Building the Creator Economy Part 2: Minecraft
Another Unboxing exclusive. We interview Minecraft's Kayla Kinnunen on Mojang's vision on user-generated content. Plus, why The Game Awards can't win
Laine’s Christmas tree is already dying while Joost’s holiday home decor is thriving. Both can’t wait for the semester to be over.
In this season’s penultimate episode, your wily co-hosts take a bite out of this year’s The Game Awards, the industry award show that is more marketing pitch to the lowest common denominator than a celebration of the industry's creative triumphs. While the event has always been critiqued for its commercialism, this year was especially bad, with less than 20% of the entire awards show focusing on… awards. What's the problem? Why can't games get a little dignity? Joost and Laine get into it.
Then, they round out the week's updates by talking about some of the best and worst developments in PC gaming: The Day Before has the worst release in recent memory, while Lethal Company turns out to be an unexpected favorite with our students.
“I don't want to focus on telling a 10 year old ‘You're going to make a million dollars by making content.’ I would much rather engage a 10 year old and be like, ‘the joy of creating content is really fun.’” — Kayla Kinnunen
The main feature this week is Joost’s interview with Mojang’s Kayla Kinnunen, Executive Producer of the Minecraft Creator Platform. Together, they discuss the evolving landscape of user-generated content in video games. Kinnunen charts out how Mojang defines their creator cohorts, and lays out Minecraft’s strategies for health monetization in this hyper-competitive new business model.
Listen in!