At the time, Java ran on the web so he could easily share demos.
He used LWJGL, which probably covered a lot of his library needs.
Java has a JIT, so it's not comparable to Ruby and Perl.
Minecraft gained popularity super fast in its early days, probably because it was a free-to-play game that worked in the browser (thanks to Java). Notch had no reputation or marketing at the time.
Minecraft gained popularity super fast in its early days, probably because it was a free-to-play game that worked in the browser (thanks to Java). Notch had no reputation or marketing at the time.