Transforming Minecraft into a research platform

Experimental evaluation of MMVE research is mostly based on simulation. To convince industry of the advantages of alternate MMVE architectures requires experimental results obtained from using a commercially deployed MMVE, such as Minecraft. In this paper we describe the transformation of Minecraft into a flexible research platform, that allows researchers to modify Minecraft on different layers and functional areas. As proof-of-concept we replace Minecraft's client/server architecture with a distributed server cluster. The Minecraft virtual environment is distributed amongst the server cluster, allowing for migration of users between nodes of the cluster. This is achieved without modifying the Minecraft client and with minimal modification of the server.