Vanilla Minecraft News Discussion

[johnt]

If you have a few hundred million dollars, you can buy a nice sized company. Once you start getting into the billions, you have enough money to buy governments.

[SterlingRed]

What I've read is that the acquisition makes sense if you think of it as microsoft is buying a platform with 50 million plus users.I very much doubt their interested in updating the game as it is now. I'm banking on a minecraft 2 or expansion like spin offs and stand alones.

[agentwiggles]

The article states that Microsoft is in talks to acquire Mojang AB. I just wanted to make it clear that Mojang does not even own Minecraft. Notch has a second company (I think called Notch Enterprises) that owns Minecraft. Notch's second company licenses Minecraft to Mojang, and Notch collects the royalties. So even if Microsoft buys Mojang, they aren't going to own Minecraft unless they buy Notch's second company too.

Can anyone confirm or deny this? I was surprised when I read it, but I can't find anything that backs it up online. Looks like FC just swung the hammer on jecowa... but maybe someone else knows something about this?

[FlowerChild]

Can anyone confirm or deny this? I was surprised when I read it, but I can't find anything that backs it up online. Looks like FC just swung the hammer on jecowa... but maybe someone else knows something about this?

From what's being said on Twitter, it looks like it's still all speculation. And I don't think jecowa was providing useful information by quoting Notch's flippant and joking comments from the past out of context :P

[Niyu]

Maybe he meant what it can be read at the bottom of minecraft.net

"Minecraft" is a trademark of Notch Development AB

[destineternel]

Well looking at mojang.com it seems the twitter feeds on the right hand side have been removed. not showing for me and I haven't seen any tweets from mojangstas since this rumor surfaced. It's all speculation at this point until someone from mojang speaks aka notch, karl or jakob (mojang founders).

[agentwiggles]

Can anyone confirm or deny this? I was surprised when I read it, but I can't find anything that backs it up online. Looks like FC just swung the hammer on jecowa... but maybe someone else knows something about this?

From what's being said on Twitter, it looks like it's still all speculation. And I don't think jecowa was providing useful information by quoting Notch's flippant and joking comments from the past out of context :P

Sorry, I wasn't clear - I was asking specifically about the "second company" proposition, and the idea that even if MS was to purchase Mojang, they wouldn't own Minecraft. I was at work and hadn't mulled it over much when I posted earlier, but I really doubt that's the case. It would make absolutely zero sense to buy Mojang for anything other than Minecraft - what would you even get other than that? Scrolls?

Given the huge success that is Minecraft, I suppose that most people outside this little corner of the internet don't share the opinion that Minecraft has degraded consistently since the beta days. Massive sales on most platforms and merchandising that is literally EVERYWHERE probably make this a good investment for MS, but my opinions about Mojang as a company (that they are a stagnating one trick pony, at least apart from Notch) do not line up with purchasing them for 2 billion dollars.

Honestly, for Notch, a piece of that 2 bil and a free ticket to go work on other things would probably be a great opportunity. As for Mojang itself, not overly concerned with who owns them.

[Wafflewaffle]

Dont forget Cobalt! Think this way, Notch's second company may hold the franchise Minecraft, but Mojang holds the right to publish it. MS buys mojang, they control the releases, when, how and where. They also buy the rights to indirectly mess with developtment, cuz they wont publish a game they dont like.

Is buying mojang a good idea for MS? Sure! Is now a good time to do it? Hell no.

Minecraft has a very rerelease focused business plan. The same game sold across all plataforms under the sun, with regular updates to maintain interest. Its great until you run out of plataforms and that just happened with xbone and ps4.

[ion]

Its great until you run out of plataforms and that just happened with xbone and ps4.

They can just make bigger updates not free anymore. one new block=$ some. Like they do on the smartphones.

[johnt]

I imagine the deal would be mc and mojang both.

[devak]

my opinions about Mojang as a company (that they are a stagnating one trick pony, at least apart from Notch) do not line up with purchasing them for 2 billion dollars.

Actually i've seen the one-trick-pony argument a number of times already. Mojang makes money in the order of 100 million. for 2 billion dollars to work out, you're looking at decades of return of investment. Buying it would make monetary sense, just not for 2B.

[MoRmEnGiL]

I beg to differ about the one trick pony. Scrolls is an amazing game.

[Stormweaver]

I beg to differ about the one trick pony. Scrolls is an amazing game.

True. I just looked at thier main page - havn't missed much since I last looked at it, but it seems they're aiming for a full release this autumn with a demo version, an in-game market (for trading - kinda important usability upgrade) and most importantly, and actual marketing campaign - "Expect...Our marketing campaign to begin in full force".

