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When Minecraft Markus 'Notch' Persson bought a gigantic mansion in Beverly Hills, itwould only be a matter of time before his purchase wound up in his game
It's possibly the most achingly zeitgeist story of the year: a rich coder buys a huge mansion in Beverly Hills (reportedly outbidding Beyonce and Jay Z in the process)and then his house ends up being depicted in the block-building mega game that he wrote. That's celebrity, real estate, successful geeks, video games and an ironic meta-narrative in one shot. Christmas has come early
In mid-December, Markus "Notch" Persson, the creator of the multimillon-selling building sim Minecraft, bought his new pad for a reputed $70m. He immediately tweeted a photo of himself, luxuriating in front of his massive candy tubes:
Very quickly, an estate agent video of the vast 23,000 square ft property emerged online, showing off the wine cellar, infinity pond and a breakfast bar long enough to have the entire LA Lakers squad over for Lucky Charms.
No one was ever in doubt that Persson had money. Since its official launch in 2011, Minecraft has sold more than 50m copies on consoles, PC and smartphones, spectacular feat for a small independent project built by a handful of coders in Sweden. From the beginning though, the game attracted a dedicated and creative community that aided in its development and growth - and helped to publicise it through blog posts and videos.
Persson's studio, Mojang, has since been bought by Microsoft for $2.5bn, taking Minecraft with it, of course. Persson just wants to make little indie games and maybe fiddle about with his iPad-controlled fountains
The circular appeal of Minecraft
Allowing players to mine an attracticely blocky world for resources before building anything they please while avoiding zombies and giant spiders, Minecraft is more like a digital canvas than a traditional game, and skilled participants have used it to build everything from the Starship Enterprise to the city of King's Landing from Game of Thrones. Some of the biggest YouTube presenters in the world, the likes of StampyCat and Ali A, produce almost daily videos of themselves building and larking about in the game
So in was inevitable that at least one Minecraft enthusiast would seek to replicate Notch's new house - itself a surreal and rather chunky edifice - within the game. Step forward Dan Bovey, the UK-based modeller and YouTuber who posts to the video-sharing site on his channel, Bovey Brawlers
He has not only intricately recreated the house, he has recreated the real estate video itself, together with swooping camera shots and even matching natural environment:
So that's the house bought by the creator of Minecraft recreated in Minecraft. It is, to put it bluntly, so meta
But then of course, Minecraft is used to meta-narratives. For years it was described as the Lego of videogaming. Then in 2012, members of Lego's creative community, Cuusoo, designed a small selection of playsets based around the game. The ideas were officially approved and the sets went into production, as collector-focused micro-sets. They proved so popular however, that this year has seen the release of several full-size Lego Minecraft sets, and more are to come.
There is, of course, a movie in production too. Apparently it will be a "live action" file produced by the team behind - yes, you guessed it - the Lego Movie
But of course, whatever the file looks like, you can be sure of one thing: a month or so later, there will be a shot-for-shot remark in Minecraft
shot-for-shot remark
apparently
production
playset
bluntly
swooping
intricately
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replicate
larking
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circular
fiddle
publicize
infinity
massive
luxuriate
reputed
meta-narrative
being depicted
outbidding
reportedly
zeitgeist
achingly
wind up