Special Feature - Minecraft - Timeline

Another brick in the wall

From its humble beginnings in a Stockholm studio, Minecraft has built a global community of fans and an iconic, evergreen franchise that’s about to welcome its first-ever feature length film. Here, Toy World takes Minecraft back to its foundations, piecing together the franchise’s growth according to its keystone moments.

2009 - Minecraft is created by programmer Markus Persson, a Swede living in Stockholm. Called the ‘Cave Game’, it starts life as a pre-Alpha development build on software development forums and gains popularity from there. Mojang Studios is formed to handle the continued development of Minecraft as well as to explore the creation of other games.

2011 - The Minecraft development role is handed to chief creative officer Jens Bergensten. (Today, Jens is the creative visionary and lead developer for Minecraft). The pocket edition is released on Android and iOS, marking an important milestone in Minecraft’s development.

2013 - Minecraft Consumer Products is born. The first licensing partners signed include Lego (Construction), Threadless (Apparel), Egmont (Publishing), Scholastic (Publishing), and ThinkGeek (Retail), among others.

2014 - Microsoft acquires Mojang Studios and the Minecraft franchise. The first Minecraft consumer products launch with the debut of books from Egmont. Designed to look elevated and aged up, these can be proudly displayed on a coffee table.

2015 - Minecraft: China Edition launches. A localised edition of Minecraft for Mainland China, developed by Mojang Studios and NetEase, Minecraft: China Edition expands the audience in the region. Today, there are over 600m registered Minecraft players in China, making it the game’s second largest audience after the USA.

2017 - Jay Franco debuted the first-ever Minecraft home collection with a successful first-to-market launch at Target.

2019 - Minecraft partners with international agents CAA (Europe, LATAM and Japan) and Merchantwise (Australia and New Zealand), significantly extending the brand into new territories and categories around the world.

2021 - In April, Minecraft is named ‘Best-Selling Video Game of All Time’ by Guinness World Records. Minecraft Consumer Products then realigns the US and international businesses with separate teams to better serve international agents and their focused efforts. By the end of 2021, the international business had more than 20 CP partners fully executed and actively selling into their respective regional markets.

2022 - Minecraft launches into fashion collaborations with Burberry, Lacoste and Puma, further extending the brand into unexpected places. The Minecraft x Burberry collaboration kicks off with the DLC (downloadable content) ‘Burberry: Freedom to Go Beyond,’ which sees players encouraged to complete various outdoor challenges and interact with the animal kingdom. The game reflects Burberry and Minecraft’s appreciation of the wonder of nature.

2023 - Minecraft doubles its consumer products business. By the end of 2023, the international business has grown its overall portfolio of active licensees to more than 60 partners across all regions. Minecraft Consumer Products wins two Licensing International Excellence Awards - Best Brand: Digitally Native, Gaming, NFT, and Best Collaboration: Fashion, Footwear & Accessories for Burberry x Minecraft - as well as a Bronze REGGIE Award in the Gaming Marketing category for the Kellogg's ‘Build for Better’ programme.

2024 - Minecraft celebrates its 15th anniversary with a yearlong marketing campaign, retail programmes and products to surprise and delight its community.

2025 (and beyond)... - The first Minecraft live-action theatrical movie will premiere globally on 4th April 2025, directed by Jarred Hess and starring Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers and Sebastian Eugene Hansen. Minecraft has also joined forces with Netflix to produce an all-new CGI-animated series set in Minecraft’s blocky universe. The series, currently in development at WildBrain (the creator of Sonic Prime, Ninjago: Dragons Rising, and Carmen Sandiego), will tell an original story, featuring new characters and showing the world of Minecraft in a new light. Produced by Mojang Studios and Netflix, the series will premiere exclusively on Netflix.