OPINION: ‘Cliffhorse’ is Notch’s Statement on “Good Enough” Games

Notch, the creator of the immensely popular game Minecraft, has released a new game. Cliffhorse is a game where you play as a horse. You can run around a small map, with many cliffs, as the name would suggest. Also, if that did not sound fun enough, there is a large ball with the same texture as the horse that you can roll around the cliffs. Still not good enough? Well throw in the fact that there are no sounds, you fall out of the world if you run too far, and there’s no promise of future updates and we have ourselves a real game!

Cliffhorse It seems safe to say that this is not actually a real game. Notch seems to be making a statement with his newest title. Using a similar concept to the “game” Goat Simulator, he is making a point. Goat Simulator was created in only a few weeks and is one of the most popular Steam titles currently. The game is simplistic and has no plot or real progression. That’s not to say that Goat Simulator isn’t fun, but it’s not the kind of game that Indie developers should be striving to make.

The statement Notch is making here is that “good enough” should not be good enough. When a game like this is so highly rewarded, why should other developers work so hard on other amazing titles to only get a fraction of what this simplistic title gets? The point being that we don’t want to lose the people who make awesome indie games like A Story About My Uncle, Dread Out, or Transistor. What do you think? Was Notch right to point the finger at Goat Simulator? Do you agree that games like this could cause the downfall of more creative indie games? Feel free to discuss below.