Post by Eorl @ 08:01am 16/09/14 | 30 Comments
Last week, rumors began to surface about the potential sale of the studio and its game. This week those rumors were confirmed. Microsoft announced the purchase of Mojang for $2.5 billion and Mojang, in turn, announced that the three founders, including Persson, would be leaving the company once the deal is done.
"Minecraft adds diversity to our game portfolio and helps us reach new gamers across multiple platforms," says Xbox chief Phil Spencer. "Gaming is the top activity across devices and we see great potential to continue to grow the Minecraft community and nurture the franchise. That is why we plan to continue to make Minecraft available across platforms – including iOS, Android and PlayStation, in addition to Xbox and PC."
The acquisition opens a path for Microsoft to pursue a number of potential ways in getting their money back, from DLC packs through to even trying a Minecraft 2 if they feel lucky. With over 50 million copies sold so far on various devices including mobile, PlayStation and Xbox, it is somewhat clear why exactly Microsoft has purchased the very popular open-world title.
"Over the past few years he’s made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle," Mojang’s Owen Hill revealed in a press release. "The only option was to sell Mojang. He’ll continue to do cool stuff though. Don’t worry about that." Notch has previously criticized Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, but in a revealing blog post he discusses his reasons for leaving Mojang and Minecraft. "If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately," says Persson."Thank you for turning Minecraft into what it has become, but there are too many of you, and I can’t be responsible for something this big."
Buy now from Green Man Gaming Only GBP£11.99!
Latest Comments
30 Comments
Show
Follow Us
Advertisement
Log In
Posted 08:47am 16/9/14
I don't like the fact that someone who saw that vision and had the opportunity to do so decided to bail on it when things got to tough, In my head it would of made more sense to get a CEO in that could of driven the company forward rather than sell it.
Instead of fierce competition we now have a big powerhouse with more ammo. That's not good for consumers.
With the dumb #Gamergate media s*** going around this will probably get chalked up as a result of the industry and everything that's going on. When in reality all it is is a man that had an opportunity to start something great, but decided that it was too tough and just wanted to go back to simple times.
Posted 08:55am 16/9/14
I look forward to the uproar if they start charging for updates/DLC.
Posted 09:09am 16/9/14
Posted 09:18am 16/9/14
Gabe N already had a decent career before Valve (with MS), so its arguable he had the skills to follow through. Notch had... minecraft which it turns out is $2.5 billion in the hand.
Posted 09:21am 16/9/14
Honestly it's been floundering for ages, had great momentum in beta then failed to take it further in any meaningful way.
I hope that MS throws money at the idea and makes a fully featured MC2 (Minecraft: Ultimate or whatever), with NPCs, towns, things to actually spend food etc on (populations? IDK), sieges on castles, the ability to arm armies, etc. It was great making masterful ways to collect the resources, boring when there was no real need for them (though building s***loads of cart tracks was fun).
Posted 10:01am 16/9/14
You half quoted me, He had the Vision and Opportunity. The money coming in from Minecraft could of easily paid the salary of someone who knew what to do. I'm all for Notch taking a back seat, or stepping aside and letting someone control the business side of things, especially if he genuinely lacked the confidence and or ability to do so himself. F*** he could of put his ass through business school and learned a few things. Life is what you make it, He hit the jackpot, what happened to him is rare as f***, He had an opportunity and did sweet f*** all with it. He's entitled to do so but I think everyone can understand how disappointing it is to see someone who got so lucky waste the chance to do something awesome. Notch, is a Sell-Out.
But he shouldn't and likely won't give 2 s**** what people think as he rolls around in his money and re-enacts the opening sequence to duck tales.
Posted 10:21am 16/9/14
Good on him for getting out and making out like a bandit.
Posted 10:36am 16/9/14
I hope that MS finally deliver on some API and s*** for the sake of the community. MS have been pretty good with their game studios. At least it wasn't EA that purchased them. They butchered Popcap.
Posted 10:37am 16/9/14
I agree with you, my comments are more of a reflection on the wasted opportunity and the disappointment as a consumer, game enthusiast and hobbyist game dev.
Microsoft are actually a great company to take it over, I think they will push it as a learning tool whilst still making it accessible to its fan base. As far as Minecraft fans go, this will likely be the best thing that could happen to the game.
