Gen Alpha expert Matt Britton on how the age of AI 'will change everything'
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Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business Insider
The Minecraft generation is cashing in
Colin McDonald was 13 when he became hooked on the world-building computer game Minecraft. He never imagined his childhood hobby would become a viable career. Now 25, McDonald runs Moonsworth, a software development company that operates a popular Minecraft modpack and employs around 50 people — some of them fellow Minecraft devotees." Almost every single person who's ended up being a really good hire has been someone who was a kid playing Minecraft and wanted to teach themself how to program," McDonald says — rather than someone with a traditional computer science education. "It's just other kids who grew up and kept their passion for creating." Minecraft has been a cultural phenomenon since its release in 2011. It's sold more than 350 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. The game's fan base helped rocket " A Minecraft Movie" to be a $950 million juggernaut when it was released this spring. Now, as the Minecraft Generation comes of age, the game's legions of Gen Z and Gen Alpha fans are cashing in, launching businesses — both inside and outside the Minecraft universe — and hiring peers with a similar background and skill set. Minecraft servers, which allow for multi-player gaming, and YouTube channels dedicated to the game have turned into lucrative businesses. The Minecraft Partner Program, which was set up in 2017, also allows selected creators to sell in-game features like skins, maps, and texture packs on the Minecraft Marketplace. As of 2022, the creator community has generated more than $500 million in revenue, while 43 of nearly 300 partners have earned over $1 million in payouts, a spokesman says. Other Minecraft enthusiasts are building companies that are unrelated to the Minecraft universe, while still benefiting from the creative problem-solving, technical skills, and entrepreneurial zeal they developed over hours in the game's sandbox. "Minecraft has the perfect set of factors to find young creatives, motivate them to teach themselves technical and entrepreneurial skills, and provide monetization options when they're ready to turn it into a career." Colin McDonald, Moonsworth In an era when aspiring founders are being counseled to ditch college, when climbing the corporate ladder is becoming ever-more precarious, and when many of the richest Zoomers are self-made, young people are looking for a competitive advantage wherever they can find one. For some, Minecraft is the hot new credential to take into a chaotic job market that rewards creativity and hustle. "The surge of Minecraft entrepreneurs tells us something profound: the new economy doesn't reward rigid credentials. We're moving from a degree-based economy to a skills-based, portfolio-driven one," says Jessica Lindl, the author of "The Career Game Loop: Learn to Earn in the New Economy," who has witnessed the surge of Minecraft founders firsthand. "For young professionals, that means building, sharing, and iterating your way into opportunity — just like in your favorite sandbox game." Grand Theft Auto or Tetris. Open-ended and highly customizable, it offers an unlimited number of virtual worlds to build and explore. The key difference, however, is that digital games can be scaled, and real-time collaboration and sharing can yield real profits. Anyone can create a Minecraft server, whether it's a private hangout designed for a small group of friends or a public server that can host thousands of players. With modpacks, users can also add features and customize how the game looks. Moreover, the oft-made criticism that video games encourage isolation can betray an outdated view of how games like Minecraft work. "When you look at how people are playing video games today, they're very community-centered," explains Lindl. "The whole trope of some kid in their basement is actually not what it's like at all." You fail a lot in Minecraft, but you keep trying and improving. That mindset is huge when building a business from the ground up. Lauri Lifljandski, WiseHosting Lauri Lifljandski, who's 25, credits Minecraft with encouraging his passion for programming and making him more entrepreneurial. "Minecraft is basically a crash course in problem solving and creativity," says Lifljandski, who lives in Spain and whose company, WiseHosting, employs a dozen people. "You learn to adapt and think outside the box." Like McDonald, Lifljandski was introduced to Minecraft as a kid in the game's early days. As his play became more sophisticated, Lifljandski picked up ideas and improved his programming skills by watching tutorials on YouTube. When he was 19, Lifljandski and his friend Robin Kase, then 18, launched their own channel for Minecraft tutorials. Lifljandski would get off of his warehouse job at 5pm, and then spend the next seven hours grinding out YouTube videos. "I was living like that for half a year, and it was really exhausting," he says. At first, he wasn't thinking of the channel as a career possibility; he just wanted people to watch his videos. But once they gained momentum, he quit to focus on it full time. Six years later, Lifljandski and Kase have uploaded over 400 videos to their channel, Shulkercraft, and brought in 2.3 million subscribers. As the channel grew, an even bigger idea came to them. Increasingly frustrated by the server they were using, they saw an opportunity to build something better. "It wasn't like we were looking for a product to make," Lifljandski says. "It was more like the product came to us." Lifljandski and Kase hired two people to build a hosting provider from scratch and launched WiseHosting in April 2023. "We had hundreds of customers on the first day," he says. "Within three months, we were profitable." By