SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 29 — For the second year running, annual Minecraft fan convention Minecon goes digital in the form of September 29th’s livestreamed Minecon Earth.
The best-selling video game of all time may be ceding its place to Minecraft before very long.
Supremely accessible puzzle game Tetris totted up over 170 million sales in the quarter of a century following its 1984 debut, but Minecraft, which first emerged in 2009, totted up 144 million sales in the nine years following.
And the world’s second biggest-selling game has been holding annual conventions for nearly as long as it’s been available to buy and download: Community meetup MinecraftCon took place in 2010. Matching its namesake’s growth, instant sell-out Minecon 2015 accommodated as many as 15,000 attendees within the cavernous Anaheim Convention Center.
But in 2017, Minecon went gone digital, dispersing its audience worldwide via viewing parties in Microsoft Stores (Microsoft bought “Minecraft” studio Mojang in 2014) and select cinemas, museums, gaming centres and elsewhere.
In 2018, a 90-minute livestreamed show is set for today with a pre-show beginning at 15:30 UTC.
That’s equivalent to 8:30am Pacific US, 11:30am Eastern US, 4:30pm UK (BST), 17:30 Central Europe and South Africa, 9pm India, 11:30pm in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Beijing, China, 00:30 on September 30 in South Korea, and 1:30am in Sydney, Australia and in Japan.
The main attraction then runs 16:00 UTC to 17:50 UTC.
(The Minecon website adjusts all times to the visitor’s local time.)
New announcements, community panels, and an opportunity to vote on which of the various Minecraft biomes will receive a new layer of polish are on the schedule, with a one-hour live developer panel beginning at 18:05 UTC.
Livestreams will be broadcast via Minecraft.net, Facebook.com/Minecraft, Youtube.com/TeamMojang, Twitch.tv/Minecraft, Microsoft’s Mixer.com/Minecraft channel, and the YouTube.com/CartoonNetwork channel.
The Cartoon Network will then use footage from Minecon Earth 2018 for an October 8 “Minecon Earth Remix” special programmed for October 8 across its cable, online, mobile app and YouTube channel network.
A bunch of streamers from around the world — Brazil, Russia, Taiwan, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Japan and France — will also be carrying live broadcasts of the show, replete with commentary in their native languages, per details on the Minecon information page. — AFP-Relaxnews
