[cableshaft]

Angry Birds' popularity was mostly luck and timing. Minecraft was doing something that wasn't very well represented in video games and touched on people's creativity, primed as children with Lego blocks, and helped create a whole new genre. I don't think there's a parallel universe where Minecraft was created and did not become a hit.

Sure, he did get lucky that Penny Arcade (and Kotaku, and a bunch of other sites) covered his minecart rollercoaster video to get that initial burst of attention to his project, and maybe you could argue that it was lucky that he stuck with the project's development for two years in relative obscurity for it to get developed enough to help reach its overnight success.

However, I definitely feel it was a novel enough of an experience that it would have eventually found a way to hit the mainstream and been a big hit regardless.