Can Minecraft Change the Gaming Industry?

An anonymous reader writes "Is Minecraft really changing the gaming industry fundamentally? This author certainly thinks so, and even goes so far as to consider Minecraft's world manipulation a paradigm shift along the lines of 3D-gaming during the early '90s. 'Every block in the game is available to pick up and reallocate. We can tear down and build up. The neat thing is that future games does not need to be as liberal, but they will need to consider how they can make the environment a hell of a lot more manipulable. Now, this is quite a bit too simplified and the vast majority of games must not feature a shovel worthy of digging to the center of the earth, but giving the user power over everyday things (still in game worlds) will be a worthy challenge to consider.'" Minecraft may give us power over everyday things in the real world, too.

MineVille?

[alphatel]

Next paradigm shift:

Sally needs help moving blocks, sign up and earn 5 facepoints!

Re:Less is sometimes more

[Anonymous Coward]

>No flashy graphics bringing your machine to its knees

Right, the bad programming does.

Re:Lay off the crack.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you say Minecraft isn't ground breaking? That's pretty much all it is.

Re:MineVille?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Didn't they already have MineVille in Chile a few months back?

Too soon?

Re:Choose

[improfane]

Apologies. I have learnt my lesson.

Re:No.

[PopeRatzo]

It won't. Next question?

You've said a mouthful.

Why can't anybody just make a moderately successful product any more without having to "change the industry" with their "new paradigm"?

First it was big important really life-changing things like the Sears Catalog or erasers on the end of pencils. Maybe cellular phones. Now every single consumer success is a "game changer".

I just heard a guy on the radio interviewing the guy who came out with Tito's Corn Vodka. Now, people have been making corn licker since before Columbus, but sure enough, the otherwise pretty smart investment guy whose local radio show it was said "This is a game changer". Fucking CORN VODKA is a "game changer"? The only game corn vodka is going to change is the slow-pitch softball game that turns into a blind melee after the participants partake in several bottles of said corn vodka. The liquor store where I am proud to have a store account has a liquor display containing what appears to be several hundred vodkas, including those flavored with marshmallow and (I'm serious) whipped cream. Besides 17-22 year old females with lower-back tattoos, I really don't know who drinks marshmallow-flavored vodka, but apparently, enough of them have boyfriends trying to relieve them of their britches that these vodkas are very good sellers. So I am told. So when the types of vodka include such exotic offerings, how is CORN VODKA going to be a "game changer" unless you're a corn farmer and the US suddenly drops the ethanol subsidies and a potato blight hits the Midwest.

OK, I've got to stop right there, because my wife has forbid me from having any more Slashdot rants because she says I make a funny noise when I'm writing them and it's only 7:21am here and if I wake the dog I'll have to walk her. The dog, I mean.

(Oh, by the way, the whipped cream vodka really isn't that bad).