Now that China is more open to gaming, it’s time to catch the region up on all of the wonderful things they’ve been missing out on. Mojang recently announced they’ll be filling one of the biggest gaps in China’s games collection with an upcoming launch of Minecraft.
At this point, Minecraft is basically synonymous with gaming. It’s a huge part of gaming’s history and even folks who could not care less about electronic entertainment at least know what Minecraft is.
So, yeah, Minecraft is kind of a big deal and now Mojang has announced it will eventually be hitting the virtual marketplace in China. According to the recent news update, Mojang has partnered with China-based NetEase to bring the Pocket and PC versions of the build-it-yourself phenomenon to the region. The team is apparently developing a “version of Minecraft tailored for the Chinese market,” which is pretty thoughtful of the developer.
China isn’t exactly big on skeletons, for instance, so it’s likely that any bony creatures or other items within the game that might be culturally unkosher will be removed or reskinned. We know it’s hard to imagine anything about Minecraft needing to be censored or changed for those types of reasons, but that’s how the world works. Something one group sees as totally fine might be considered taboo by another group, and we’re happy to see Mojang putting forth the extra effort to accommodate the Chinese gaming audience. It would be lame if the region had to miss out on one of the most influential games of all time.
According to Mojang CEO Jonas Martensson, the team is happy to bring Minecraft to “new players around the world,” while creating a bigger community than ever before and simultaneously giving the developer “a new perspective on our game.”
Mojang is so excited to bring Minecraft to China that they even put together a little trailer to go along with the announcement. It’s a bit…odd, but we’re sure their intentions were good.
So there you have it; Minecraft’s world domination continues like a runaway freight train. Being purchased by Microsoft only seems to have enhanced the studio, as Mojang continues to release updates for the PlayStation version of the game. Heck, they even worked out a deal with Nintendo to bring some exclusive Mario-themed content to the Wii U version of Minecraft. Microsoft folks working on content for Sony and Nintendo platforms. It’s kind of beautiful when you think about it.
