Minecraft might celebrate launch with MinecraftCon 2011

The official launch of hugely successful indie dig 'em up Minecraft on November 11 may be celebrated with a fan convention in Las Vegas, according to creator Markus 'Notch' Persson. The crowning glory would be members of developer Mojang pushing the release version out live on stage, just like reality television stars turning on the Christmas lights in Scunthorpe.

"There'd be contests (costume, speed building, whatever else), Q&A sessions, parties and awesome food and such," Persson explained. "It'd probably cost about 90 dollars per person, excluding hotel room and travel costs, although it's possible we might be able to set up bulk deals with some hotel," he speculated.

"Why do you always re-use the same handful of Minecraft screenshots?" you ask. Because we can.

"We could even have an unofficial [The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim] play session at the con," he wrote over on Twitter. "I know I won't have the patience to wait until I get home." Minecraft is set to launch on the same day as Bethesda's RPG, ever-so-slightly-possibly so Persson doesn't feel guilty about vanishing off into Tamriel for several months.

MinecraftCon 2011 all depends on whether there's enough people willing to go, so vote to register your interest or lack thereof.

MinecraftCon 2010 was spontaneously arranged with only a week's notice in August, reportedly drawing over fifty fans to Bellevue, Washington. If MinecraftCon 2011 do go ahead, one can imagine it'll be a mite more spectacular.

The official launch of Minecraft won't mean a sudden rush of new features and changes, though. Persson has said that the launch version "won't be very different at all from what the game was like a week ago, and we'll keep adding features after the release as well, so it's really more of a milestone when we finally get rid of the Beta label, and some kind of goal for us to work towards."