Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson may have found his next inspiration. In a tweet today, the game designer said "Minicraft 2 is being worked on, for no good reason. It needs a better name, though." Before you go getting all crazy, read that carefully. As Persson subsequently pointed out, that's mini with an "i" on the end, not an "e" for mine. Minicraft is the game he created the weekend before Christmas as part of Ludum Dare 22. On his blog Notch described the game as "a Zelda-ish top down game with crafting influences from Minecraft."

Read more: an action roguelike with crafting and terrain modding »

[Update] The group has now targeted League of Legends, bringing down the login servers and (apparently inadvertently) the Web site. The group says this "concludes" today's DDOS attacks, but we'll keep an eye out for any more shenanigans.

[Original Story] Hot off the heels of yesterday's Bethesda attacks, hacker group LulzSec has targeted more online games and even a gaming site. The group has claimed responsibility for attacks today against EVE Online, Minecraft, and gaming site The Escapist. Read more »

Indie sandbox dig 'em up Minecraft is famous for letting players create their own fun, but if you like goals in your video game, the next patch is for you. Referring to it as the "adventure update," on his blog, creator Markus 'Notch' Persson teased a little of what we can expect from update 1.7.

"We're keeping the details secret so people can get surprises. The idea with this update is to flesh out the game a bit, making it reward exploration and combat more," Persson said. Doubtless it'll all be optional, for you to dabble in if you fancy a little structure. Read more »

Mojang's indie mega-hit Minecraft is getting a console release this winter, more specifically on Xbox 360 with Kinect support, Microsoft has revealed at its E3 2011 press conference.

"I'm thrilled to announce that Minecraft is making its console debut this winter exclusively on Xbox 360 and Kinect," said Phil Spencer of Microsoft Game Studios. And that's about all we know for now. Read more »

Mojang Specifications is looking into co-publishing other developers' indie games, the Minecraft developer's business development director Daniel Kaplan has told GamesIndustry.biz.

"We are in a great spot right now, we can basically do whatever we want to. The hardest thing for us right now is to say 'no' to all the deals we're being offered," Kaplan explained. Read more »

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. Read more »

Though Minecraft has been publicly available for yonks and already raked in $33 million in sales, the much-loved indie dig 'em up is still only in beta. And end of sorts is finally in sight, though, as a release date has now been announced.

Creator Markus 'Notch' Persson revealed on his blog that Minecraft will be 'released' on November 11, 2011. This just so happens to be The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's launch date as well, inspiring the unofficial tagline "us too." Persson notes that he's excited about Skyrim, "so that will be a nice reward for me if we actually manage to hit that date!" Read more »

We already had an inkling that the indie hit Minecraft has been financially successful. Just how successful, you may ask? The answer is somewhere around $33 million in revenue from 1.8 million users, reports Gamasutra. Read more »

Indie megastar Minecraft will be released for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad later this year, Gamasutra reports. Rip-offs and clones of Mojang's dig 'em up have been made for Apple's magical consumer electronics devices before, but nothing official.

Mojang founder Markus 'Notch' Persson explained to Gamasutra that the iOS version won't necessarily receive all the same updates as the original version, which is still in beta, but rather only features which "make sense" for the touch-screen devices. The port is being handled by a new member of Mojang, Aron Neiminen. Read more »

Shacknews receives a slew of new screenshots and trailers for upcoming games everyday. The most anticipated titles receive their own post, because we know you're eager to see that content. For the rest, we have the Daily Filter, a place to feature all of the media we add to our enormous database on a daily basis.

Today's Filter is sizable, featuring media for SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals, Fight Night Champion, Interstellar Marines, Hearts of Iron III: For the Motherland, the just released Who's That Flying!?, Magicka, Patrician IV: Rise of a Dynasty, Ballistic, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters, Operation Flashpoint: Red River, Magic: The Gathering - Tactics, DC Universe Online, Radiant Historia, the HD version of Top Spin 4, the recently delayed Conduit 2, E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, the newly announced Angry Birds Rio, creativity using Minecraft, Two Worlds II, and League of Legends. Read more »

We can all appreciate the soft, voluptuous and Rubenesque form of a number with many zeroes so here's another for you--Minecraft yesterday passed 1,000,000 sales.

It's undoubtedly a colossal success for a game which has yet to be released--it entered beta only last month--and was initially worked on by one single person, creator Markus 'Notch' Persson. As the half-million mark was hit in late October 2010, the dig 'em up sold that other 500,000 in a touch over two months. Read more »

The nominees for the 11th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards have been announced, meaning that we now get to see what games the international panel of industry professionals felt are in the running to be acknowledged for the greatest overall achievements over the past year. (via Gamasutra)

The Xbox Live Arcade exclusive, LIMBO, leads the charge with seven nominations, followed closely by Red Dead Redemption (six nominations) and Mass Effect 2 (five nominations). All three front-runners are in the running for GDC's Game of the Year award. Pioneer, Ambassador and Lifetime Achievement Special Awards, as well as the host of this year's awards show, have yet to be revealed. Read more »

If you would like to give the gift of addiction this holiday season, Mojang and the Minecraft gang are now selling gift codes that can be given to friends and family, offering a much cleaner way to infect them.

Minecraft is set to enter beta on December 20th, which will also come with a price increase from 9.95 euro to 14.95 euro. "Codes bought before the 20th will generate alpha accounts when redeemed, even if that's in six months from now," explains creator Markus "notch" Persson. Read more »

Dig 'em up and indie darling Minecraft will finally exit the alpha stage of development and enter beta on December 20, creator Markus 'Notch' Persson has announced on his blog.

With the dawning of beta, the price will be raised from €9.95 (around $13.20) to €14.95 ($19.85). Furthermore, while the alpha version of Minecraft promised purchasers all future updates for free, the beta version will not. Read more »

Minecraft has now sold over 500,000 copies, while still in its alpha phase. Beyond that, the game has registered almost 1.6 million users. This also means Mojang is enjoying around a 33% adoption rate for purchases compared to overall players.

Markus "Notch" Persson has also outlined the near and long-term development goals for the game in an interview with Develop. The first priority is to get "the multiplayer mode fully functioning," said Persson. "Once that's in place, I think there's a huge potential in competitive multiplayer modes like capture the flag and so on." Read more »