:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
Personally I didn’t like Minecraft either, but that’s another story. I thought it was a remarkably clever product though - the way it sold itself. I got addicted to it for about a week when I was trying to avoid doing work. It does use a bunch of reasonably well understood tricks to get people hooked and to buy it, which I will have no qualms about using one day 
There’s a perfect balance of tedious grind, random reward intervals, and the feeling that “something interesting might happen when I buy the full version”. This is on top of its generally unique feel which is what endeared it to people in the first place.
Cas
Hmm. I always thought it was more of a “3DS Max for everyone”, and people want to share their creations, and so it spreads.
Reminds me of this silly marketing question - is it better to have people say your company is awesome, or that your product is awesome? The answer (of course) is that it’s a trick question, and it’s better to have people say they are awesome. Minecraft nailed that.
I see that as a part of the Minecraft charm - its more a sandbox than a game. The main attraction to me from a game development perspective is its design - in stead of following the trend of most games, to make things possible, Minecraft turns it around - it simply doesn’t make things impossible. That opens up a whole world of freedom in which people can do things which makes them feel and appear awesome.
Minecraft as being the probably most successful Indie game ever is the revenge for all Java bashing in the past
I agree with you but there are still a lot of people asking Markus why he didn’t use a “real” language 
IMHO the real genuis of Minecraft was not the actual ability to create great works of daring enterprise for ordinary people; it was selling the idea that anyone could do it.
The reality is more like this: play demo for a while. Wonder what the fuss is about. Bash a few trees, start digging about. Get addicted to grubbing in the dirt for coal. Tolerance slowly increases along with dependency. Addiction grows to iron ore, then gold, then diamonds, then redstone, though you don’t know why. See video on internets of some incredible dwarven palace being constructed by 50 people in timelapse. Go, “oooh! I can do that!”. Buy Minecraft. Build shitty hut out of mud and gravel. Realise that you don’t have the time or patience, nor 50 people to help. Continue playing until you realise redstone is the last thing you can dig up and it’s of no use whatsoever because you need to be more than just a bit patient and geeky to actually use it. Stop playing.
Markus has your money.
Cas
I suspect the modding community is quite happy that Notch didn’t use a “real” language like C++
As for the actual gameplay of minecraft, I just couldn’t find much beyond virtual legos with the most primitive interactive features. It’s got basically the opposite ethos of Dwarf Fortress, where you know your intricately constructed fortress will eventually end in rage, blood, and fire, and the challenge is to see how long you can go before this happens. In Minecraft, once you’ve got basic survival down, you’re pretty much set, and there’s nothing more to do.
I think, Minecraft’s Survival is not the main thing about that game. That part is really importent, otherwise it would never take as long to build something really cool. I think the problem with you guys is, that that game is not made for adults. It’s a game made for creative dreamers, a.k.a. the kids 
Minecraft didn’t really pull me in either. I suppose as a programmer when I get the urge to create I code. If that creative outlet was not available perhaps I would find Minecraft a nice conduit for my creative desires. Plus if I didn’t program I would have lots of free time to kill.
[quote]It does use a bunch of reasonably well understood tricks to get people hooked and to buy it, which I will have no qualms about using one day
[/quote]
I would love to use the trick of having Penny Arcade write 2 comics in a row which showed the game in a positive light. In September of 2010 Penny Arcade ran those 2 comics and Notch had so many registrations that it took his servers down for almost a week. In the end, when the servers came back up he went from roughly 65,000 alpha users to over 300,000 alpha users (I was one of them).
I think that was the single point which really launched Minecraft.
I use to be utter addicted to MC. But I haven’t played it for months. I find that more and more I only do my gaming in 10 to 20 minute chunks. I think there are a lot of people in that position and this may be a reason that mobile games and the “casual gaming” revolution are happening.
I guess that’s why we still manage to sell the odd one of our arcade games - it’s short, manageable gaming, with no long term investment.
Cas
How do you handle patching/updating ?
I’m tempted to use traditional patches, check for updates ingame and inform player, then just NSIS exe files which find the installation per registry (windows) and apply.
But I’m not sure with linux and mac, but it should work similarly…
On that note: How does one update the “update”-code?
Once doesn’t, because one realizes it’s the most important part of one’s project, and codes it correctly.
Any decent patcher can patch itself. Windows Update and various Linux package managers do it all the time. Game updaters tend to not do that since they usually ship the patcher as part of the update.
Split the application into a Launcher and the Game.
The Launcher updates the Game, the Game the Launcher.
You simply don’t need to do that. The launcher updates itself and restarts. On Windows, you sometimes have to defer self-updates til relaunch, but that doesn’t apply to Java.
Hmm. Is it possible to work with a jar you’re currently running? Can you delete it, and download a new one?
Why not just have two (min). One contains launcher and (others) game. Separate classloader for game code and no need for restart unless the launcher/updater is updated (and JRE if you’re bundling)