I'll be giving it another shot on full release if they don't flop the advertising - maybe we should make a day of it with a BTW channel 'n stuff. Good game, it's just suffered for being a beta product.

[MoRmEnGiL]

Imho it suffered more because of hearthstone.. it was very unfortunate, because scrolls is the slower more complex game, and we all know gamers like fast and easy.. Not that hstone is a bad game, I love it, it's just a shame what it does to scrolls' playerbase..

Scrolls really has tons of different decks that work, hearthstone is limited to maybe 10, and 80% of people in ladder play 3 of them.. As some who loves deckbuilding with a passion, scrolls is miles ahead in that regard. Too bad matches last too long for most players..

[kjbrona]

Sale to Microsoft confirmed.
https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-bei ... microsoft/

Notch's thoughts.
http://pastebin.com/n1qTeikM

[Mason11987]

Sale to Microsoft confirmed.
https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-bei ... microsoft/

Notch's thoughts.
http://pastebin.com/n1qTeikM

I'm interested to see how it goes.

And good for Notch, he made the game he wanted, got a massive following and became a billionaire overnight. Now he can do whatever he wants. I can't wish anything but good things for someone who created something I enjoyed so much :).

[Wafflewaffle]

Wow, I guess I was wrong then, Notch found a way to get out and make a lot of money. Maybe Microsoft can punch some sense into Mojang and inject them with a healthy dose of corporate organization and human resources like real developers.

[Sandrew]

It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.

That's some pretty heavy stuff man.

[Marasambala]

I don't understand the purchase. 100million copies have already been sold. I get licensing, but a lot of those sales have already happened. I don't think the studio itself is worth a whole lot without Notch or another genius idea. A sequal? How do you improve Minecraft? There're a lot of survival/crafting/building games out there already. Is a big studio going to be able to pull it off? Make a MMO? ...I don't know...

FC, are you up for a little competition with Microsoft? ;)

[Daisjun]

It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.

Spoiler

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[Wafflewaffle]

I don't understand the purchase. 100million copies have already been sold. I get licensing, but a lot of those sales have already happened.

Here is what i dont understand. Disney bought Marvel's rights for 4 Billion dollars, just 1,5B short of Mojang, BUT Disney actually made money of that deal, they bought a huge "install base" and a extensive universe of possible movies. Minecraft doenst have that. Not even Minecraft 2 or paid DLC can make all that money back.


Also... WTF?
"If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately."

[Niyu]

Also... WTF?
"If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately."

I can understand that. He just doesn't want to get the level of attention he got with minecraft. He just want's to have fun making small gamesand experimenting. Not everybody is ambitious and with the money he has made with minecraft he probably doesn't really need another succes in his live to pay the bills, so why taking the drama that comes with it.

[barcode]

If Notch, the man himself, actually says in the opening sentence "I don’t see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it’s fun" - then what does that make the team who is now leading Minecraft? It's sort of an official statement that FC was right the whole time....

Anyways, yeah, good luck to the man. Certainly, with this much money getting thrown his way, he can't deny that had any influence because OF COURSE IT DOES. But he's done something big, stepped down too early in my opinion, and traded the company for a fortune that will let him, his children, his grand children and probably another few generations live without having to worry about money ever again. Good for him...

But I think I can understand a lot of the reasons for why he did it, and I for myself would not have turned down such an offer either. He's been done with Minecraft for quite some time from a development perspective, now he's letting go altogether.

Interesting what Microsoft does with it now. It's not something that will turn a profit anytime soon.

[FlowerChild]

Also... WTF?
"If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately."

The above seems to fit what I know of Notch pretty well. I was always under the impression it was the community pressure that drove him away from the game in the first place. I wasn't aware it had gotten this bad for him though.

Not much to say on the MS deal at present. Feeling somewhat in shock. The rumors of it happening seemed so counter to what I know of both Notch and Microsoft that I was under the impression the journalists involved were likely pulling this stuff out of their asses.

[MoRmEnGiL]

I respect that man to hell and back. I also feel kinda sorry for him. I think minecraft kinda ruined his life. Making him a millionaire aside. He seems like a very down to earth guy that really loves doing what he loves doing. And he had to find out the hard way what big groups of people can do.

That html game of his we were discussing in this forum a while back is a sure sign of what he has been going through.

I do not know what ms will do to minecraft, but I hope they treat scrolls with the respect it deserves. It might even be good news if it gets some solid promotion, god knows we need more players.