Mojang's 'Minecraft' is the best-selling video game of all time and still remains a juggernaut after 15 years. To celebrate the milestone, ACM sat down with Jens (aka Jeb_) Bergensten, Minecraft's Chief Creative Officer, while he was in Australia - for an insider's perspective on why Minecraft remains one of the most fascinating games on the block.
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00:00Mojang's Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time and still remains a juggernaut
00:07after 15 years.
00:09To celebrate the milestone, ACM sat down with Jens, also known as Jeb, Minecraft's chief
00:15creative officer, while he was in Australia, for an insider's perspective on why Minecraft
00:21remains one of the most fascinating games on the block.
00:24You're celebrating the 15-year anniversary of Minecraft, how are you feeling?
00:29It's been amazing to work on Minecraft, I've been working on Minecraft since 2010 and it's
00:35just been growing and growing and we can really tell that players they never quite quit playing
00:43Minecraft, they just take a break from time to time and when we have the opportunity to
00:49celebrate like an anniversary, we really see how players come back and how that re-invigorates
00:55the whole community.
00:56Do you ever wake up in the morning and wonder what more is there to put in?
01:03Well, we are not running out of ideas, it's more that we don't have the time to do all
01:08the ideas we want, but like at the core Minecraft is still of course about creativity and making
01:18your own stories and so when people ask me like what do you see for the future, I can
01:25look back and the core of Minecraft will be the same, but we will keep on adding more
01:32environments and things to explore and more toys to play with inside Minecraft.
01:37Obviously there's the modding section as well, chatting to some players and the things players
01:42are doing with mods is amazing, do you ever look at that and think wow what a great idea?
01:49The modding community inspires like they keep surprising us with all their creations
01:55and of course like we take inspiration from them and see what they want to do with it
02:02and now with the add-ons on Bedrock, we see it as a way for players to make Minecraft
02:08the way they want to play it, like use the tools and toys they want to have, like toys
02:13in more like in game terms, but it's a very big part of playing Minecraft and also be
02:21creative with Minecraft.
02:22I mean I'm always amazed thinking about the Minecraft library of banned books that I believe
02:30people can jump on a server and access them.
02:33Yeah, that's an amazing project, a way for, again it shows how the community's being creative
02:41and using Minecraft in a way that we couldn't imagine.
02:45The thing about Minecraft is that it's almost like it's emergent creativity because being
02:52creative and playing the game are intertwined so they're actually, it's the same thing,
02:57like by playing the game you make your own creations and do creative things and before
03:05you know it you've created something that you're proud of and you want to share with
03:08your friends so you want, you have, you create your own story that you want to show on YouTube
03:14or on other social media.
03:17So it's both about having a fun game but also about sharing it with others.
03:24And I think that kind of, you know, that kind of environment has enabled Minecraft to become
03:30so popular because it becomes viral just by its nature.
03:34Like the streamer and the video content creator community is a very big part of Minecraft.
03:40Like Minecraft is such a good game for making stories so I think that it's kind of like
03:44a symbiosis in that sense.
03:48So a lot of the content creators, they make episodical series in which they tell essentially
03:56a long format story by using Minecraft as their way of expressing themselves.
04:05You've been at this for 14 years.
04:10Do you ever think of other projects you'd like to do or of stepping back a little bit?
04:18Of course, you can always say, like I am, I love games and game design and you always
04:24have this day, all the projects that I do on the side but nothing like at the scale
04:30of Minecraft.
04:31I love Minecraft and I have a great team so I'm not planning to do anything else in
04:38the near future.
04:39You're not going anywhere?
04:40No.
04:41I'm sure that will put a lot of players at ease knowing you're happy behind the wheel
04:46keeping a firm hand on things.
04:48So obviously the big discussions recently have been around crunch.
04:54Did you ever, do you face much crunch at Mojang or did you in the early days?
05:01No, I would say.
05:04So well, you have to put it in the perspective.
05:07On the early days, we were working on Minecraft almost like a game jam.
05:12So it's almost like it didn't feel like work in a sense.
05:17So maybe you did spend more hours than you were supposed to do on working on the game.
