Creativerse developer Playful welcomes the chance to move beyond the ‘Minecraft clone’ label

Next week is the eighth anniversary of Minecraft’s debut as a prealpha prototype, and its model for gameplay may be more influential now than ever before. So as new games continue rolling out that mimic some of its most popular and familiar elements, it’s time we recognize that this subgenre has moved beyond mere “Minecraft clones” just like first-person shooters have moved beyond “Doom clones.”

Earlier this week, developer Playful Corporation launched Creativerse out of a beta-testing phase and on the Steam PC gaming distribution platform. Playful admits that Creativerse is its own take on the open-world crafting and survival mechanics that Minecraft first made popular (and games like Trove and Dragon Quest: Builders have tried to capitalize on), but the studio also sees this game as part of an effort to recognize that this genre has untapped potential and ideas worth exploring that Mojang and others aren’t focused on. To better understand that, I interviewed Playful chief executive officer Paul Bettner during the GamesBeat Decides podcast. We’ve embedded that conversation in the video above.