Microsoft and Code.org reported that the Minecraft Hour of Code program has helped 85 million people learn the basics of programming and the initial levels of computer literacy.

The test version of Persson’s game was originally called the Cave Game, later he renamed it Minecraft: Order Of The Stone – a tribute to the web comic book The Order of the Stick. Persson later shortened the name to Minecraft so that there was no possible confusion with this comic. Within a month after the first test version, Persson added a physical simulation of sand, water and lava, as well as primitive dynamic lighting; a month later, he began testing the multiplayer mode.

Persson himself believed that the game should develop in the direction of a survival simulator with elements of a role-playing game, offering the player not only a constructor, but also an interactive fantasy world. He thought that Minecraft would give the player any rewards for certain actions – just walking around the game world, from Persson’s point of view, was uninteresting.