With Minecraft's launch, countless players rushed into the game the moment it opened.
But soon, lots of posts appeared online sharing thoughts about Minecraft.
First was the pixel art style. Many who had doubted Minecraft's pixel look completely changed their minds after playing.
Even though it was pixel-based, the textures weren't rough or ugly. With the lighting effects added in, the graphics weren't top-tier, but they were definitely above the passing line.
The one thing players discussed most was building houses.
For many, this was their first time playing this type of game.
Some had never even touched toy blocks before.
Because truth be told, toy blocks were always a bit of a luxury.
You'd think LEGO was just for kids, but later you realize it's really for people with money.
Even the smaller sets cost a few hundred, and the bigger, more complex ones cost thousands.
Because of that, Minecraft's "block building" gameplay naturally made many people curious.
Of course, curiosity is one thing, but in reality, players who can actually build a nice-looking house in the game are very rare.
For most players, what they build ends up looking like a shoebox or a dark little hut.
And for some survival-mode players, they take it even further.
At first, they happily gather materials and start building a house.
But once the house is finished and they step back to look at it—
What the heck is this! This ugly mess, did I really make this?
Tear it down right away, it's too embarrassing!
So for these players, they go down another path in their Minecraft survival journey.
Build a house? Forget it.
Just find a big mountain, dig a hole inside, place a bed, a crafting table, a chest, and stick in a torch.
When night falls and they're afraid monsters might come in, they just block the entrance with whatever material they have.
At this stage, players basically become cavemen, stepping straight into the stone age.
.........
After Minecraft launched, many game designers started paying attention to its progress.
But overall, the response could only be called lukewarm.
Players gave the game plenty of praise, but not many felt it was truly amazing.
Even the reviews reflected this—Minecraft currently held a 9.0 score.
This left many in the industry puzzled.
"Lucas's Minecraft doesn't feel that impressive at all!"
"It's a pixel game, what did you expect to be impressed by?"
"I don't think that's right. It can't just be some simple block stacking, can it? Otherwise, why is Lucas pushing the promotion way harder than Don't Starve, even treating it like a big release?"
"Well, you've got a point there."
"Could Minecraft actually have deeper content?"
"Don't be ridiculous. It's just a pixel block game—how deep could it possibly be?"
As the early access test continued, designers in the industry grew more curious.
Especially as players began to discover more features: villages in the game, animals that could be tamed…
And some skilled players even built houses that weren't shoeboxes anymore, but beautiful two-story villas.
Still, the overall player reviews for Minecraft stayed around "not bad" and "pretty good."
Even its popularity was just average, carried only by the early access buzz. At best, it tied with SkyNova's Sailing.
Some even felt it wasn't doing as well as Don't Starve, which left many industry designers scratching their heads.
Marcus, who had talked with Lucas before and decided to delay Wasteland, sat in his office watching Minecraft gameplay footage, lost in thought.
It had already been five days of early access. Could the game really surprise players with anything new now?
After all, even for a big AAA title, five days was often enough for players to finish the main story.
But Minecraft was still just lukewarm.
And Marcus felt that Lucas hadn't been lying when they talked.
As a game designer himself, with plenty of successful projects, he couldn't believe Lucas would misjudge the quality of a game.
So what exactly was special about this one?
Compared to outside designers who had no direct stake, SkyNova's lead designer Julian felt relieved as he saw Minecraft's modest buzz online.
Lately, he'd been haunted by a sense of unease.
After all, it was Lucas who had kick-started the sandbox game craze in the first place.
But from how things looked now, Minecraft could only be considered a decent game.
He even tried it himself, and the feeling was strange. It wasn't bad, but he couldn't really say it was fun either.
There was no real "wow" factor, no hook. From its content, Julian felt it wasn't enough to threaten Sailing's success.
Thinking this, he couldn't help but smile with relief.
Especially since NetDragon's Wasteland had suddenly pulled back, claiming it needed more polish before release. But everyone in the industry knew what that meant.
Minecraft was lukewarm, Wasteland had retreated—Julian felt a sales explosion was coming his way.
............
All kinds of talk was going around, but Lucas wasn't really affected. He calmly kept building.
The rest of the Nebula Games team, though, felt the pressure.
"Lucas, sales don't look that good right now!" Hector said.
"Yeah, so far pre-orders are only at 810,000." Rachel added nervously.
It had already been five days since early access opened, and there had been a lot of promotion before that.
810,000 pre-orders wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly amazing either.
"Don't worry, everything's under control. And you've already felt Minecraft's charm yourselves, haven't you? There's another big wave of promotion coming." Lucas said with a smile after glancing at the backend data.
Looking at the numbers, even if Minecraft didn't seem that hot on the surface, the backend didn't lie.
Player time in-game wasn't dropping, it was actually going up, which showed the game's appeal was slowly building.
And that was normal, because Minecraft was the type of game that grew on people.
Unlike other games, it didn't blow you away at first sight.
But the more you played, the more you discovered, the stronger the sense of achievement and fun became.
And the promotion had only just started!
With sandbox games, when they first launch, players are still exploring. The real fun doesn't show right away.
Right now, players hadn't even touched the real charm of Minecraft.
Lucas had kept that for the second stage of promotion.
Once players actually experienced more of the gameplay and discovered the magic themselves, the impact would be completely different. Things were only just getting started.
(End of The Chapter)
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