Minecraft Documentary

Years ago I remember watching a television show on the making of the Xbox game Psychonauts, which came out in early 2005.  I believe it aired on MTV.  Why it aired on MTV, I have no idea.  And I should say that after searching for the last 10 minutes, I can't find any reference to the program.  Its possible I'm making this up.  But lets assume I am not.  The show was 30 minutes and it chronicled the last few months of development on the game.

The show stuck with me because it was the first time it occurred to me that there are people who made games for a living.  Of course was aware that all of those games I had played over the years didn't just appear out of thin air - but it was the first time I had thought about how they were made and who they were made by.  Had I watched the making of psychonauts video in 1995 instead of 2005, I may have decided to look into game development as a career.

The other lasting impression from that psychonauts show was just how cool it was to watch a game being made.  Being only 30 minutes long, and being produced by MTV meant that the show didn't dig too deep into the process.  But even as shallow as it was there was a lot of drama packed in those 30 minutes.  The panic over last minute bugs, the fights over what the team should focus on over the last few weeks of development, the personalities.  I remember thinking, if this was a weekly show I would tune in religiously.  A reality television show focusing on the start-to-finish development of a high profile game would be a sure-fired hit.

Which leads me to the video above.  I'm still waiting for a weekly television show, but there are some documentaries that fill the same role.  You've probably heard of "Indie Game: The Movie" which follows the development of the recent indie hits: Braid, Fez and Super Meat-Boy as their creators struggle to finish the games on their terms.   The film has won numerous film festival awards, including the Sundance award for best documentary.  Well, now Minecraft is getting a similar treatment and the movie looks just as good as as "Indie Game".

I'm amazed at the vision of these developers that put their health, their fortune, and their future on the line to develop a game they believe in.  The video above is the first of a two part trailer for the film.  It looks wonderful.