Infiniminer may have been Notch's inspiration, but Minecraft is what created the genre. People making minecraft-like games right now aren't copying Infiniminer, they're copying minecraft.
The iPhone wasn't the first smart-phone, it wasn't even the first touch-screen smart phone, but most people (correctly) give it credit for popularizing the style, and creating a new "genre" for smartphones.
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Infiniminer may have been Notch's inspiration, but Minecraft is what created the genre. People making minecraft-like games right now aren't copying Infiniminer, they're copying minecraft.
The iPhone wasn't the first smart-phone, it wasn't even the first touch-screen smart phone, but most people (correctly) give it credit for popularizing the style, and creating a new "genre" for smartphones.
You are using the word created wrong. Infiniminer created the genre; Minecraft popularized the genre.