One of this years most acclaimed games, indie MMO Minecraft now boasts more than 2.3 million players.

Interesting correlations occur when you cross-reference student absence with game release dates.

Out of a class of 20 five away on November 21st, the release ofBlack Ops.

These flurries of excitement tend to be short lived.

This year theres been one exception Minecraft.

If you havent playedMinecraftyet, youre missing out.

The game comes in two flavours.

The commercial alpha version uses a similar building mechanic, but blocks are limited.

Like the free sandbox mode, there are no clear goals, so your gameplay possibilities remain very broad.

The one nod towards traditional game narrative is the day-night cycle.

When the sun goes down, zombies, and creepers appear and do their best to take you down.

To guard against them, your days are spent building fortifications to get to survive the nights.

This game mode is called quite appropriately, survival.

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Until recently,Minecrafthad been developed by a single man.

I had no idea it would get this popular, Persson admits.

All achieved with no marketing budget while still in alpha release.

We asked Persson what it is about the game thats capturing players imaginations.

I frequently get surprised and see something Id never imagined.

Very clever, and extremely funny.

With no gentle tutorial level to ease you in, the game itself offers little help to newcomers.

The community plays another important role.

Its gotten much more difficult to keep personal contact with the players on a one-by-one basis these days.

Then I play around with it and see if its any fun, and change the parts that arent.

ForMinecraft, it actually started with an isometric strategy game.

There will be some version well call the full version, yes, Persson explains.

But I suspect well keep adding content to the game for a long time.

At present, the highest priority is to counter hacking.

We asked Persson what problems he faces, and where he sees the PC heading as a platform.

By thwart hacking, I meant in-game hacking that ruins the game for other players, not stopping piracy.

PC gaming has always been strong, and I see it surviving for quite a few more years.

It will be around for at least as long as people use PCs.

The lighting engine is probably the part Im most satisfied with on a technical level.

There are some issues with it at the moment, but it adds so much atmosphere to the game.

Im not at all satisfied with the half-sized blocks.

They were an experimental hack from the get-go, and theyve never worked quite right.

I think mainstream developers are doing a great job with their games already.

Theres a certain lesson to be learned about user generated content and being able to share it.

Theres a quarter of a million videos on YouTube aboutMinecraft, but only 150 thousand aboutLittleBigPlanet.

As development progresses, what can we expect from the beta period?

Before Christmas, it will just be about multiplayer updates.

Once the game is complete enough to feel like a proper game, itll reach release status.

Good news for fans of the game.

The Beta version will go live on Monday 20th December.