Londonderry's 21-year-old Minecraft Mogul

Londonderry's 21-year-old Minecraft mogul By Owen Thomas BBC News NI

11 June 2018

In just three years, an 21-year-old Londonderry man has gone from putting shelves up in a supermarket to establishing an enviable brick-by-brick gaming enterprise.

Jonathan Black was rotating stock in the Long's supermarket when he decided to turn his Minecraft hobby into an award-winning business.

As he was preparing for his A-levels in 2015, the student created Blockception, making virtual Lego sets that you can download and use in any way you like.

Blockception was chosen by Microsoft as a partner in the year 2017 by Microsoft as a partner. Gamers can now use their marketplace to download pre-made creations which they can edit or explore and play with.

'Drive'

"Going back to my roots, I grew up in a family of self-employed people, so I've always had it driven into me at an early age to be a self-employed worker," he explained.
Minecraft servers

"It's simply the environment I was raised in, being where I was surrounded by entrepreneurs and business owners, so I guess it's in my blood."

Minecraft is is known as a sandbox-style video game that allows players to build with a variety of different cubes within a 3D world.

Other activities include exploring, resource gathering and combat.

Jonathan quickly realized that he did not want to be anybody else's employee and, as he was under the pressure of balancing A Levels and working at Long's, it became evident that he was required to quit and concentrate on Blockception.

"I was making more money from Minecraft than I did during the past few weeks at work, so I wanted to move on and try something different," he said.

"It was a more exciting method of earning money and I was doing it as an interest."

However, while Jonathan stated that having a full-time job from his favorite pastime was "like winning the lottery" but his relationship with the game has become a little more difficult.

He said: "Being able to make an income on something you love is fantastic, but it doesn't become a hobby any more which means you're giving up one of your favourite activities.

"I would have played Minecraft in my spare time years ago however it's much more difficult to enjoy once it becomes your work."

Partnership with Microsoft

Before Microsoft expressed interest in the business, it was supported by local initiatives like CultureTECH, but the job offers were not flooding in.

Jonathan said: "If Microsoft hadn't got involved, we might be forced to consider other options for the long-term business plan.

"We decided to transfer to a different company for a week prior to when Microsoft approached our company.

"Just one day before the handover, we received the email and everything was kicked off.

"We were so close to moving away from Minecraft, it seems impossible."

Lost Civilisation

Microsoft released Lost Civilisation as a free download as part of their 12 days of Christmas promotion. It was the map that sparked the company's growth.

It has been downloaded more than 1 million times.

"It's an incomprehensible number to comprehend, and I'm trying to understand it in stadiums, for instance If you imagine a full capacity Wembley Arena, it's still over ten of those," Jonathan said.

"It's simply mind-boggling numbers and it's overwhelming, but it's a great experience and if people love playing our music Happy days."

Is Minecraft an option for a career?

Blockception employees have a variety of skills that have helped them earn a living through the video game. This includes graphic designers as well as scriptwriters, programmers and voice actors. There are many opportunities to work for a long time in Minecraft through jobs in the creative field.

Jonathan added: "As we expand, there'll be more jobs here However, there's plenty of gaming industry competition.

"The last few decades have seen an increase in entry-level positions however, we'd played Minecraft for a while. I started playing when I was 14.

"We've been able for a long time to learn things from a consumer point of view and we've now gone full circle, from players to providers."

Despite the issues Blockception faced in its early days Jonathan still believes that Minecraft is not just a trend that is only passing.

"I have a lot of faith in the product, and evidently with old games , people get bored and move to other games, but the distinctive aspect of Minecraft is that, while my generation has gone away from it the game, a new generation has discovered it," he said.