After many months of providing an amazing plug-in service for the Minecraft community, Bukkit has officially joined the Mojang team!  There are some immediately obvious benefits - official support for the game, better resources to develop Bukkit further - as well as the ability to develop tools, mod support and more which can be officially integrated into the game!

Bukkit developer EvilSeph stated numerous reasons for the move, including a desire to have better mod support for the game, that was more easily accessible to the community at large.

EvilSeph said:

From that meeting, a partnership was born.  We here at Curse are proud to have supported Bukkit, and to do whatever it took to help them continue doing what they did best - making an incredible set of tools for Minecraft players.  We very much look forward to seeing a Bukkit-driven multiplayer experience in the coming days, and wish them the very best with their future at Mojang!  You can read EvilSeph's full write-up right here, as well as Mojang's official statement on their home page - check it out!

Bukkit started in December of 2010, with the intent to develop tools to help run and extend SMP servers.  Response to their project idea was massively overwhelming - so much so that their hosting server almost outright failed numerous times.  Around this time, Curse & Multiplay's Steve Hartland offered their support, to make sure Bukkit was able to keep moving forward.  While the Bukkit team had often dreamed of developing a proper Mod API (and certainly had the skill-set for it), they lacked the experience of handling something of that magnitude.  Mojang, upon meeting with them at Minecon, discussed their ideas and the future of both Bukkit and Minecraft, and from there, the rest is history.

Once again, a HUGE "congratulations" to the Bukkit team from everyone here at Curse and the Minecraft Forum!  Your hard work and perseverance definitely earned it!

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The March Gaming Bracket Challenge presented by Curse and Alienware is a tournament that pits random video game characters against one another!

Each week in March we will be matching up characters from your favorite Curse Network fansites; from Skyrim to Starcraft, WoW to Minecraft. Who gets through to the next round is up to you since your votes decide who rises up and who falls in this arena!  Do you want to see Steve, the Enderman or some other Minecraft star win the battle?  Head on over and vote on your favorite!

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Pico gives us news on Minecraft, LoL, Guild Wars 2, Realm of the Mad God, Aion and Border Lands 2 - check it out!

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Dead Worker's Party member Brent Copeland has a LP series!  Check it out! Back to Top

Minecraft for PS Vita? Unfortunately...

It seems that Minecraft will not be coming to Playstation after all. In a business meeting including Daniel Kaplan, it was confirmed that there were "no plans" to bring the indie title to PS Vita (Sony's handheld equivalent to the Nintendo DS), despite overwhelming success on the Sony handheld, Xperia.
Minecraft - Pocket Edition launched on Xperia Play last summer and quickly became the Android Market's most worldwide-downloaded app. Approximately 8500 people have played the game on the device since its unveiling. The recent Survival Mode update to the game makes Pocket Edition more of an action-oriented experience, with health bars, weapons and animals included, as well as the addition of more blocks from the PC version of the game.

The XBLA version of the game is still expected to hit consoles in March 2012.

Want to Code "Catacomb Snatch" Yourself?

With Mojam all wrapped up, Mojang's new title "Catacomb Snatch" is, technically, complete! However, Jeb has decided to encourage budding programmers by giving tips on how to use the open-source code of the game. He goes over his own history of getting into game development, as well as offering some helpful instructions to prospective game designers who might decide to take on the task of working on "Catacomb Snatch" further. He also offered sources for the development tools needed to code a Java game (using his examples), as well as positing a number of tasks and challenges for anyone brave enough to take them on. What can you add or improve on "Catacomb Snatch"?

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Dead Worker's Party - The Eye

The Dead Worker's Party begins a new adventure this week, "The Eye"! What strange things await the entrepid trio? Can they solve the mystery of their amnesia? Will they ever get that minecart to work correctly? Give it a watch to find out! Back to Top

Minecraft has hit over 5,000,000 (five million) sales, and over 20 million registered users! It seems like only yesterday that Minecraft was fully released at Minecon, and features were still being added even then. From beds to bedrock fog, Minecraft spent 2011 in a constant state of growth, and continues to do so well into 2012. As the game grows, so does the player-base; it wasn't long before over 4 million people bought the game, and now, even that number seems so far away.

Now, it seems that Pocket Edition has some catching up to do! Having hit 750,000 sales in January, the portable Minecraft port has quickly become a fixture in its own right - how long will it be before we see over 1 million sales for this ever-expanding game for the travelling builder? Every update brings more and more of the popular PC title to handhelds, with the most recent update bringing elements of Survival to Pocket Edition, including monsters, tools and even more blocks than before, to name just a few.

It's almost impossible to really grasp the totality of how far Minecraft has come, and how much Mojang has grown. What will the next major landmark be for the smash-hit sandbox game, and the blockbusting team behind it? We're not sure, but with Mojam still in full swing, there exists ample opportunities to aim ever higher. Back to Top

Mojang is in full swing with their Humble Bundle project, Mojam! What is it? Simple! Mojang is writing a fully complete, playable game from scratch in the span of a weekend! As with previous Humble Bundles, you can pay whatever you like to get the game upon completion, and all proceeds will go to your choice of four excellent charities. Taking feedback from their earlier poll on the topic (with over 100,000 votes!), Mojang is teaming up with Humble Bundle founding team Wolfire Games to create a real-time strategy shoot-em-up, with an Egyptian steampunk theme! Cobalt creators Oxeye Game Studios are tackling an equally ambitious project - a dungeon-crawler beat em' up set in post-apocalyptic World War 2!

