Minecraft: The Story of Mojang

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang
Standard DVD cover
Directed by	Paul Owens
Produced by	Paul Levering
Starring	Markus Persson Jerry Holkins Mike Krahulik Geoff Keighley Logan Decker Stephen Totilo Evan Lahti Minecraft Teacher Adam Montoya The Shaft Paul Soares, Jr. The Yogscast Chris Hecker Todd Howard Tim Schafer Peter Molyneux
Music by	C418
Distributed by	2 Player Productions
Release date	December 22, 2012 (2012-12-22)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	English Swedish

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is a 2012 documentary film directed by Paul Owens. It is about the history of the company Mojang and its creation, Minecraft. The film features interviews with company personnel such as Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten and insights from people involved in the gaming industry and from players profoundly impacted by the game. The film was produced by 2 Player Productions. The production was funded through a Kickstarter campaign and spanned nearly two years in locations across North America and Europe. Original Minecraft composer C418 provided the score, which was released as part of his album One.

The film premiered on Xbox Live on December 22, 2012. It was made available for download and streaming the following day, and a Dvd was released by Fangamer. 2 Player Productions also uploaded the documentary to torrent index the Pirate Bay, but urged people to consider purchasing the film.

Cast

• Markus Persson
• Jerry Holkins
• Mike Krahulik
• Geoff Keighley
• Logan Decker
• Stephen Totilo
• Evan Lahti
• Minecraft Teacher
• Adam Montoya
• The Shaft
• Paul Soares, Jr.
• The Yogscast
• Chris Hecker
• Todd Howard
• Tim Schafer
• Peter Molyneux

Game journalist Stephen Totilo of Kotaku appears.

Content

The documentary follows Minecraft developer Mojang through the development process of the game. The film also features insights from many people in the video gaming industry to discuss Minecraft's popularity and influence. Interviews from Persson and other Mojang employees give an insight on the creation and expansion of the studio.

Development

The production was funded through a Kickstarter campaign which raised over $210,000 dollars from 3,641 backers, and money from the filmmakers. Production spanned nearly two years in locations across North America and Europe.

Soundtrack

One
Soundtrack album by C418
Released	23 December 2012
Genre	Electronic
Length	95:28 110:28 (CD version)
Label	Independent Fangamer
Producer	C418
C418 chronology
72 Minutes of Fame (2011) One (2012) Minecraft – Volume Beta (2013)

The film's soundtrack was created by Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld, the original composer and sound designer for Minecraft. He was attached to provide the score by May 2011. Rosenfeld had wanted to work on a film, and agreed when 2 Player Productions asked him to compose the score. To compose the score, Rosenfeld stopped working on the game "seriously" for about a year and a half. According to the musician, the album was an experiment on the concept of "Schönhören", a word in German roughly meaning "the act of listening to something until you start to like it". He describes the album as "pretty relaxed, with a mix of live recorded chiptune, orchestral phrases and a lot of Array Mbiras".

The first song he composed for the film was a seven minute song synchronised to the first footage he was given, which he described as "basically a failure". Rosenfeld spent two weeks on the first track, and realised that composing the entire film like that as a single person was not possible. Rosenfeld would start composing material beginning with a 2–5-second "jingle" sound, and looped it. He then would add a bassline to the four looping notes. He would choose a bass sample from chipsounds, a Gameboy sound emulator, and usually doubled up on them because he liked them. Then, he would add a drum track. For one song, he sampled the drums from a James Brown song. For the melody, he would change the key of the music to create it, such as a crescendo.

When it occurred to Rosenfeld that he was composing for a documentary, and that loud music would not be fitting, he decided to "make it longer and louder", a choice he did not understand. He also implemented an mbira called a kalimba with five octaves, matching the chord progression. He decided to implement this instrument into the entire score, providing a satisfactory theme due to its uniqueness. Rosenfeld eventually decided that the music's volume needed to be addressed, and found that slowing it down helped. To make the music fit into the documentary without being "annoying as hell", he simply did this in places added with the Game Boy samples. To make the music sound fuller, he added piano, in some places playing it by plucking. Rosenfeld felt that the slowness of the music made it mellow and fitting for the emotional moments in the documentary. He then sped the music up again and repeated the process.

The music featured was released with Rosenfeld's album One on December 23, 2012, which contains 31 tracks. It was physically released in CD format by Fangamer. The two-disc pack features exclusive remixes by crashfaster, Danimal Cannon, Bud Melvin and minusbaby. Vice called the album a "gleeful and unobtrusive collection of short melodic instrumentals that skip around daintily like cute little bashful kittens, but with a dark self-deprecating humour lurking beneath".

