’t even know where to start with the phenomenon that is

Minecraft so I put it to you in your own words and explain to us that the success of Minecraft how would you put it into us well I quit my job and decided I wanted to make make games for myself I started making a game and it happened to

Really take off it’s thanks to the fans of course and their community and they really embraced it and talked about a lot and obviously it’s had enormous success commercially in England bet on its community but what does it mean to be recognized by bathroom this way well

This is brilliant I think that the BAFTAs are really big serious finger now that are really embracing games I hope it meets a lot for the video and what was the original idea for Minecraft take us back to the original concept where did it come from well I was trying to

Basically make a dwarf fortress clone and then I started playing around the first-person mode and I kind of stumbled upon the game playing us and what’s what’s the crazies and people have done all I mean the YouTube phenomenon that is my craft is something else entirely what’s the maddest thing you’ve seen at

All the thing that’s impressed you the most I have still finger when someone made a full CPU like actually make the working computer in Minecraft yeah that’s the most impressive I’ve seen and the game was obviously evolved and grown organically and changed a lot since since you first put it out there how

Important is the community being so there the growth of the game oh it Mansley we talked to the community a lot and we receive heaps of emails and Twitter suggestions and read a lot on forums so I’d say they’re absolutely key from and if you look at what’s happening in

General and in gaming what Minecrafts achieved when you compare it to the sort of triple a blockbuster space you look at what Double Fine have done with Kickstarter recently is it’s tremendously exciting time for game developer isn’t it oh yeah absolutely I think digital distribution is doing

Wonderful things for gaming I now have crowdsourcing things like the indie bundles going on we could buy a partnership um the games render price a lot that’s amazing and having come from being just this one guy making this game to this massive like global success story how do you manage that how

Difficult it’s been to just change your sort of daily working practice to be able to deal with it all well it’s gone kind of gradually I think recently I’ve been doing more pers study I don’t know it is PR stuff this is just awesome stuff but so it’s been hard to focus on

Doing game development but it’s it’s been a very enjoyable ride kind of slow and gradual okay because twitter must keep you pup quite busy as well oh yes so did you kind of miss do what you want to get back and just put it all to one

Side and get back into the nitty-gritty of coding yes that’s my plan I’m gonna start a new game to summer and it’s gonna be I don’t know a problem space game I suppose scam any more you can tell us about that I haven’t decided anything on

That yet that is no I want to make a space case spacecraft or star Creek now hang on yeah that’s been done before I think though but anyway especially war free tonight for the in phenomenal achievement that you’ve ever done with Minecraft tremendous work congratulations have a great night thank you thank you

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