Minecraft changed the industry, says Brenda Romero

Minecraft had more consequences for the games industry than even hardcore gamers may have realised.

We can thank Minecraft for putting the brakes on developers prioritising graphics over gameplay in the triple-A arms race, according to industry veteran Brenda Romero.

Speaking at DICE, as reported by GamesIndustry, Romero said Mojang's sandbox was revolutionary.

"There were massive projects in the works that got rebooted entirely because of Minecraft. Gameplay matters."

"Minecraft was the reboot of the graphics arms race - it literally reset projects," she said.

"There were massive projects in the works that got rebooted entirely because of Minecraft. Gameplay matters. What's happening in the player's head matters. Minecraft at least in my experience is just shockingly unprecedented."

Minecraft proved that graphics aren't the be all and end all of games, and that consumers value more than just good looks, she added.

"And players are much more willing to explore things whereas in the past the reaction may have been 'look at the shitty graphics.' I feel like we're past that point," she said.

Romero said that in the wake of Mimecraft many companies are "taking lots of smaller bets in the 1-5 million dollar range, which is still a large amount but nothing compared to a AAA title".

"I'm seeing game publishers taking lots of smaller bets, knowing that maybe of these 10 bets one is going to pan out. That's happening now," he said.

"People look at things like say, Minecraft, like FTL, and you can potentially have the same return on investment."

That's super rad. One more thing to thank Markus "Notch" Persson for. May his retirement be peaceful and entirely free of wankers yelling at him on the Internet.