Yahoo Finance Microsoft's ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ Hollywood premiere tonight
Minecraft is about to launch its next big thing: “Story Mode: Episode One: The Order of the Stone,” its first narrative game. The game, which launches digitally October 13th and in stores October 27th, will be a five-part series following four main characters. In the story, the lead character, Jesse, who is voiced by Patton Oswalt, will try to save the world.
In honor of the new focus on character-driven narrative, there will be a big, splashy Hollywood premiere tonight ahead of the launch complete with “Redstone carpet” and all the other bells and whistles of a Hollywood film premiere.
Players will get to control the story like a “Choose your own adventure” novel, based on decisions they make throughout the game. The narrative format will also include voiceover dialogue throughout the game, also a change from past versions.
But is the story necessary? Already there are countless YouTube channels dedicated to streaming people playing Minecraft. And they receive millions – in some cases even billions - of views.
One famous YouTube player, Jordan “CaptainSparklez” Maron, just paid $4.5 million for a mansion in L.A., according to Variety. Videos of “CaptainSparklez” playing Minecraft on YouTube have been viewed more than 1.7 billion times.
Microsoft (MSFT) bought Minecraft developer Mojang in September 2014 for $2.5 billion, so it sees some value in the game, potentially in driving traffic to its mobile products.
If you’re over the age of about 25 you’ve probably thought to yourself at least once when it comes to Minecraft: I don’t get it.
Whether you get it or not, creator of Minecraft, Markus Persson, probably cares little. He bought his own Beverly Hills mansion for $70 million.
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