As most gamers are (hopefully) aware, the video game review industry – which some people call “video game journalism” – is bullshit all around.
So it’s with great admiration and amusement that I observed the “release” of Minecraft today. After reading the Escapist article, I realized: in addition to the other benefits of Notch-style game development, it’s also a great way to bypass the bullshit game review system.
If you never officially launch, nobody will review your title. If by the time you launch, you’ve already got a community of a few thousand or say, 4 million players who have already bought your game, who the fuck cares what number Metacritic spits out?
Of course, anyone who’s anyone has been playing Minecraft for months in beta. Any game that gives you the freedom to build anything from a giant statue of yourself to an Imperial Star Destroyer is worth a $15 investment to investigate.
(For the record, I was pretty tame in my Minecraft ambitions. Unlike some of the game’s more dedicated fans, I did not have unlimited time to invest in building massive superstructures, so I busied myself with building a modest island fortress, tunneling to the center of the game world and building a suit of armor made of gold.)
Seems to me that gaming news is generally positive this week, which is a pleasant contrast to the happenings in my professional life. Even Bethesda, fresh off a major release of their own, gave Minecraft a nice nod.
Glad to see no hard feelings.