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#minecraft Well, maybe you will. Mojang, the folks behind Minecraft, is a success story. Great news for them! That not only means Mojang honcho Notch (aka Markus Persson) can afford nicer hats, it also means the studio can afford nicer digs. And boy, look a these digs. More »

Minecraft developer Mojang has a deal with UK's Egmont Publishing to create children's books and magazines in territories excluding the US, TechCrunch reports. A spokesperson can't confirm which products exactly will be borne of the deal, but they will include "a range" of items and will launch next year.

Egmont inked a deal with Rovio last month to publish a line of Angry Birds books in the UK. Angry Birds may just be the most merchandised modern game, and Minecraft might be looking to grab some of that market: By March 2012, it earned $1 million (of $80 million total) in revenue from merchandising since October 2010.

We have some suggestions for Egmont's Minecraft-inspired children's literature: Stevie Trotter and the Minecart of Secrets; Goodnight Moon, Hello Endermen; Everybody Mines. And for the adult book spin-off, 50 Shades of Coal.

#watchthis The protagonist of this video has had it rough lately. He wakes up in a strange world, with strange creatures. He loses his brother. He seems to be hallucinating, fighting for survival. More »

Minecraft is over the 4 million mark for Xbox Live Arcade sales. 4J Studios revealed the figure on Twitter, showing the game that smashed XBLA records is still shifting like crazy. 5 million before 2013 looks well within reach (you heard it here first*).

Meanwhile, Mojang today announced that the PC version is now available in physical stores via prepaid cards. The cards cost the same $26.95 amount at which Minecraft is priced online, and can be found at Best Buy, Target, and Walmart stores nationwide.

*you probably didn't

#minecraft Minecraft is as full of dirt and underground junk as the real world, so it may as well get its own periodic table of elements. Well, terrain blocks. More »

#minecraft Seems this was a question asked earlier in the week on Millionaire Hot Seat, an abridged Australian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. More »

#windows Markus "Notch" Persson, the creator of Minecraft, is in the rare position to be able to do just about whatever he wants and say whatever he feels. So the man whose game is tearing up the charts on Xbox Live Arcade (more than three million copies sold)... the man who has said publicly that he "love"s working with Microsoft on the Xbox... is the same man who can say... More »

Markus 'Notch' Persson slammed Microsoft this morning for asking him to "help 'certify' Minecraft" for Windows 8. The Minecraft creator berated the company for, in his words, ruining the PC as an open platform. In his next tweet, Notch stated he'd prefer to not have Minecraft run on Windows 8 than to "play along," hoping such action might sway people away from the new OS.

While Notch being outspoken on his Twitter feed is nothing new, his outburst contrasts with the love he showered on Microsoft when Minecraft launched on Xbox Live Arcade. However, Notch made his views on Windows 8 known last month in a Reddit Q&A:
"I hope we can keep a lot of open and free platforms around. If Microsoft decides to lock down Windows 8, it would be very very bad for Indie games and competition in general.

"If we can keep open platforms around, there's going to be a lot of very interesting games in ten years, mixed in with the huge AAA games that we all love."Windows 8 launches next month with a burly enough line-up, but now doubt hangs over whether or not Mojang's game will be compatible with the platform anytime soon.

You can make just about anything in Minecraft - like the classic Hoth battle scene from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

If I’m being honest, my favorite part of Minecraft isn’t the mining or the crafting or the building or the rampant chicken-punching. Instead, my truest joy is simply wandering around an ever-expanding world, taking in the often awe-inspiring sights and sounds of blocky nature. One day, I will venture to New Zealand and go on a trek for the ages. Until then, I have Minecraft. But after a while, even those procedurally generated delights start to lose their luster. Enter the brand new “Biomes O’ Plenty” mod. It adds just about every geographic configuration you could possibly imagine – short of outer space and the inside of David Bowie’s mind. Details after the break.

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#starwars In December, reader Grahame made one of the coolest Minecraft videos I've ever seen, recreating Star Wars' famous "trench run". He's outdone himself now, though, with this animated rendition of Empire Strikes Back's Battle of Hoth. More »

Minecraft is getting a Halloween-related update in October, and among a slew of other changes (including updated sounds) a new creature is being added to the game. She's a witch! Mojang developer Nathan "Dinnerbone" Adams said the witch will be a ranged attacker, and will use the "Testificate" humanoid model, along with a polygonal nose that will wiggle and twitch.

Dinnerbone also hinted at a new animal type, while YouTuber Martyn (aka InTheLittleWood) posted a new video, which shows NPC bats are on their way to Minecraft. They'll spawn not only outside at night, but in any area, under or above ground, if there's a big enough space. They'll also hang upside down, rather creepily.