the end of the year, they had made over $280,000, Lifljandski says. McDonald's opportunity to make money from Minecraft came just a few years after he started playing. As a freshman in high school, he scored a part-time job programming for a Minecraft server. The work took up all his free time, but paid him around $500 a month. "For a freshman in high school, that was fantastic," he says. Unlike some other successful Minecraft entrepreneurs, McDonald went to college, majoring in computer science. While there, he and two former coworkers started their own Minecraft server. For the first two years, they made no money. Then the pandemic hit, the gaming industry saw a surge in popularity, and things took off. When he graduated in 2022, McDonald says he turned down two "really, really good offers" and decided to work on Moonsworth full time. " I, of course, did the crazy thing," he says. "I was like, 'No, I'm gonna keep working on Minecraft stuff.'" The gambit appears to have been worth it for McDonald, who runs Moonsworth with his cofounders. Moonsworth's Lunar Client, which has a premium subscription service called Lunar+, is one of Minecraft's most popular mod packs with over 2 million monthly users. Moonsworth has also launched successful partnerships with content creators. Amir Davies, an 18-year-old in France, is another Minecraft superfan who embraced the game's entrepreneurial aspect early on. In fact, to the parents fretting about the number of hours their kids seem to be losing to Minecraft, Davies offers his own story as reassurance. His mother's decision to buy the game for Davies, when he was around 11, "was probably one of the best decisions she ever made." "When you're young and want to express yourself, it's a magnificent game," he says. "I've always been someone who wanted to create things, and Minecraft provided the perfect environment for that." Like other superfans, Davies used YouTube tutorials to learn the programming language Java so he could build custom plugins for his own server. By the time he was 15, Davies was especially focused on building hype around his server in order to boost its popularity. To grow the server's Discord community, he hosted invite contests with cash prizes and paid YouTubers to promote it. "I learned that word of mouth is the most powerful marketing channel," he says. Within three weeks, he had brought in thousands of users for under $600. Some players volunteered to help moderate Davies' servers, and at one point, he found himself managing 15 people. "At 15 years old, that felt really special," he tells me. Today, Davies has transformed the skills he learned from Minecraft into two software businesses: one helps teachers grade students and identify learning gaps, and the other is an AI-powered virtual employee for automating communication, sales, and support. "At 18, I'm learning everything I need through hands-on experience and self-teaching," Davies says. "The tech industry, especially AI, evolves so quickly that I find real-world practice more valuable than classroom theory right now." At least for now, he says he plans to skip college and focus on growing his businesses. That decision is in line with advice that McDonald has also been doling out. "Minecraft has the perfect set of factors to find young creatives, motivate them to teach themselves technical and entrepreneurial skills, and provide monetization options when they're ready to turn it into a career," McDonald says. As it turns out, spending hours playing Minecraft might be just the ticket to landing gainful employment.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Yahoo
Snail Games Expands Indie Portfolio with the Launch of Robots at Midnight and Zombie Rollerz: The Last Ship
CULVER CITY, Calif., July 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Snail, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNAL) ('Snail Games' or the 'Company'), a leading global independent developer and publisher of interactive digital entertainment, announced the launch of two new indie titles, Robots at Midnight and Zombie Rollerz: The Last Ship, in the month of June. These releases mark a strategic expansion into distinct game and player demographics, showcasing Snail's ongoing commitment to fostering creativity and innovation across its global portfolio. Robots at Midnight, developed by Toronto based studio Finish Line Games, represents Snail Games' strategic entry into a younger segment of the gaming market. Designed as an accessible, entry-level Souls-like game, it introduces the genre's core mechanics in a more user-friendly format, lowering the barrier to entry for wider appeal. The game specifically targets the younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha players who are just beginning to engage with more complex gameplay experiences. Backed in part by Canada Media Fund, the game is led by studio co-founder Daniel Posner, whose background in education and interactive media bridges entertainment and learning. To celebrate the launch of Robots at Midnight and the 2.1M+ viewer minutes watched on Twitch, the team is hosting a community event where players can win DIY robot kits encouraging real world creativity inspired by in-game exploration. For Snail Games, its investment in games like Robots at Midnight is a long-term strategy to captivate the next generation of gamers and creators. With Gen Alpha projected to become the most digitally fluent and commercially influential generation to date, early engagement aims to build brand loyalty and position the Company to meet the future demands of an evolving global market. Zombie Rollerz: The Last Ship, developed by Zing Games, comes from a seasoned studio with a track record of success; its previous titles, including the predecessor Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Heroes, have collectively surpassed 10 million downloads. The latest installment in the Zombie