Posted 11:07am 16/9/14
Posted 11:22am 16/9/14
Posted 11:30am 16/9/14
Posted 11:32am 16/9/14
I also forgot to mention how Notch had a whinge about Facebook getting Occulus, then he sells of MS. I always felt that Notch was a bit of the ol' SJW who loved a bit of drama.
Yup. He had the funds to do whatever he wanted really. If he didn't want to run Mojang, get someone else to do it. And these side projects he wanted to do could have been done, rather than half arsing them and then they just fade away.
The only bad thing from this is probably the life span of Minecraft will be reduced as I'm sure that MS will want to cash in on a sequel at some point. With a player base as big as it is and the amount of money they just threw at it, it would make sense.
Posted 11:48am 16/9/14
Interesting estimated breakdown of Minecraft sales per platform. I wasn't suprised mobile was the biggest, and I was suprised console was second, but I was suprised it had sold so much on PC, over 16 million on PC! Thats insane, I mean I knew it was big but I didn't know it was THAT big.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/15/6154437/minecraft
Posted 12:47pm 16/9/14
Posted 02:24pm 16/9/14
It is just like the Star Wars of past, where everything was plastered in Darth Vader's face. Same will be for Minecraft.
Posted 03:50pm 16/9/14
Posted 04:48pm 16/9/14
$2.5 Billion, in your pocket -taxes. The stuff you could do with that cash is beyond whatever minecraft could have achieved.
Bandit King more like it. Remember he also has squillions in his pocket from sales.
The guy should go party with Richard Branson and help build a space rocket with John Carmack.
In the meantime he could sale his mega yacht around the world, stopping at small coastal towns and leaving gifts of fat stacks of cash. And still have a billion left over.
last edited by Tollaz0r! at 16:48:03 16/Sep/14
Posted 05:37pm 16/9/14
Posted 06:28pm 16/9/14
Moon was boring.
Posted 06:28pm 16/9/14
How the f*** does M$ plan to make that cash back?
Posted 06:31pm 16/9/14
Hats.
Posted 08:46pm 16/9/14
Posted 01:23am 17/9/14
Posted 01:38am 17/9/14
The Microsoft way of doing things doesn't fit. Even the new 'Realms' stuff they're talking about doesn't sound like it will gel as well with the community - only being able to run servers on the "minecraft cloud"? What if you don't live in a region with their servers? What if you want to run different mods? All of a sudden the entire playing field changes.
The thing in their favour though is the community is so vast that they can probably get away with monetising the s*** out of it for years before enough people fall off to make it unprofitable. It worked for Battlefield, anyway.
All it will take though is for some variant to get more popular and develop some momentum, and restore that sort of freedom and flexibility and they'll be back at square one. I saw some people mention minetest as an OSS alternative - it looks way more immature, but who knows where it will end up.
Posted 03:23am 17/9/14
Posted 08:09am 17/9/14
If I was Microsoft, which I'm clearly not, I would develop the game further adding in a bunch of stuff, like useable furniture (seriously, no chairs yet?), I would incorporate the highest use mods as base standard. Leave the current client-server architecture as is, no cloud shenanigans (unless that is added on top of everything else and not replace it).
I would make sure it supports Oculus Rift out of the box, and have it fully ready to go when Oculus arrives, and push that aspect fairly hard.
I would then consider partnering with Facebook and integrating it into the game. (ewww I know, but I swear there would be significant money in it). Make sure it is an optional thing and not a in-your-face must do thing.
Keep the game cheap, it must have a slight entry cost. Not free-to-play.
Concentrate on increasing the user-base as large as possible and make most of the money off merchandising and faceboook related advertising (not advertising in-game, but in the facebook side of the partnership).
Make a terrible Minecraft movie that is just a cash in. Or make a good one if planned on doing it more than once.
Oh and hire a popular Youtube presenter to play the Microsoft Version with all the features (facebook+cloud+whatever) to get the kids to accept it easily enough, seriously they follow these youtube presenters kind strongly.
last edited by Tollaz0r! at 08:09:48 17/Sep/14
Posted 08:35am 17/9/14
Posted 09:10am 17/9/14
Since the mods will still work, it will be a game vs game scenario. Even more community fragmentation. F*** I love it.
Posted 09:13am 17/9/14