0x10c had serious promise. In many ways it was one of the 300 attempts at creating a successful SS13 clone (but with Mojang on it it _might_ have worked?).

Who knows.. Even Minecraft was catching lightning in a bottle. It was there just at the right moment at the right time. The odd choice of Java was just the right thing needed to make it take off. First since you could play it in the browser(remember applets?), later when easy decompilation and modding arrived.