One year after smashing the world record for the largest convention dedicated to a single video game during its Los Angeles debut, “Minefaire: An Official Minecraft Community Event” is back.
The gaming event, which pops up Saturday, April 13 at the L.A. Convention Center through Sunday, April 14, plunges young super fans into this celebration of the virtual world where they make real-world connections.
The Builds Battle Stage pits kids against each other in a build competition before a live audience, with emcee and YouTube guest judges selecting their favorites. (Courtesy of Minefaire)
“For parents,” added Minefaire co-founder Chad Collins, “it’s a chance to breathe a sigh of relief. Your introspective children who express themselves through video games are not alone. At Minefaire, they not only belong – they thrive.”
A new VR building experience makes players do the heavy lifting.
Other highlights include a Minecraft Escape Room, costume contest, and Build Battles Stage in which kids compete against each other before a live audience. Meet-and-greets with stars of Minecraft gaming YouTube channels, a Learning Lab and a marketplace of new, rare and custom Minecraft merchandise you won’t find anywhere else round out the event.
All-inclusive tickets start at $39.99 and can be purchased at www.minefaire.com.
Minecraft has been updated to remove most of its references to original creator Markus “Notch” Persson from the main menu of the game, via Eurogamer.
The main menu of Minecraft has long been home to a series of rotating phrases of splash text on the top right-hand corner of the logo, which include hundreds of different jokes, catchphrases, and references. But the most recent update to the game has tellingly removed three splash text phrases from the game: “Made by Notch!,” “The Work of Notch!,” and “110813!” (the date that Persson got married).
The Minecraft main menu, with a random splash text phrase
A tweet from 4J Studios, which develops some of the console ports of Minecraft, previously confirmed that changes were being made to splash texts, but didn’t say which changes would be made:
As Polygon notes, it’s the second largest batch of phrases to ever be removed from the game — only nine other splash text phrases have been removed from Minecraft during its nearly decade-long history.
Persson famously sold the entirety of Minecraft (along with his studio, Mojang) to Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion, although Persson did not join Microsoft as part of the purchase. In the interim years, Microsoft has continued to grow Minecraft as a family-friendly brand, complete with a Minecraft: Education Edition for schools and the interactive Minecraft: Story Modegame (which has even made its way to Netflix as a quasi-kids show).
Persson, on the other hand, has become an increasingly polarizing figure, tweeting offensive statements regarding race, the LGBTQ community, gender, and other topics. Given the controversy surrounding Persson, coupled with the fact that he has no real involvement in the current affairs of the title, it’s easy to speculate that Microsoft would be looking to distance itself from Persson, especially given the massive young audience that Minecraft has and the cultural impact of the game. Persson is still listed in Minecraft in the game’s credits, although it’s a far less prominent placement than the main menu references that have now been removed.
Microsoft refused to comment when asked about the recent changes to Minecraft.
Across all platforms, Microsoft revealed last Octoberthat the game had sold over 154 million copies and was seeing 91 million monthly active users.
That number does not include 150 million downloads in China also as of October, where the game was published in August of 2017 by NetEase first on PC, and then on iOS and Android. In total, that puts the game at over 250 million users across all platforms worldwide.
For the record: A previous version of this article mistakenly read that Minecraft was published by Tencent in China. It is actually published by NetEase, as corrected above.
Minecraft is now ubiquitous. You can play it on consoles, on portables, on phones, and there was even an official port to Raspberry Pi. But the game started on PC in its Java-based original form. That Java Edition is still being sold, and today it reached a major new sales milestone: over 30 million copies sold.
Total Minecraft player count is well over 150 million, since that’s the number of people who had registered for the game’s free-to-play Chinese release as of last year – nevermind everyone who’s played other versions of the game. Total, full sales of the game are at least 154 million across all platforms, as Windows Central reported back in September.
Mojang keeps a ticker counting traditional PC sales on the official site, and it crossed the 30 million mark a few hours ago as of this post. A numberofdevelopers on the game had been closely tracking the counter’s progress toward the milestone on social media, and today’s rollover was a natural cause for celebration across the whole team.
While all the other releases have certainly expanded Minecraft’s reach, the Java Edition is still perhaps the most popular among the community, and certainly the one where you’ll find most of the best Minecraft mods.
If we keep seeing mods like the ray tracing-style effects of the Sonic Ether shader, then I don’t think there’s any limit to where things can go from here.
While PUBG sales might put a run on Minecraft’s claim of being the ‘the world’s best selling PC game,’ the venerable block-builder is certainly in rarified company.
Minecraft already has a sizeable fanbase, but now anyone with an Xbox Game Passsubscription can jump into the fray as well. The blocky builder joined Microsoft’s subscription service today, bringing another Microsoft Studios title under its banner.
The full game experience is here, meaning you can explore your own unique world and construct just about anything that strikes your fancy. You can also dive into multiplayer sessions, hailing the assistance of friends to take on any unruly creeps and help build your world out.
Minecraft has seen more than 91 million active players join in across nearly any platform you can think of since its launch in 2009. The game is also cross-play enabled, so you can jump in with friends who may be playing on other platforms like Nintendo Switch and mobile devices.
Minecraft is coming to Xbox Game Pass on April 4. Wait a second… it IS April 4! Download it today, and enjoy the cross-play with Nintendo Switch, Windows 10, Gear VR, iOS and Android.
If you’re interested in checking out Xbox Game Pass, the service requires a subscription, which runs $10 per month. There are more than 100 games available to play through Game Pass, making it a bit like a Netflix for gamers. A subscription will also net you a discount for games in Xbox Game Pass if you decide you want to buy them outright.
The latest (and lightest) film offering from DC Comics’ extended universe has a particular advantage: it’s a kids’ film, starring kids. The central character, Billy Batson (Asher Angel), is 14; so is his smart-alec foster brother and “manager”, Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer). Billy is granted a tidy collection of magic powers by a wizard (a bewigged and bearded Djimon Hounsou), including strength, super-speed and fingertips filled with lightning. By shouting “Shazam!” he is transformed into an adult in a superhero suit (Zachary Levi, believably and likably hapless), so, like many 14-year-old boys, he uses his new identity to buy beer (which he promptly spits out), saunter into a strip club, and go viral on YouTube. The evil Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) is after Billy’s powers, hell-bent on revenge after being told, as a child, by both his father and the wizard that he was weak.
There’s a sense of Stranger Things camaraderie among Billy and his foster siblings, who are actually fun to spend time with, and the film’s message of found family is a sweet one. Still, its overblown finale overstays its welcome, teeing up the team as mainstays in the inevitable sequel.
Watch the trailer for Shazam! – video
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