05:22But I'd say today we are very, like we put a high importance on work-life balance.
05:30We don't expect our team members to do what is famously known as crunch when we work on
05:37the projects.
05:39And of course, it means that in order to avoid crunch, it's a balance of making a scope
05:47that we think that we can deliver on where we need to deliver it.
05:51And I know that my colleagues, they want to do more things.
05:57They know that the players want more Minecraft and they want more things, but we have to
06:00be very careful not to over-scope our projects.
06:05Always the next update that you can put some of those stuff in.
06:07Absolutely, yes.
06:08Do you ever see some projects coming out and think, oh, this could really impact Minecraft.
06:15This could be Minecraft too.
06:17Of course, there are games that are released in the same genre.
06:23I think the strength of Minecraft is that we actually have a very solid, like we call
06:30it the mythology of Minecraft, like our characters and creatures like the creeper and such have
06:37created a very strong cultural impact that is going to like, it's essentially evergreen
06:46in a sense.
06:47I love new games and we feel inspired.
06:50And I think feeling a little bit of competition is healthy because it keeps us on our toes.
06:58And of course, like there are a lot of very inspiring and fun things that are happening
07:04around outside of Minecraft as well.
07:07Like since I've been working on this so much, when I play a new game, I have a very analytical eye.
07:14So like if you take Valheim, for instance, the way they designed the hunger system was
07:19very interesting.
07:20So, you know, you kind of pick up on little details like that.
07:24So right now I'm playing a Dyson Sphere program.
07:28I play a lot of Minecraft with my son.
07:33And then when I just need to have some me time, if you put it that way, I actually still
07:40play Starcraft Brood War.
07:44I do this for ire and taro adunus.
07:49I want to touch on some of the cultural impact and touch on the Smash Bros reveal, because
07:55I'm still recovering from that.
07:59How's that?
08:00Nintendo reached out to you and said, we want to put Steve and Alex in Smash Bros?
08:05Smash Bros, since they have this phenomenon of like making a big deal of introducing a
08:11new character and people guessing what's the next character.
08:15I think very early on, we started thinking about like what, like almost like as a joke,
08:21what if it would be like Steve or another character from Minecraft?
08:26Now I don't exactly remember how the connection was made, but I do know that when we started
08:34talking with Nintendo and we started like we brought in the people at Mojang that knew
08:39the game really well and had ideas about what could the character be.
08:43So we put together a little deck and my colleagues went to Tokyo and had a meeting in which Sakurai-san
08:51presented his own ideas.
08:52And it was very clear like he knew Minecraft really well.
08:56Of course, he knew what was possible to do in his game.
08:59And after that, it was a really fun collaboration in which we gave like guidance on animations
09:04and how the artwork and such.
09:07And then, yeah, when it was released, you know, the Twitter service to go down almost,
09:14that was so impactful.
09:30I'd be remiss not to ask, do you get an idea of what might be coming next for Minecraft?
09:36Well, I can't go into details, but of course, we are continuing to update Minecraft, both
09:43with new content and like new technologies.
09:46I am in Australia to be here to celebrate the Minecraft 50th anniversary with the Australian
09:54community and meeting the people here.
09:58Yesterday, we were at the school and met STEM students and we also met university students
10:06in game design, but also others.
10:10And I spoke to them and answered their questions and gave them like career advice.
10:16Making games, regardless of which discipline you want to do, like if it's programming or
10:20design or art, it's very hands-on.
10:24You have to practice it before to make it perfect.
10:29So my advice is that, like, I started programming when I was 11 in a tool called Quick Basic,
10:37but I didn't have access to the internet, it didn't exist in Sweden for someone like
10:42me back then.
10:44So it was very hard.
10:45But now, these days, there is so much help to be found on the internet.
10:52So my advice is try to find some kind of tool that seems to be doing what you want
10:58to do, like, and then just try to create something and create new things and over time, it might
11:06lead to something great.
11:07I think all that's left is to thank you so much for your time and hope you enjoy your
11:13visit in Australia.
11:15Absolutely.
11:16Thank you so much.