By Alec Meer on August 12th, 2011 at 5:35 pm.
If you’re the kind of chap who wants to talk to other chaps about redstone and biomes, you’ll be glad to hear that it’s full steam ahead for MineCon 2011, the first official Minecraft convention. It’s to be held in Vegas on November 18-19 (which means RPS won’t be there. How about a Britlander one too?) and tickets will cost you $99. That’s a lot of money, but it does mean you’ll be in the company of all manner of like-minded sorts as Minecraft finally, fully launches. There’ll also be keynotes from Notch, contests, folks in costumes, folks with foam pickaxes and merch. Of course there’ll be merch.
More details and ticket purchasing here.
12/08/2011 at 17:38 Giaddon says:
Huh!
12/08/2011 at 17:39 YeOldeSnake says:
The con is on!
Hustle ftw
12/08/2011 at 17:44 Bostec says:
Fat man, you play a great game of.. Dominoes?
12/08/2011 at 20:25 YeOldeSnake says:
Shame , shame to both of you , shame shame
12/08/2011 at 17:48 Dana says:
So 99 dollars and there will be merch to buy ? Neat.
12/08/2011 at 17:50 kuran says:
99$ and in Vegas? I think Notch needs a reality check.
12/08/2011 at 18:02 Luringen says:
He stated that no matter how many tickets they sell, they will still lose a lot of money on it, but hopes for a sales boost. I guess the price is necessary to afford having it in Las Vegas.
12/08/2011 at 22:53 James says:
I’m not sure what a reality check constitutes exactly, but the Markus that existed before money/fame and the current Markus are fairly different (from the perspective of someone who has followed his career since Wurm rather closely).
I’m not saying he’s evil, or anything specific really. I’m saying that money and fame change people, and I don’t think he escaped that at all. On the other hand, I think maybe he’s starting to realize there are downsides to popularity…so maybe he’ll reign himself in a bit in the coming months.
13/08/2011 at 05:36 Ryn Taylor says:
“I guess the price is necessary to afford having it in Las Vegas.” (Luringen)
That’s what I don’t get. If it was somewhere cheaper, or somewhere just not Vegas, I, and probably quite a few people based on the opinions I’ve heard, would actually be likely to go. Maybe the Vegas-haters are just a loud minority, but if not, Notch seems to be paying more money to get less people to come. And maybe there’ll be more sales because of the conference, but I would think that the more people who came, and the bigger it was, that that would make even more sales.
12/08/2011 at 17:53 Stephen Roberts says:
Minecraft may be bigger than a sky high golden wang statue but is it really enough to host a whole convention around? Will it just be full of journos lurking around waiting for something to happen?
Sorry if I’ve double posted they are being swallowed up.
EDIT: it thought I was spam because of the p word.
12/08/2011 at 18:02 Xocrates says:
To be fair, Notch did make a poll some time ago trying to estimate attendance.
We knew this was coming for quite some time, I don’t see why people seem so surprised.
EDIT: And here’s the poll: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/5388689217/minecraftcon-2011-in-vegas
Over 40.000 people showed interest, even if only 10% showed up he would have more than enough people to justify this sort of event at release.
13/08/2011 at 06:47 Nick says:
“don’t see why people seem so surprised.”
You don’t see that there are people who didn’t take part in the poll and might not even play minecraft?
12/08/2011 at 18:03 westyfield says:
Why Las Vegas? Why not somewhere like, oh, I don’t know, Stockholm?
12/08/2011 at 18:10 Unaco says:
I was at a convention in Stockholm, end of July. Well, not a convention… Conference. On Theoretical Neuroscience. But it was in Stockholm. Aside from the expense, I’d say Stockholm is a great place for a convention/conference type thing… Great people, very helpful, great public transport and airports and the like. Decent weather as well.
12/08/2011 at 18:45 Daedalus says:
I’m somewhat mystified as to Notch’s fascination with Vegas. I don’t want to go anywhere near the place, myself. Stockholm would be way better, even if it’s just because I’d be much less likely to be shanked in an alley somewhere.
12/08/2011 at 18:49 Teddy Leach says:
You’ve been watching too much CSI. I hope.
12/08/2011 at 18:50 Martel says:
I agree. I don’t have any desire to go to this, but if it was in Stockholm I might have tried to use it as an excuse to go visit Stockholm. Vegas is overrated and overly expensive, I can definitely think of a lot better places that I’d rather visit.
13/08/2011 at 21:03 Kent says:
I agree, if he’d hosted it in Stockholm I could have taken a bus ride down to it in less than an hour and I would definitely have gone and visit.
14/08/2011 at 10:59 mickygor says:
Yea, could justify $99 if it were in Stockholm and included stuff like tours of Mojang, etc, rather than just a nerdfest. There’s nothing gamer about Vegas other than an air of addiction.
12/08/2011 at 18:08 Mctittles says:
$99. Now that’s a real “con”.
