The best business plan in the world!
Timothy P. Lofton, Managing Partner - Cornerstone Consulting Group | CEO - The Retirement Blueprint™ | Author | Speaker
Published on October 2, 2015
In a day of Madden Football that looks like you are watching ESPN Live or Call of Duty that has you ducking behind the couch when the bullets go by due to its realism - HOW does Minecraft find itself on the auction block and a behemoth like Microsoft decide to pay $2.5 billion for it?!?!
Minecraft has become a global phenomenon since its launch in 2009 as an incomplete “alpha” project. Since then, the game, which provides users with randomly generated environments in which to craft all manner of buildings, has sold over 50 million copies on PC, smartphone and consoles.
In its announcement of the deal, Microsoft claimed that Minecraft had been downloaded more than 100 million times on PC alone since 2009 – a figure that includes free downloads – while pointing out that Xbox 360 owners have played the game for more than 2 billion hours in the last two years.
How does a pixilated game that you can't "win" compete with Madden and Call of Duty? Well, the same way that "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Office Space" became cult hits with no budget. We simply found something that we fell in love with. The same way that Lego's have been made into movies and people flock to the theater. We as a consumer identify with something - a character, a fantasy, the pure brilliance of old school simple, maybe we just think back to a time where we thought "Pong" was the coolest invention of all time.
As I sit and watch my kids glued to the iPad, engrossed in a YouTube video of some British guy playing Minecraft, I am inspired to find that common thread that ties clients to a story. A story that is not full of glitz and glamour, but a one that is authentic, timeless and for whatever reason, just feels right. Get out your business plan and start writing! By the way, Mojang was a 30 employee company ... bigger is not always better, but bigger will pay you a lot of money if you get it right.
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