[POLL] MICROSOFT BUYS MOJANG

It is sad that this has driven a great game creator to not want his games to be well-received any more. He accidentally created an amazing game and no longer wants the spot light - I can understand that - but the part in his letter where he says if he stumbles apon another hit he'd abandon it, is just sad. I hope he has fun making many small games and that he gets out of life what he desires. All the best of luck to him and the other two who also left.

As for the game itself... I'm a bit worried, I'll admit. I'm a huge minecrafter and I love the game to bits. I hope it doesn't change too much from what it is. I guess it's just up in the air at the moment and we'll see how the chips fall when they do.

I'm mildly optimistic, but nervous too.

I think Minecraft is a shitty game that was made by a shitty company. Mojang could have put the money they were making into hiring better people, for improving the game and making more games. Upgrading the game to PS4 graphics or something. Building a real life Minecraft theme park. I dunno. They didn't do that stuff. Instead they just pocketed tens of millions of dollars every year, while spending their off-time doing whatever amount of work half a dozen amateurs can put out without trying too hard.

I'm annoyed by this acquisition, not because I worry about Mojang, but because I worry about Microsoft. They spent two billion dollars on a single game with one of the most unfortunate ratios of popularty to quality of the last decade, up there with Farmville or Candy Crush. And in my opinion, the game was mostly popular because of the developer. Without people feeling like they're supporting the indie scene, Minecraft will fail.

author=Liberty
It is sad that this has driven a great game creator to not want his games to be well-received any more. He accidentally created an amazing game and no longer wants the spot light - I can understand that - but the part in his letter where he says if he stumbles apon another hit he'd abandon it, is just sad.

I don't think he doesn't want his games to be well-received. He just doesn't want them to be viral hits.

The dude is a billionaire now, and if he enjoys killing time with low-pressure hobbies, he can spend the rest of his life doing exactly that.

I bought the game because it was fun and interesting - I never really thought about it being indie at all. It was only after a long time of playing and enjoying that I actually even bothered with the community (and only barely - I don't go to the forums and I only know of Notch as a name, aside from reading the letter that was linked).

So yeah, I think you're wrong on that note LockeZ. There are a lot of people who play games without knowing every little thing about them. You might not enjoy the game, but there are a shit ton of people who do. I'm one of them.

I believe it might be the 'Meh idk' choice~ XD

You don't have to know any "behind the scenes" stuff about Minecraft to know that it's not made by a major developer. You just have to spend 0.2 seconds looking at it and be like "why does it look like that." And then the person who introduced you to it tells you, "because it's made by just a couple of dudes, not by EA or Activision." An answer which they knew, because they had the same question when they first saw it.

That information influences people's decision to try the game. I don't think they're "supporting indie," in general. I just think many people are more forgiving of the horrible graphics when they know it's an amateur game. If they weren't more forgiving than usual, they'd be refusing to play it! Way too many of them refuse to play Call of Duty on whichever version has 900p upscaled to 1080p, instead of 1080p native, because the lower graphics are unacceptable. So I can't imagine those same people would take Minecraft seriously if it didn't have some excuse for looking like it does. And, well, now it no longer has any excuse for looking like it does.

I could be wrong. This is my prediction, though. I predict Microsoft will make a net loss of very nearly two and a half billion dollars in this deal.

Edit: I would also like to point out that Rare has released two video games since the release of Minecraft, and Mojang has released zero. So if you're complaining that "Mojang is going to turn into Rare," well, turning into Rare would actually triple Mojang's output.

author=LockeZ
Edit: I would also like to point out that Rare has released two video games since the release of Minecraft, and Mojang has released zero. So if you're complaining that "Mojang is going to turn into Rare," well, turning into Rare would actually triple Mojang's output.

