I certainly agree that Notch was standing on the shoulders of giant, brilliant Barth, and without Infiniminer we would never have gotten Minecraft. Zach's game design is
so good that it makes you want to build, or build better games. You can clearly see the inspiration that took hold and the potential that Infiniminer and all Barth's other games absolutely exude. His games are worth playing not to sink time into but to simply breathe in. There's little else quite like it.
But I think even then this unfairly discredits Notch. Regardless of what you think of the man, he certainly did nail it all on his own. He didn't just clone Infiniminer -- there's surprisingly little left in common at this point -- he used it as a springboard to invent what is essentially a new genre. You see the same sort of ingenuity in Fortnite and Roblox, who certainly have Minecraft and by lineage Infiniminer DNA in them, among others.
The difference is that, for a very long time, Minecraft was Notch, and what he did with it is still arguably unparalleled today. It's staggeringly good for a single person. The simple core loop was incredibly ripe for iteration. But the ingenuity the game is absolutely littered with, dozens of little things, tiny decisions made between pre-alpha point releases, is all Notch. In so many ways the game made itself, like a chain reaction of features, but Notch himself is just totally engrained in the whole thing. It's nuts.
To say he didn't nail it all on his own, I simply cannot agree with. Zach Barth and Notch both made something incredible. The shame is that no one ever gave Zach Barth the comically oversized sack full of money he deserves. I will surely never fire up Infiniminer again, but I could fire up Minecraft at any time and instant fall back into the engrossing loop of the game. Though it's been many years since I last played, I inevitably will again.
I've struggled to think of an analogy here... perhaps the closest I can come up with is Quake and Half-Life, which are even more closely related. Did Valve stand on the shoulders of giants? Absolutely. But they definitely nailed it all on their own.
We all build atop the works of others.