When was Minecraft first created? Exploring history behind most popular sandbox game

It's undoubtedly the world's most-beloved survival crafting sandbox game, but Minecraft didn't become a household success overnight. It's worth looking at its early years to remember how far the game has come since its inception.

Although it is now an intellectual property developed by Mojang and published/owned by Microsoft Game Studios, the title began as many games do: a passion project of an individual.

However, Minecraft reached heights once thought unimaginable for a small indie-based game, shattering sales records and becoming one of the most popular games in gaming history. Here is Minecraft's initial release date for all regions and when it actually came out for global access.

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Examining Minecraft's beginnings and release date

Early Minecraft builds weren't much to look at, but their gameplay was still very enjoyable (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft began thanks to the efforts of Markus "Notch" Persson. He had been working on game prototypes in his downtime while working at the mobile gaming giant known as King, developer of games such as Candy Crush Saga.

Inspired by games such as Dwarf Fortress, Notch created a particular prototype known as "RubyDung," which would become the Minecraft we know and love well down the road.

Around the time a game known as "Infiniminer" was released, Notch decided to separate RubyDung from it by adding RPG elements such as health and hunger. Along with the (at the time quite small) developer Mojang, he began developing RubyDung in earnest in May 2009.

Later that month, Minecraft's first Java platform build was released publicly on May 19, 2009. Development forums provided feedback, and Notch began to make improvements to the game along the way.

Minecraft's alpha version would release for purchase on June 30, 2010, and sales quickly rose. This allowed Notch to leave his previous employment and focus on developing the game full-time.

Incremental updates continued, increasing the number of available blocks, how the game generated them, and implementing modes now well-known to players, like Survival.

Founding Mojang with proceeds from Minecraft's early alpha sales, Notch could now support the game with an entire development team instead of working solo. It soon entered its beta phase, with Notch maintaining that updates would remain free despite pressure from some to monetize the title further.

On November 18, 2011, Minecraft's 1.0 build was released worldwide as the first completed release of the game.

After the long development cycle and massive success of the game, Notch decided to step away from Minecraft. Longtime co-developer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took over creative control of the title's direction and future content updates.

By 2014, Minecraft's popularity had exploded, drawing financial interest from many larger companies such as Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft.

After Notch suggested that a corporate entity purchase his remaining shares in Minecraft's stock, Microsoft finalized a deal in November 2014 to acquire Minecraft's intellectual property rights for approximately $2.5 billion. Since the acquisition, Mojang and Minecraft have thrived under the latter's publishing capabilities, making the game widely available on many platforms and providing different versions to boot.

Minecraft's success began small but now appears to have little or no limit, leading to several cross-promotions and spin-offs, including animated television shows and a vast array of physical merchandise.

Truly, Minecraft's rise was somewhat slow, but Notch and Mojang captured lightning in a bottle. It may be a considerable amount of time before another such game arrives to captivate the world with the entertainment value it provides.