Actually according to wikipedia Mojang's released four games since Minecraft came out in 2011. (five if you count the public beta of Scrolls and six if you count the public alpha of Cobatl which isn't developed by Mojang, but published by them)

I for one don't worry much. Minecraft is out and there's more stuff in it than I will ever experience so even if it never gets another update there's plenty of game there already. (and I've never even installed a single minecraft mod)

I just wished I lived in Sweden so I would get some of that sweet, sweet, Mojang tax money (I heard it was 79% tax on that 2.5 billion, that means a couple of hundred per person in tax moneys! I could maintain some roads, a couple of libraries and a school or two with that)

It will be interesting to see what happens though. Minecraft is a pretty huge thing and I wonder how Microsoft is going to capitalise on that. Will they let things go on as they have already, with all the merch money rolling in. Though that can't go on forever either so I wonder what the Xbone exclusive Minecraft 2 is going to look like or however they do things in the future. I guess we'll know in a couple of years. But I've played enough hours of Minecraft to get my fair share of enjoyment out of it.

author=LockeZ
You don't have to know any "behind the scenes" stuff about Minecraft to know that it's not made by a major developer. You just have to spend 0.2 seconds looking at it and be like "why does it look like that." And then the person who introduced you to it tells you, "because it's made by just a couple of dudes, not by EA or Activision." An answer which they knew, because they had the same question when they first saw it.

Kids don't look up game companies.

And all that stuff doesn't matter. Regardless of what people find out, or suspect to be true, about who made it they still like the game and want to play it. Nobody looks at Minecraft with hatred, then changes their mind and start playing simply because it was made by a couple of guys. And being made by a small team doesn't have any bearing on the quality of graphics they can produce.

It looks the way it does because it was a design choice. I like how it looks. It's part of the reason why I play the game.

That information influences people's decision to try the game. I don't think they're "supporting indie," in general. I just think many people are more forgiving of the horrible graphics when they know it's an amateur game.

The graphics aren't horrible, though. They are quite well done within that style. If you ask any kid or this-gen gamer about any game that uses pixel art, they will say it looks crappy. Horrible graphics in this style would be if things didn't look like their real life inspirations, and they do.

Come on, man. You work with pixel art. You must understand this?

If they weren't more forgiving than usual, they'd be refusing to play it!

Graphics aren't everything. Fun usually trumps everything else. You do realize that it's one of the best selling games of all time, right?

Way too many of them refuse to play Call of Duty on whichever version has 900p upscaled to 1080p, instead of 1080p native, because the lower graphics are unacceptable. So I can't imagine those same people would take Minecraft seriously if it didn't have some excuse for looking like it does. And, well, now it no longer has any excuse for looking like it does.

Those people aren't the ones playing Minecraft, so their opinions on graphics don't matter here.

The game is already created and established, why would Microsoft go to all the trouble to change the graphical style just because they are a big dev company? They don't want the game, they want the profits and playerbase the game provides.

I could be wrong. This is my prediction, though. I predict Microsoft will make a net loss of very nearly two and a half billion dollars in this deal.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/09/15/microsoft-officially-buys-mojang-for-25-billion
Microsoft expects to break even on its Mojang acquisition by the end of June 2015, according to an investor relations release.

Games Industry reports that the press release explains the company "expects the acquisition to be break even in FY15 on a GAAP basis." The acquisition should close later this year.

Edit: I would also like to point out that Rare has released two video games since the release of Minecraft, and Mojang has released zero. So if you're complaining that "Mojang is going to turn into Rare," well, turning into Rare would actually triple Mojang's output.

Hating Minecraft is no excuse to make stuff up. You are the Fox news of this topic ;P

author=karins_soulkeeper
Well... At least it isn't Apple. Because if it was, it'll be a complete nightmare.
(purchase to unlock new materials/blocks, anyone?)

What makes you think Microsoft wouldn't do that? Purchase Gold to play online, anyone?

I didn't make that up. I looked up Rare's games list on Wikipedia. They released some kinect game in 2011, same year as Minecraft, and since then they also released a sequel to it and the Xbone remake of Killer Instinct.

Wikipedia's page for Mojang only lists Minecraft and two unreleased games.

Wikipedia could be wrong or I could be misreading it though. What else did they release?

Yeah, rather like what Nintendo did to Monolithsoft.

RIP Monolith

author=LockeZ
Wikipedia's page for Mojang only lists Minecraft and two unreleased games.

Wikipedia could be wrong or I could be misreading it though. What else did they release?

If you scroll down a little bit you'll find four more games.