Rollerz franchise blends fast-paced roguelite mechanics with tower defense survival strategy to deliver a highly replayable, content-rich experience. With a positive Steam rating at launch and a distinctive visual style that appeals to casual and core gamers alike, Zombie Rollerz: The Last Ship demonstrates the strength of Zing Games' IP and Snail's ability to identify and scale high-performing indie titles. Together, Robots at Midnight and Zombie Rollerz: The Last Ship exemplifies Snail Games' strategic focus on widening its portfolio and deepening market penetration across multiple player segments. By introducing accessible gameplay in an underserved genre to engage Gen Alpha players and scaling emerging IPs, Snail is actively expanding its presence across diverse markets. These launches reflect a deliberate approach to portfolio diversification - one that balances genre innovation, long-term revenue opportunities, and global audience growth as Snail continues to evolve and embrace the next-generation of interactive entertainment. For creators interested in covering Zombie Rollerz: The Last Ship or Robots at Midnight please reach out to creatordirect@ About Snail, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNAL) is a leading, global independent developer and publisher of interactive digital entertainment for consumers around the world, with a premier portfolio of premium games designed for use on a variety of platforms, including consoles, PCs, and mobile devices. For more information, please visit: Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Many of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "expect," "should," "plan," "intend," "may," "predict," "continue," "estimate" and "potential," or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements appear in a number of places in this press release and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding (i) Snail showcasing its ongoing commitment to fostering creativity and innovation across its global portfolio, (ii) Snail's long-term investment in the next generation of gamers and creators, (iii) Gen Alpha projected to become the most digitally fluent and commercially influential generation to date and (iv) Gen Alpha projected to become the most digitally fluent and commercially influential generation to date. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, which was filed by the Company with the SEC on March 26, 2025 and other documents filed by the Company from time to time with the SEC, including the Company's Forms 10-Q filed with the SEC. The Company does not undertake or accept any obligation to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based. Investor Contact:John Yi and Steven ShinmachiGateway Group, Inc.949-574-3860SNAL@
New York Post
30-06-2025
- New York Post
Slick-talking, cowboy hat-wearing robot dubbed ‘Jake the Rizzbot' spits Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang, leaving strangers gobsmacked
The Wild West meets Wall-E. A slick-talking, cowboy hat-wearing robot, unofficially named 'Jake the Rizzbot,' stunned both Texas locals and the Internet with its proficiency in both Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang while out on the town last week — even inspiring a Bitcoin in its honor. The child-sized, AI-powered robot — complete with a knockoff cowboy hat and silver chain — was captured on video all around Austin, Texas during its training out in the wild. The little engine did its best to jog down sidewalks and even talked to awed passersby, while spitting the latest slang, clips shared online show. 3 Jake the Rizzbot was captured on video galavanting through Austin, Texas last week. Storyful Jake left no stone unturned as it galavanted through Austin. The robot, which is operated by a person through a wireless controller, is manufactured by the China-based Unitree Robotics. The Unitree G1 humanoid agent was originally unveiled last May, clocking in at 4 feet tall and 77 pounds. It sells for around $16,000, but prices often vary, according to the Unitree website. The robot is meant to serve as an 'AI avatar' that develops 'based on deep reinforcement learning and simulation training,' according to the company website. Jake is thankfully still learning and, despite his name, isn't able to pick up ladies at the bars just yet. Still his 'rizz' impressed Austin locals enjoying the nightlife last week. The man who owns and operates Jake accompanied it on the test run. He was eager to show off his latest gadget and wasn't bothered when Jake started to run out of battery, instead telling people that they 'might get to see it faint.' 3 Jake is a Unitree G1 humanoid agent that sells for around $16,000. Storyful 'Hey! My name is Jake, but perhaps better known as Rizzbot. It's nice to meet you,' Jake began in a video captured by a man it encountered, before diving straight into the typical lauding praise it's known for. 'Ma homie, that beard is cold and that mustache is hard, you look clean, nephew. Gee, that black smartwatch is straight iced out, and that white tee's bangin'. You got that clean drip locked down, you got that boss energy G, and you rockin' it with style. Props to you, you are a solid boss 'fo real,' the bot said, borrowing several terms from Gen Z and Gen Alpha. As videos of Jake went viral, people online were left gobsmacked — and even scared about what bots like it mean for the future of artificial intelligence. 3 The robot relies on a learning AI program to operate. 'Let it walk around the parking lot by Macy's I bet it will get robbed,' one user commented. 'It's all fun and games until the cowboy robot pulls out a machete,' one man wrote. Despite becoming a quick microcelebrity online, Jake doesn't have an official social media account. It's unclear who exactly owns the bot — the man who accompanied it in Austin hasn't been publicly identified — and why its AI has been trained to flatter strangers.