12/08/2011 at 21:11 feda says:
I feel the same way about all these cons I keep hearing about in recent years. Why the fuck someone would pay an obscene amount of money for a pass plus travel expenses just to go to a convention is beyond me. It’s a clever way to profit off of rich kids, though.
12/08/2011 at 18:19 Bilbo says:
I realise it’s in the US because “notch likes vegas”, but it pisses me off when european people insist on transplanting stuff to the US for no good reason. Make them fly to us for once, for fuck’s sake.
12/08/2011 at 18:22 Inigo says:
Jesus Christ, how horrifying.
12/08/2011 at 18:42 Teddy Leach says:
I can think of nothing better than being stuck with thousands of Minecraft forum posters and I might be lying.
12/08/2011 at 18:49 chiablo says:
I live 6 hours from Vegas… And I still don’t want to go there.
12/08/2011 at 21:21 skurmedel says:
Pull that lever, win that car!
13/08/2011 at 06:48 Nick says:
well, the drive is quite pretty/eerie.
12/08/2011 at 18:57 celozzip says:
vegas is full of money, notch is powerless to resist!
13/08/2011 at 00:44 JFS says:
Is Notch gravitating towards Vegas or is Vegas gravitating towards Notch? That is the question.
12/08/2011 at 19:02 abremms says:
i heard the con venue is going to be a square mile out in the desert of painted plastic cubes stacked 15 high. con goers will have to first excavate the space, then build the convention hall.
from time to time, Mojang Staff will turn up dressed in green and punch con-goers in the face before tearing down whatever they were working on.
(p.s. not really, but how awesome would that be?)
12/08/2011 at 19:05 Teddy Leach says:
That sounds like a convention I would be interested in. So long as most of the people who post on the Minecraft forums are banned from entering.
12/08/2011 at 19:38 Wulf says:
Those forums are unnecessarily hostile.
I remember trying to share a disability fixing idea (not sight related) and getting shot down for it. Even with a few “those sorts of people shouldn’t be playing it in the first place” remarks. Lovely people.
12/08/2011 at 19:47 Teddy Leach says:
They’re not just hostile, they’re brain-dead.
12/08/2011 at 19:12 Wulf says:
Will there be cosplay?
Please let there be cosplay.
I wish to see people cosplaying as ghasts, endermen, and creepers.
GIANT PAPERCRAFT COSTUMES. It might not be glorious, but it would be interesting.
12/08/2011 at 20:04 GallonOfAlan says:
They do need to get a bit more Eurocentric. Even the merch store is in the US so you have customs hassle on this side of the pond.
12/08/2011 at 20:36 GrandmaFunk says:
to all the people whining about the location, there was a poll for it with various locations around the world(including europe!).
Vegas simply got more support.
12/08/2011 at 21:56 Torgen says:
One reason to hold it in Vegas is the same reason so many conventions are held in Orlando: cheap airfares. Between the casinos on the one hand (Vegas) and The Mouse on the other, getting there from just about anywhere is cheaper than more mundane destinations.
12/08/2011 at 22:46 TillEulenspiegel says:
If you’re in the States. Crossing the Atlantic ain’t cheap. In Europe, EasyJet et al. will fly you to just about any major city for low low prices.
12/08/2011 at 22:23 Crabtipus says:
That’s pretty disgusting when you think of how cheap PAX is.
12/08/2011 at 22:33 EOT says:
Remind me of the reasoning behind holding it in Las Vegas.
Is it just because Notch is a fat man who likes being surrounded by free buffets and woman who will sleep with him for money? Because unless that’s your thing Vegas kind of sucks…or maybe I’m just allergic to fun.
12/08/2011 at 22:43 TillEulenspiegel says:
Yeah, I really don’t get Vegas. If you want to have a good time, Amsterdam is much closer and much better.
12/08/2011 at 23:03 EOT says:
Actually, thinking about it Amsterdam would have been a perfect place to hold it.
The eh…’ladies’…don’t smell like stale sick and shame either.
13/08/2011 at 00:05 pipman3000 says:
Because Fallout: New Vegas.
13/08/2011 at 15:02 pipman3000 says:
Guys just wanna sit around the place based on their favorite game so they can make references to it while getting drunk off wine coolers :)
12/08/2011 at 22:40 kenmcfa says:
As they said about Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con:
“Be there…and be square!”
(Or cubic in this case I guess)
13/08/2011 at 00:02 Tei says:
It would be really out-of-place to show in the convention with a Fallout New Vegas costume :-/
13/08/2011 at 00:34 Jason Moyer says:
RPS could go, they’d just need to have a member who lives outside Eurodisneyland.
13/08/2011 at 03:53 Hyperion says:
Ring a ding ding baby
13/08/2011 at 11:53 Carra says:
Las Vegas.
This is the same name that’s being used in Fallout: New Vegas. Bethesda lawsuit coming in 1, 2, 3…
13/08/2011 at 14:56 pipman3000 says:
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO Awesome joke man 10/10 :D
15/08/2011 at 13:38 MythArcana says:
Oh, great! Now instead of reading how Notch is playing Wii and XBAWKS all day, we can actually watch him play console games in person!