One track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Cliffside Hinson"	3:46
2.	"Surface Pension"	6:34
3.	"Independent Accident"	4:11
4.	"Danny Makes Chiptune"	2:46
5.	"The First Million"	3:19
6.	"Certitudes"	4:33
7.	"Impostor Syndrome"	2:24
8.	"Buildup Errors"	3:26
9.	"For the Sake of Making Games"	1:33
10.	"Preliminary Art Form"	3:07
11.	"Lawyer Cage Fight"	1:58
12.	"Lost Cousins"	1:31
13.	"Total Drag"	2:47
14.	"Drunken Carboni"	3:04
15.	"The Weirdest Year of Your Life"	3:58
16.	"Swarms"	2:51
17.	"Diskdance"	2:22
18.	"PR Department"	1:25
19.	"Faux Video Production"	3:08
20.	"One Last Game"	1:19
21.	"This Doesn't Work"	5:30
22.	"Wooden Love"	1:33
23.	"I Glove Thy Flob" (featuring Disco)	1:47
24.	"Post Success Depression"	3:12
25.	"Social Lego"	4:51
26.	"Jayson Glove"	3:18
27.	"Clumsiness and Innovation"	3:03
28.	"No Pressure"	3:04
29.	"One"	2:27
30.	"Fifflas" (featuring Nifflas)	1:34
31.	"Tsuki no Koibumi" (featuring Laura Shigihara)	5:07
Total length:		95:28

CD bonus remixes

No.	Title	Length
32.	"No Pressure" (minusbaby 'By the Snow in Brooklyn' Mix)	4:35
33.	"Jayson Glove" (Bud Melvin '2 players 1 little piggy' Mix)	4:14
34.	"The First Million" (Danimal Cannon 'MultiMillion' Mix)	2:59
35.	"Preliminary Art Form" (Crashfaster 'Nether' Mix)	3:12
Total length:		110:28

Release

In November 2011, a clip of the film was included in an episode of PC Gamer Digital, which featured Persson coding exploding arrows. The film's first trailer was released on December 18, 2012. The film premiered at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time on Xbox Live on December 22, 2012, in the US, UK, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Austria, France, Finland and Sweden, free for Xbox Live Gold members. It was made available for streaming and digital rights management (DRM)-free download the following day. On 23 December, Fangamer released the film on DvD, with the first 7000 copies wrapped in a custom "dirt brown" case and reversible cover, and coming with a free 720p download code.

As a measure to address the inevitability of the film being pirated, 2 Player Productions uploaded the documentary to the torrent index the Pirate Bay, admitting there were "fine" reasons as to why it would be pirated, including its Xbox exclusive debut. They however urged people to consider purchasing the film. On March 18, 2013, it was released on digital distributor VHX in two editions, "family friendly" with the option to stream instantly or DRM-free download; and a more expensive version including a commentary track, a segment with Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition developers at 4J Studios, and deleted scenes. On November 11, 2013, 2 Player Productions released it for free on their YouTube channel.

Reception

Kotaku's Matt Hawkins hailed it as "what Indie Game: The Movie wishes that it was, but most definitely is not". He remarked of the filmmakers' presentation, saying it was done in "the most restrained, calm, and graceful manner possible", and called it "virtually perfect". He observed that "every single moment, no matter how understated, adds to the overall tapestry", and praised its accessibility in being able to make anyone invest in it, hailing that as "the true hallmark of a good documentary". Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead felt the film could have been more detailed, and that was "disappointingly ironic" that the film failed to unearth "blocks of narrative ore". He criticized the midsection, which he felt was disjointed, but felt the interviews added weight to the theme of humanity. While he felt that it was not "illuminating", he admitted it was pleasant and served as "charming fluff" and a sweet tribute to the game for its fans. PCGamesN's Paul Dean said that it was satisfying as a film by fans for fans, and highlighted the moments when "someone has more to say" and has "a meaningful insight into what Minecraft really is and the impact that it has had", and singled out Molyneux's interview as the best of these moments. He concluded that it was "a light, fluffy feelgood documentary about a feelgood game that bounces from success to success, from endorsement to endorsement, but without ever really studying anything in detail or telling us very much that we didn’t already know. The result is a film that’s often charming, frequently sweet, but never particularly deep".

External links

• Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived June 7, 2021)
• Minecraft: The Story of Mojang at IMDb