Graph updated: Mojam has completed!

Want to see these killer teams at work, live? Head over to the Humble Bundle site, where you can watch all available live feeds, chat with other viewers, and more! Is all of that still not enough? There's more - you can also hit up their Google Moderator session for some Q&A! We will be updating all links regularly (included below in a list for your convenience), so be sure to check back often. Good luck to Mojang, Wolfire and Oxeye on your upcoming titles, we're looking forward to it!

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• Humble Bundle site (includes livestream, details): Click here!
  
• Google Moderator Mojam Q&A session: Click here!
  
• Mojang's official "Mojam Teaser" video: Click here!
  

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Updates!

• In the early moments of Mojam, Minecraft cleared over 5 million sales! Congratulations, Mojang!
  
• MinecraftChick confirmed during today's livestream that tomorrow (2/19/12), the stream will be "interactive", including tours of the office, giveaways and more
  
• For users who have already donated, a new build of Catacomb Snatch has been released!
  
• Oxeye intern Frall spent some time chatting directly with users on the stream!
  
• Notch to arrive at 10:00 GMT +1 to work the remaining 12 hours - Oxeye gets some much-deserved rest!
  

Videos!

Mojang hits their $75,000 mark - so Notch & (shirtless) Jeb arm wrestle!

Jens Bergensten (Jeb) being fabulous!

A sneak peek at Mojang's title, "Catacomb Snatch"!

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Do you like Minecraft?  Do you think you have what it takes to be a developer with Mojang?  Today's interview touches on this very subject!  We had a chance to sit down with Carl Manneh - CEO of Mojang - to discuss their recent employment openings, the development direction of Minecraft & Scrolls, and a surprise about the upcoming adventure side-scroller, Cobalt!

Carl gave us a solid break-down of the kind of developer they are looking for; without giving too much of it away, we can say that applicants must have the ability to work in a dynamic environment, and have a healthy love for games.  Later on, we discussed the future direction of Scrolls, as well as multi-platform support for Mojang's games.  Finally, Carl generously offered a bit of secret information about Cobalt - we don't want to spoil it, so check it out!  

If you want to know more about Cobalt, check out our Cobalt wiki - we update it constantly with the latest Cobalt news, so don't miss out!

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Don't forget that we still have one ultra-rare Minecraft-themed Xbox360 to give away!  Want your shot at this once-in-a-lifetime collectors item?  Head over to our sign-up page for details! Back to Top

Minecraft Pocket Edition On Sale

Minecraft: Pocket Edition has been one of the hottest portable apps available for some time. Did you ever want to get a copy, but were concerned about the price tag? Today may be your lucky day - PE is currently on sale for $0.10! Yes, that's "ten cents" (or £0.10, or €0.10 - whatever your local currency may be) - now is the perfect time to grab a great portable game for practically nothing. While it is still currently in Creative mode only, Mojang already pointed out a Survival mode for the future - the timing couldn't be better to pick up this gem. Give it a look! Keep in mind, this sale is only for the Android version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition.

One Account to Rule Them All

It seems that Mojang is preparing for the future release of titles, with their current players in mind. In the near future, Mojang plans to have one player account merge with all of their titles, such as Minecraft, Scrolls and Cobalt, with a single login. From there, the ability to create separate player profiles/names will be possible, allowing for a number of scenarios, including having a single account for multiple users in a household. They had this to say on the new account system:

Mojang said:

While existing Minecraft accounts are not being forced into the new system, there will be a mandatory "opt-in" sometime in the future. It is their hope to have the system rolled out for Cobalt some time this month, then early next year for Minecraft accounts. Mojang has requested feedback from users on the topic; you can leave your feedback here. Back to Top

Notch just revealed that Mojang won the interim injunction, allowing them to keep the name Scrolls for their upcoming CCG-alike game!  While Zenimax can appeal this ruling, Notch was nonetheless optimistic about the outcome, as were numerous employees at Mojang.  If you're fluent in Swedish, you can see the released document right here, or you can find a shortened English version here.

The original debate started when developer Mojang decided to make the working title of their new CCG-like game "Scrolls", which prompted software publisher Bethesda Softworks to respond, citing potential confusion between Mojang's Scrolls and their own Elder Scrolls franchise.

Some time into the proceedings, Notch offered to settle the dispute with a friendly game of Quake 3, a challenge which was not answered.  The proposed solution was intended to ease any potential PR incidents, and provide an amicable solution to the dispute.  The challenge went unanswered, although Notch has expressed an interest in playing against them for entertainment purposes, despite recent developments. Back to Top

For those of you who have been waiting for new payment options before purchasing Minecraft, your day may have finally come. Mojang has added over 100 payment options through MoneyBookers and PayPal.

According to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan, these new payment options will be especially helpful for those who want to use American Express, or those located in Germany and Poland.

On the support side of things, Mojang has introduced a new automated support that Kaplan feels should help with most Minecraft account-related issues. You'll be able to get all of your account support through the automated system, including a list of all usernames attached to an email, info on your account, and more.

From here out, if you send an email directly to Mojang about account issues you will receive an automated response directing to the new support system on the Minecraft website. Back to Top