
Why no Steam, Notch? - sorbus
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/9550850116/why-no-steam-notch
======
mcantor
I really admire how much Notch seems to understand opposing viewpoints that
most people would simply make inflammatory posts about. His diplomacy here, as
well as with Bethesda, has been stellar: Not "Steam is a DRM-ridden mess that
I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, bwa ha ha!", but instead, "I understand
why they'd want to control their platform." Not "Bethesda are an Orwellian
corporate giant trying to crush the little guy, bwa ha ha!", but instead,
"This is probably just lawyers being lawyers." Never a bridge burned. What
respect and maturity! Hats off to you, Notch. I'm proud to be a part of the
same community of developers as you.

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
He has worked hard to torch the bridges between Mojang and the open-source
communities surrounding Minecraft. He doesn't like people hacking his code, or
creating tools which interoperate with his releases. You might have noticed
that some mods have been pulled into the main Minecraft tree; the person doing
that pulling is always jeb, another Mojang employee. Notch himself isn't very
happy about it.

Projects like Bravo and Bukkit don't have any official endorsement or
acknowledgement. Our channels of communication keep getting narrower and
narrower. It's to the point where I've personally given up on actually talking
to Mojang at all.

~~~
leon_
Probably rather offtopic but: I've never understood the motivation behind
"modding". Why put so much work into someone other's project instead of
starting something own?

I understand modifying/augmenting open source - because it's a community
effort and the result belongs to all of us. But creating modifications for
commercial products you will never have any real rights on and then being
angry with the owner when he tries to protect his baby/vision - that's just
behind my horizon.

~~~
xiaoma
> _Probably rather offtopic but: I've never understood the motivation behind
> "modding". Why put so much work into someone other's project instead of
> starting something own?_

Why do people spend so much work into learning to sing someone else's song or
arrange it instead of just writing their own?

Maybe they like the work despite the fact that it's not their creation. Maybe
they don't have the skill to create something from scratch but they can do a
great deal standing on the shoulders of others. Maybe they just aren't that
concerned with how lawyers divvy up who "owns" what ideas.

It's probably a combination of the above.

------
georgemcbay
Valve: Xbox 360 is too closed for Steam [1]

Notch: Steam is too closed for Minecraft [2]

Minecraft is coming to Xbox 360 [3]

Head Asplode!

[1] [http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/25/valve-ms-needs-to-be-
comfort...](http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/25/valve-ms-needs-to-be-comfortable-
in-opening-up-xbox-live/)

[2] <http://notch.tumblr.com/post/9550850116/why-no-steam-notch>

[3] [http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/06/e3-2011-minecraft-kinect-
xbo...](http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/06/e3-2011-minecraft-kinect-xbox-360.php)

~~~
sid0
AFAIK a very restricted version of Minecraft is coming to the 360.

~~~
georgemcbay
That's true, but then I'm not sure why a less restricted Minecraft on Steam on
the PC is a problem... I'd actually buy it then.

I do very little PC gaming these days, 100% of it via titles bought on Steam
-- people can argue about the DRM issues with it all day long, but the cloud
features of it that allow me to access my game library from whichever of my
computers I am currently logged into is huge as is the centralized updating,
etc. I realize I'm hardly representative of the entire PC gaming world (since
I'm barely a PC gamer anymore), but if it isn't on Steam it doesn't really
exist for me and I'd love to pay for and play a slightly dumbed down
Minecraft.. looks like I'll have to do that on the 360 instead of on the PC.

~~~
gamble
Minecraft on 360 is never going to be more than a niche, given the type of
game it is. If it's available through Steam, however, the majority of PC
players will end up buying through Steam and that population will pressure the
non-Steam PC players to move to Steam.

~~~
DrStalker
There's precedent for games purchased outside of Steam being available in
steam, so there's no technical barrier to giving all existing Minecraft owners
a copy of the Steam version.

~~~
Goronmon
But when Notch says that he is avoiding Steam due to the restrictions it will
place on what he can do with Minecraft in the future, I'm not sure why this
would be a positive outcome from Notch's perspective.

------
daniel_reetz
_This_ is how the battle for openness is won. Not by endless online argument,
but by building stuff. Stuff that, by virtue of its openness and flexibility,
is too awesome to be needlessly and arbitrarily constrained.

Beats the shit out of dogma.

Good on ya, Notch.

~~~
streptomycin
The battle for openness is won by building proprietary software?

~~~
omouse
He's been saying that eventually it'll be open-source, once it gets a 1.0
version? I don't know, maybe it's time to bug him some more about it...

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
Presume that he was only saying that to string along the people that would not
have been otherwise interested, like the burgeoning community of open-source
hackers working on various Minecraft tools.

~~~
Raphael
Does he have any history of open sourcing his software?

~~~
ido
He released the source to several of his 4k/LD games (which are most of his
games).

------
flyosity
Honest question from an iPhone developer...

I know many people on HN are rooting for walled gardens to fail (App Store)
and for openness to triumph. Do these same people willingly use Steam and
think it's great? Isn't Steam's delivery platform for games and the App
Store's delivery platform for iOS apps pretty much the same concept? If
someone is against the App Store on principle, shouldn't they also be against
Steam and not use it?

