[mark38848]

I think Minecraft was originally written in Java and rewritten in a good programming language (i.e. not Java).

[grumpyprole]

Whether or not one thinks C++ is a "good" language, I always thought that (original) Minecraft busted the myth that blockbuster games had to be written in C++.

[CuriousSkeptic]

Being written in Java was probably instrumental in enabling the huge modding community around Minecraft. Which in turn was probably in large part responsible for its success.

[mike_hearn]

And more to the point for this thread, writing it in Java let Notch build and iterate extremely quickly. Minecraft originally came out of a 24 hour game writing competition in which most competitors were using C++, but Notch always used Java because coding speed was the most critical thing in that context.

[neonsunset]

It should have been written in C#, instead, the developers had to resort to silly optimization tricks that often never transpired.