8 Video Game Rip-Offs Better Than The Original

2. Minecraft (Infiniminer)

Streets of Rage Final Fight
Mojang/Zachtronics Industries

The roaring, almost inexplicable success of Minecraft over the past decade has spawned dozens of inferior derivatives, each looking to tap the popularity vein of Notch's industry-altering classic. It's somewhat ironic then, particularly for a game whose core premise is unearthing the player's imagination, that Minecraft is a wholly original concept.

In 2009, an incrementally released open-source sandbox game, in which the player gathered resources from a procedurally-generated, voxel-styled world, began to earn something of an internet following. No, not Minecraft, but Zach Barth's Infiniminer. Amongst the message board fans of the game was Swedish coder Markus Persson, who began designing his own version shortly after designer Barth discontinued the project.

The result of this mimecraft was Minecraft. Though you have to feel a little sorry for Barth, forever relegated to an intriguing footnote in video game history, it's hard to argue that Notch's continuation isn't vastly superior to its inspiration. Minecraft effectively completed the abandoned foundation Infiniminer had built, and across ten years has been refined into material of much higher quality.

Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.