~~~
wmf
A big problem with the iOS App Store is that it's a monopoly.

~~~
zaphar
While I also dislike the walled garden approach of the IOS App Store I feel I
should point out that it's only a monopoly if you define a monopoly narrowly.
E.G it's only a monopoly on the iOS family of devices which is hardly a
monopoly on installing apps on mobile devices. It may be a large chunk of the
market but there are still competitors with a sizeable chunk themselves.

Walled Garden != Monopoly

~~~
rmc
It is a monopoly on installing software on iOS. Steam does not have a monopoly
on installing software on Windows.

~~~
niklas_a
But iOS is only 18% of all mobile devices. Windows is 90% of all
laptops/desktops. You are not comparing oranges with oranges.

~~~
sid0
You aren't locked into Steam for all game purchases.

~~~
zaphar
You also aren't locked into iOS for all mobile app purchases. My point is that
this debate is usually really about whether you do or don't want to
participate in a walled garden and less about whether you want to participate
in a monopoly.

Using the loaded term monopoly feels like an attempt to use emotional
persuasion rather than debate on the merits. Which is a shame because I think
the walled garden deserves some good criticism in a lot of ways.

~~~
sid0
The barrier to buying a game off Steam given that you own a PC/Mac is much
lower than the barrier to buying an app off the App Store given that you own
an iOS device (ignoring jailbreaking as usual). These sorts of barriers are
characteristic of monopolies.

------
wccrawford
Sounds like good reasons, to me. They're a company with on-the-edge games and
they can't afford to be held back.

I'm actually quite surprised that Valve has -any- say in what they do on their
own website, or what they implement in the game. I could understand having to
implement certain features (like not crashing with the Steam overlay) but to
prevent features, marketing, non-game sales, or anything else that doesn't
directly affect Valve?

Inconceivable.

~~~
AngryParsley
You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Apple and XBLA have similar restrictions about interaction outside of their
walled gardens. There are good reasons for this: Preventing fraud (they trust
their credit card processing much more than some random app developer),
filtering objectionable content for those under 18, ensuring a certain minimum
standard of quality, etc.

Also sorry, I accidentally downvoted you when I meant to upvote you. (Can
someone please move those arrows farther apart?)

~~~
wccrawford
Actually, I'm still pretty sure Apple and XBLA do that because they can make
more money, not because they are trying to protect their image.

It's still the first time I've seen anyone say that physical goods based on
the game were a problem. I really can't quite believe that.

In-game stuff, yeah, I can see it. Ratings and whatnot. But I don't think
Mojang/Notch would have a problem on the ratings end of things, unless the
ratings board was out of control. Still, I could see him not taking the
chance.

------
bryanh
I can understand Notch's position here, because really, the only thing Steam
can provide Majong with is... eyeballs and distribution? Some sort of
community? I don't know, but I don't think Minecraft needs any help with
those.

~~~
unwind
Nit-pick: it's "Mojang", not "Majong". The latter is almost a classical board
game (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong>), the former is most probably the
Swedish word "mojäng" but with our exotic dots removed for a change. "Mojäng",
btw, means roughly "gizmo", or "contraption".

~~~
bryanh
Ah, thanks!

------
shoota
Then why are they bringing Minecraft to the XBOX 360 which is a much more
locked down platform than steam?

~~~
doctoboggan
Steam is merely a new distribution system for a platform Notch has already
shipped on while the XBOX 360 is a totally new platform with its own required
distribution system.

~~~
danso
Wonder how well this is going to go...I bought the Orange Box for the 360 when
it first came out. TF2 has not seen any of the updates that the PC has had for
the past 3 years.

------
jroes
Is there some crevice here that can be made into a startup? A digital
distribution platform for indie game devs who want more freedom with what they
are selling?

~~~
spacemanaki
It's not really a _platform_ , but I think that's close to what the company
formed around the Humble Indie Bundle is doing. I think all of their releases
have been DRM free and without any other strings attached, but I actually have
no idea what the terms are like for the individual game dev companies. So I
think the answer is probably "yes".

~~~
ido
The humble bundle _is_ anomalously well performing, but they sell a couple of
dozen games per year, each in batches of 5-6 that only sell for 2 weeks.

Steam sell a couple of hundreds indie games (out of many thousands currently
on the market) throughout the year.

I think the HIB is by design not a service that the average indie (or even the
exceptionally good indie) can get on.

------
baby
I personally added Minecraft in my steam's library so I can launch it from
steam and people can see when I'm playing Minecraft. The only shortcoming is,
if you are not on your main computer you have to download the game from
minecraft.net and not steam. Is it really a huge hassle?

------
bstar77
I really hope Notch comes up with something more interesting than capes for
the Minecraft market. I could see something like a robust world generator
being extremely interesting, but premium hats and capes has to be one of the
stupidest concepts in the history of gaming.

I don't like DLC's either, but I guess I just don't like any games enough to
care. What I'm trying to say is that I'd like minecraft to stay in it's
current innocent state. Perhaps if it grows like World of Warcraft did it will
make sense, but it's a tough sell for me now. The simplicity is what makes it
so charming.

~~~
fletchowns
_premium hats and capes has to be one of the stupidest concepts in the history
of gaming._

Apparently you are unaware of the runaway success of the Mann Co Store in TF2,
which has done so well that TF2 is now Free-to-Play. Hats are among the
variety of items that are sold on the Mann Co Store.

~~~
thestoicjester
Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's not stupid.

~~~
masklinn
If it works, how's it stupid?

~~~
xentronium
TF2 public games turned into constant trade for goddamn hats and metal.

~~~
andypants
When people make comments like this, it makes me think you've never played
TF2.

I have never had a problem where a number of people on a server are trading
(except on dedicated trading servers).

------
FredBrach
But he is not saying the truth. The truth is: his game have enough success to
not be in steam.

