Today in 2009, Swedish game developer Markus "xNotch" Persson publicly released a pre-alpha version of his sandbox-survival game Minecraft. After over 2 years of development, player feedback, and word-of-mouth advertising, Minecraft released fully on November 18, 2011. As of this writing, it is the second best-selling video game of all time. It is so popular that it has had wide-reaching cultural impact outside of the gaming industry. It has been parodied by The Simpsons, South Park, and even Lady Gaga.   Image Credit: Official Minecraft Website