Starting Friday, February 17 at 10 A.M. Central European Time (1 A.M. US Pacific Time) Mojang will begin work on a brand new title. The company will answer questions via Twitter and promises "silly incentives" for reaching donation goals. Eager fans can even get involved now and vote for the genre and theme of the prospective game on Mojang's website. "Of course, you?ve always wanted to play a Shoot Em?Up Dating Simulator with a Candy Land World War II theme. Choose wisely!" warns the company.

From the very beginning of Minecraft, when the company literally consisted of just one man, Mojang reached out to connect with their fans in novel ways. As Minecraft's popularity exploded, rather than pulling back and becoming a more traditional developer Mojang pushed ever further. They created Minecon, continued to update Minecraft while simultaneously working on smartphone and 360 versions, and used Minecraft to help renovate Sweedish public housing. The 60-hour game project comes less than a week after Mojang founder Notch reached out to Double Fine's Tim Schafer about a possible collaboration on Psychonauts 2.

Only in the game industry could a single company as small as Mojang reach out and engage other developers, their community, and fans in such an effective manner. Seemingly every project it undertakes exemplifies something special about games. Only the game industry would tolerate, let alone encourage Notch to reach out and offer to help an older and more experienced game maker -- traditional media tends to focus on older artists aiding up-and-comers, likely to avoid embarrassing the more experienced talent.

How could a film or book allow public housing residents to design neighborhood improvements? Mojang allowed fans to design replicas of their areas on special Minecraft servers, and then allowed residents in to redesign everything from parks to road placement. Only a game could so effortlessly engender community participation in a large project like that. Traditional media would have relied on posters, radio and TV ads, cost tens of thousands of dollars, and produced minimal citizen involvement -- Mojang did better for the cost of a handful of servers.

Time after time Mojang exemplifies the best and most exciting elements of this industry. The small developer's uncanny ability to foster a sense of community and then use it to accomplish something unexpected -- be it a massive convention or small charity drive -- shows that, despite what common wisdom on internet message boards holds, the game industry still allows its best and brightest to express their creativity more than any other medium.