The new update should be out next month, so get your candy bags ready for then.

#minecraft On display at the XOXO Indie Arcade event in Portland, this Minecraft project has only two blocks. But they're real, you can touch them, and if you use the included hammers, you can smash them and they react in much the same way they do in the actual game. More »

Update 1.8.2 for Minecraft on XBLA adds creative mode, new food and new mobs, bringing the game closer than ever to its PC counterpart. After this update, developer 4J Studios is considering the addition of mods, though in a different sense than on PC.

"This isn't something that will be coming with 1.8.2, but will be further down the line," 4J Chief Technology Officer Paddy Burns tells Hookshot Inc. "The Xbox 360 won't be able to have the mod system that gives such a variety of community additions to the game on PC, but we're looking at the elements of these that people seem to be enjoying the most, and deciding how we could tailor those elements into something for Xbox."

Xbox 360 players are based in a living room, using a controller, and this fundamentally alters the way they interact with the game, Burns says. "We need to ensure that whatever we do is right for that audience."

Minecraft XBLA may diverge from its PC parentage in big ways in the future. "We're going to be discussing with Mojang where we go after version 1.2.3," Burns says. "Some ideas of taking the game in a different direction from PC having been raised already."

This video shows you how to reach a hidden Minecraft-inspired area in Borderlands 2, which includes Creepers and familiar blocks just begging to be broken. Be warned: the video includes minor spoilers for the game (and a lot of awesome).

#watchthis Some hidden secrets spoiled below. More »

Minecraft on XBLA is getting bug fixes and more in update 1.8.2, and needs about two weeks of work before it heads off to Microsoft for certification. Developer 4J Studios today gives players a taste of the food fixes and environments in the latest update, tweeting out images and posting a video called "New Food."

The video shows apples, watermelon, bread and cooked meat, as well as sprinting, which isn't edible but sure looks like fun. The tweets show the images (below) of a village, stronghold, ravine and abandoned mineshaft.

#battlefield Perhaps wary of our weariness with "stuff built out of Minecraft blocks", reader MOZONE sent this video in almost apologetically. Which, it turns out, was an entirely unwarranted emotion. Because MOZONE, this is amazing. More »

Minecraft Pocket Edition is now available on the Amazon Appstore, meaning it is officially out for the Kindle Fire. Minecraft Pocket Edition runs $7 on Amazon, the same price as on the Android and iOS app stores.

Kindle Fire owners previously figured out ways to run Minecraft Pocket Edition on their devices, through rooting and roundabout third-party subscriptions, but now it's a simple, legitimate one-click process. Get crafting here; it's not like you're using that Kindle Fire to read books anyway.

[Thanks, Thomas!]

Notch is Minecraft. Minecraft is Notch. A year ago, those statements might have been true to some extent, but not anymore. The man behind the most pervasive invention since the wheel (which he achieved by simply putting the corners back onto the wheel) hung up his pick axe late last year. That does not mean, however, that he’s escaped from the shadow of the monolith he created. Notch and his creation are still synonymous, for better or worse. And so, during PAX, I spoke with the quick-to-smile yet surprisingly introverted developer about the pressures of overnight fame, having people hang on (and quote) your every word, the current status of 0x10c, and tons more.

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Mojang has posted a quick preview of the next update coming to Minecraft XBLA. In the gallery below, you can see three different shots from the upcoming patch, including what appear to be some Endermen (in a picture labeled by Mojang as "the most anticipated thing on Xbox 360"), an underground zombie, and even a spider at the end of a rail line.

And above: a brief video showing off a new sheep pet coming to XBLA's Avatars. The sheep looks cute indeed, but that pixelated wool can't be ideal for a sweater.

#minecraft Look I mean hey, I always wanted to watch my little guy get down to business and pull some wool. More »

#guncraft Guncraft is a first-person shooter stylized much like Minecraft and its boxy facade. It's a multiplayer game whose players create the customizable maps, and can fully mod the game to their heart's desires. The PC game is currently in open beta, which you can sign up for, or help get on Steam. More »

Besides digging, building, and collecting resources, combat is a huge part of Terraria.

Of all the games created in Minecraft’s wake, Terraria is one of the better ones. More than just a 2D version of Minecraft, Terraria takes the the idea of collaborative building and exploring and just goes.

Soon, it won’t be just a thing for PC users, as the developers announced that Terraria is also coming to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

The announcement said the console versions are “coming soon” and will feature “brand new content." No real details on either.

It’s only $9.99 to see what all the fuss is about on Steam.

