Microsoft bought Mojang (Minecraft)

[Jungletoe]

Makes complete sense for him to sell it. He found joy in programming obscure video games, not running a multimillion dollar company. He was already living an extremely lavish lifestyle while funding obscure projects and charities which have since come to fruition. I completely believe that he didn't do it for the money, but rather for a relief of stress.

Honestly, I respect Notch even more now.

[Dzedajus]

Sounds like some kind of a hipster.

[Duderock]

Ok i must confess i didn't follow Minecraft stuff that much longer as it was clear to me (pre -alpha buyer) that he won't release the source which was an idea of him in 2009 and got me interested mainly as i was looking for new grounds to waste my time on ...

Which is why I believe it's for the money. If it wasn't, why not open source it? Or at least sell it to a more reliable company that you can trust will improve on minecraft and not sell out like Microsoft inevitably will?

Not that it's anything to be ashamed of. Most of us would do the same.

[MagicManICT]

2.5B seems a bit excessive for the game unless MS has some plans for licensing all those servers that are charging premiums... maybe why crackdowns on them and what they're charging have been reported the last few months?

If I had an IP and I wanted out of the business side of things, I certainly wouldn't let it get bought for less than it was worth. Only fools and dreamers do that (and there isn't much difference in my book).

As far as I can see, there isn't much for MS to mess up other in how they manage the "creative community" and all those servers running out there.

Also:

best coment i've seen yet

Playing with blocks alone doesn't make you a creator. You become a creator by extending those ideas and skills outside the boundaries of the game. As far as i can tell, 99% of the customers are still just consumers, though maybe a little more creative for the time spent playing the game.

[Arcanist]

I think he was talking about those that create their own mods for the game, and release them.

Though it would hardly be millions, thousands at a stretch, likely hundreds.

[APXEOLOG]

How to popularise C#?

1. Buy minecraft
2. Make new C# version with mod support and different other cool things
3. Say that old version will never get updated and judge everyone who tried to make a fork of java version
4. PROFIT

[Potjeh]

I think Minecraft might be worth it in merchandise alone. Kids go crazy for Minecraft T-shirts, plushies, mugs, etc.

[Massa]

Ignoring all the other discussion in the thread I must ask, why was Mojang so bad about updating the stupid game, and the updates were trash anyway?
Took them almost a year to fully implement like, villagers. Just to trade with them. That's all, it's a simple Java game, not rocket surgery.

And I am entitled to whine, I payed money for the stupid game, but back to my original question, why were they so bad about updating the game lol?
I must be missing something but much more complex games get much more frequent updates.

[Jesus_Smith_Nandez]

It's simple, massa: they didn't have to. People kept on buying and praising and remaining loyal to the game even when the updates were shit. Notch and the original studio were set for life after it went big, why waste time and energy updating and improving a game people worship like its a religion and kept buying anyways?

[MagicManICT]

I think someone posted it above: mojang was never in it to be AAA game devs. You want AAA service, go to EA, Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, etc., etc., etc.

Quite honestly, I had figured that the only reason he hadn't sold before now to someone was some false idea of "integrity."