It's been an idea since the 80s; this is not a new concept, at all. And you might notice that well before minecraft was popular, we were already doing a lot with procedural generation in ai war galaxies, as well. Now, that said, there are some definite minecraft influences. The shrink/grow gems for moving things like trees around for redecorating purposes was completely inspired by MC; and the inclusion of crafting at all was sort of inspired by MC, although the mechanics we use for crafting have more in common with some JRPGs that predate MC. At any rate, I'm a huge fan of MC, and I'm sure I'll still be playing it years from now; to me, MC and AVWW scratch very different gaming itches.
