It’s kind of hard to imagine that – with over two million registered users and 600 000 copies sold – Minecraft is still in alpha. Not for very much longer, however, as creator Markuss “Notch” Persson has confirmed that the cult sandbox game is heading into beta on 20 December. So what does that mean, anyway?
“With Beta comes a larger focus on polish and content, and we’ll start early on with adding proper modding support with a stable API, and we’d love all input we can get on this from the modders out there,” says Notch. “We’ll also add some kind of non-intrusive narrative to the game to help drive the game experience early on, and to provide some kind of late game goal. There will be a bigger focus on testing and stability as well, with more time between updates.”
The game’s also getting a bit of a price increase, from €10 to €14.95.
“We will also change the license to remove the line that promises all future versions of the game for free,” he adds. “Please note that this change only affects people who buy the game after December 20, so if you got the game for during alpha, you will still get all future updates for free, despite this change. A promise is a promise.
Buying the game during beta will include all updates up until release, of course, and bug patches will be free.”
