November 2011

Non-Gamers Pick Minecraft As Winner Of GameCity Prize

None of the members of the GameCity Prize jury are gamers, but the odd collection of actors, musicians, politicians and journalists recruited to judge seven of the most entertaining video games of the year sure picked a winner.

A new project from the folks that put on the annual GameCity gaming celebration at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, the GameCity Prize is not your average video game award. Rather than have the prize judged by players or journalists steeped in gamer culture, the GameCity Prize seeks the opinion of folks that don’t normally play games. In many ways, it’s a much more important prize than a Game of the Year nod or a Spike VGA award.

The process began with a top-secret panel of industry experts picking six games that represent the best the year has had to offer. They were given a simple set of guidelines:

We’re asking you which are the six games you’d show to someone in order to demonstrate what’s brilliant and interesting about video games.

We want to encourage diversity — we’re looking to you to show the jurors the breadth of what video games can be.

Some of our jurors may have never played a video game before, and might require a little context and guidance to help in considering the games.

Because of this, we’d like you to also write a few sentences, no more than 200 words, about each of your choices explaining why you have selected the games you have.

Using these guidelines, the seven finalists were chosen: Ilomilo, Pokémon Black, Superbrothers: S&S EP, Limbo, Child of Eden, and Portal 2.

These games were then passed on to the jury of light or non-gamers, many of them entering the world of video games for the very first time.

According to Minecraft.net, Minecraft has sold over 4 million copies on the PC, according to the game’s official website. That number is close to blockbuster territory for any video game, and it shows that the indie game movement is alive and kicking.

The brainchild of Swedish developer Markus Persson, Minecraft allows players to use their own creativity to construct a variety of structures in a textured, cubic 3D game world. A Survival Mode adds the extra challenge of constructing buildings with limited resources while fending off advancing monsters. Although he is always looking to implement new features, Persson says fun and accessibility are his main design goals.

Minecraft began development in 2009 and quickly gained recognition for its simplicity and creative freedom. It has won a number of awards, including “Game of the Year” from Rock, Paper, Shotgun and PC Gamer UK, and was one of 80 games chosen to be in the Smithsonian’s “The Art of Video Games” exhibit. Still in its beta testing phase, Minecraft has over 16 million registered users who have recreated everything from the Taj Mahal to the U.S.S. Enterprise. Its success, obtained without the help of a major publisher or distribution service like Steam, is impressive.

An example of the possibilties with Minecraft, MozzieMinecraft posted this Youtube video of the Starship Enterprise he created using Minecraft.  It's absolutely incredible. He even put pictures on the walls of a crew's cabins.