Put your expert Minecraft crafting skills to use in a new medium, and you could win a trip to MineCon in Paris, plus $3,000 cash. A new design challenge on t-shirt site Threadless asks users to design a shirt inspired by Minecraft. "Bring your design to life using characters, tools, blocks, or stuff from the game and your good ole' imagination," the site says.

Three winning designs will be unveiled at MineCon in November (in the presence of the three winners) and sold on the site in January. Is that fame, along with the prizes, incentive enough for you to design a video game shirt that isn't embarrassing? We hope so!

Before PAX started up in Seattle last week, even before the booths were assembled in the convention center, we heard about Exato Games' plan to attract Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson's attention to its own Guncraft. "Notch, come have a beer with us," John Getty said through Joystiq last week. So how did that go?

At least on Saturday morning, when Joystiq sat down to chat with Notch, that beer hadn't yet been shared. "I saw some video going on, and it looked like Minecraft with guns," Notch told us, "which seems like a fairly interesting game if you don't make it fantasy." But he hadn't stopped by the booth, and it didn't sound much like he planned to.

Notch insisted that there was no drama between the two developers, however. "I'm a huge fan of clones," he said. "I think clones is how games evolve, I'm a huge proponent of patterns." At the same time, however, Notch says he's "been through hell and back" enough to know how trademarks work, and he's a fan of protecting those as well. "I think trademarks are great, because you can go this is our product, this is your product and it can all be seen by consumers."

That's Notch's real response to Guncraft's attempts to get his attention. "A lot of people will come up and say, 'Oh, so Guncraft is actually your new thing?' They're kind of maybe sort of kind of maybe implying that we're connected somehow, and we're not," Notch said to us. "It's just a clone. If they want to make a clone, that's awesome, as long as it's clear we're not related in any way."

Mojang has announced a new partnership with UN Habitat. Called Block by Block, the initiative is designed to give young people a voice about urban planning in their own communities. Using Minecraft, young people will be able to "show planners and decision makers how they would like to see their cities in the future." The partnership hopes to improve 300 spaces by 2016. Mojang will serve as Block by Block's "main financial sponsor."

The pilot project will take place in the Kibera area of Nairobi, Kenya. The build site is pictured above, as is its Minecraft counterpart, which was built in-game by the group FyreUK. The template will allow players to participate in the planning process and create their own vision of how the space should be improved.

Mojang is currently building a website that will follow Block by Block's progress.

#minecraft Minecraft has become an extraordinarily popular tool for gamers worldwide to create anything they can imagine, if in a blocky kind of way. Now, it's going to become a tool for the United Nations. More »

Look, we really want the next big update for Minecraft's XBLA incarnation - the big "Adventure" update, which adds NPCs, villages, strongholds, abandoned mineshafts - but it won't be here this week, it seems. Not that there was any indication it would be, mind you, just that we really, really want it.

But no, Minecraft XBLA developer 4J Studios says it's "still weeks away." Taking to Twitter, the studio's official account says, "We're still working on 1.8.2 [the Adventure update]. A few things left to add, more work on the Creative Mode interface, then lots of test." Was that an invitation to test it? Because that's totally what it sounded like on this side. Just slide that code on over, 4J.

Beyond the aforementioned updates in 1.8.2, the Adventure update adds Creative mode, allowing for unlimited building (without having to mine), limited only by the constraints of the Xbox 360's RAM. We'll see what that means in ... um, some weeks from now. Soon-ish. Better than "eventually," eh?

Exato Games co-founder John Getty makes no apologies about the inspiration behind Guncraft. Yes, it's based on Minecraft. Problem?

Getty can afford to be flippant about Guncraft's origins because his game, while it resembles Minecraft, utilizes entirely different mechanics and goals, and it simply isn't a rip-off, he says. Guncraft spawned while Getty and his partner Alex Schlee were working on another game, Progenitor.

"Our artist and former programmer were having a talk about how Minecraft isn't objective-oriented enough," Getty recalls. "They thought that it would be awesome if it was like an FPS, which is an objective-driven genre, where you could also make use of the levels you intricately design. They also thought it would be awesome to be able to blow the crap out of said level, without getting banned from a server for trolling someone's masterpiece.

"I overheard the conversation and thought it was an awesome idea. After a week of drawing up some preliminary game-design documents, I pitched it to my partner, we both decided it was too good to pass up, and we postponed Progenitor in favor of Guncraft."

Guncraft is now a Kickstarter success story, raising more than $16,000 in March to continue development, and it's heading to PAX Prime in Seattle this week - in fact, it's heading to a very specific place on PAX's show floor. Guncraft has a booth right next to Minecraft's.