
Mojang's Monster Profits - Matti
http://it24.idg.se/2.2275/1.490017/mojangs-monstervinst
======
homosaur
Are there honestly any Mojang haters in the world? These guys are just great.

1\. Minecraft is an absolute work of art as a standalone game. The
possibilities are endless and it works everywhere. It's simple to play yet is
possible of incredible complexity.

2\. Relative to the playtime, the game is actually very inexpensive,
especially if you got the beta/alpha discount

3\. Notch really seems like just about the most pleasant guy in the world and
really just wears his passion on his sleeve. He's an easy guy to like.

4\. Notch and everyone at Mojang really love video games and it shows. I
always really respected guys like Kurt Cobain and Flea growing up because they
always tried to give credit and lend their popularity to fellow musicians and
influences. Everyone at Mojang does this and are surely leading kids toward a
lot of great games. They even support the Minecraft clones.

5\. It's been covered but Notch has used the massive profits of Minecraft in
smart ways to build Mojang slowly and really help out the developers who make
it possible. Great bunch of developers too, very public and responsive. They
are also smart about what actually gets added to Minecraft.

6\. Best community in gaming currently, hands down. The user made stuff is jaw
dropping.

7\. They continue to spend most of their resources working on Minecraft
despite the fact that they are both working on other games now and could sit
on their thumbs and rake in the cash on Minecraft if they wanted. Let users
fix the bugs. You know, like Bethesda does.

8\. Cutest mersh ever.

~~~
SCdF
9\. He made some pretty sweet amateur techno back in the day under the name
Markus Alexei on (remember this one?) mp3.com. Some of the more treasured
stuff in my mp3 collection.

~~~
yuvadam
Is it possible to find mp3.com-era stuff in some archive?

~~~
SCdF
I sent him an email yonks ago and he put up all his stuff for a week or so.
This was pre-fame so maybe that won't work anymore.. if you're really keen I'm
sure I could put up what I have somewhere (I managed to mangle some of the id3
tags unfortunately, I need to clean that up sometime, it's on a list...)

~~~
DanOWar
Could you kindly? I'd love to check out his songs. Bandcamp only hosts a
couple of his songs, but the archive.org page of his old music page shows
plenty more songs.
[[http://web.archive.org/web/20090728013239/http://www.mojang....](http://web.archive.org/web/20090728013239/http://www.mojang.com/music)]
I can't seem to find them anywhere, so if you do upload them, please let me
know!

~~~
SCdF
Heh, you have no contact information in your profile. Flick me an email (my
email is in my contact page) and if I get around to it I'll let you know.

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orangethirty
The amazing thing about this game is that I'm using it to teach my girls how
to program with it. Its a great tool because it allows them to see the value
in writing code by getting real results quickly.

The oldest one wanted to create pink wood to build herself a pink wood house.
Why? Well duh, its pink (her words). We quickly dug the source code and had a
pink wood block in a short time. She was so happy and learned about Java. A
double win in my book.

~~~
mweibel
How did you dig through the source code? Dissasembling or is it somewhere
available?

~~~
Energy
Use MCP <http://mcp.ocean-labs.de/index.php/MCP_Releases>

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mmanfrin
Sorry for my meta-snark, but:

This is an example of bad editing of the title. The original one was much more
descriptive and got to the core of what is interesting about this article. The
edit has made the title bland and uninformative.

~~~
manaskarekar
A controversial suggestion:

Mention a small indicator ('*' or '~') below or after a renamed title,
clicking on which will show a log of the original title, the name of the admin
who made the change and a footnote.

~~~
petercooper
The original title could also be in a "title" element on the A tag so that
hovering over it would show the original. (Not necessarily a better idea but
involves no interface changes which the YC folks seem not to like doing.)

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Erwin
The actual amounts were 1500 MM SEK revenue (236 MM USD), and a 640 MM SEK
(100 M USD) licensing fee/royalty to Notch, leaving that 580 MM (92 MM USD)
profit. So that's 92 million on top of 100 million in effectively dividends to
Notch (by pulling out that amount, he must be one of the Swedes paying most
tax!)

~~~
ido
I'll bet that at that level there are ways of paying less than the standard
~40-50% (or whatever the maximum tax rate is in Sweden) individual income tax.

E.g. I'll bet Bill Gates didn't personally pay (10s of) $billions in income
taxes either.

~~~
adventured
That's correct. Gates would have been paying capital gains (rather than income
taxes (except on his salary)), but has probably paid vast sums in taxes over
time just due to the scale. He has shifted a lot of wealth from Microsoft
stock holdings to his Cascade Investments. He holds roughly $20 billion in
Microsoft, and $40 to $45 billion in Cascade. Gates would have paid a huge
amount of capital gains taxes on that shift most likely (even if he managed to
shield some or most of it; just 5% * $20 billion is still a billion in taxes).

Just as a side reference, the dividend and capital gains rate in Sweden is
about 30%.

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dclowd9901
I still don't understand the appeal, which is obviously my problem, because
there is certainly appeal. I've given the game some time, and I consider
myself quite an avid gamer, but I just don't find it all that fun, interesting
or entertaining.

Can someone explain why this thing exploded how it did?

~~~
msg
I've been to the well many times on Minecraft.

On the family multiplayer server, I made sky houses out of giant mushrooms and
bone dust. I made a hockey arena in the snow. I laid roads out of gravel (wood
for bridges) that stretch for days of in-game time. There are waystations that
you reach just as night is falling. We made a monster trap that drops tons of
resources next to a powered railroad track, so you can get in a cart, whiz by
monsters, after which they burn in lava, then their byproducts fall down a
waterfall. I made an underwater dome out of glass.

My son loves this game and we play it together.

But there is also a special beauty when playing alone. You are marooned on a
planet the size of earth. You have the power to keep yourself safe by your own
efforts. You can explore vast caves to find treasure. You can light areas with
torches to create zones of safety. You can grow crops and breed animals to
feed yourself. You can look at the sunset through windows at your beach house,
then go to bed. This is all with the tragic realization that virtually no one
will appreciate your efforts (and in the game), so whatever experience or
meaning you derive from it is for you alone. The world is by turns bleak,
elegiac, beautiful.

Lately I've been playing hardcore mode, which gives you only one life to live
and deletes the world when you die. It is easy to starve, so the first few
days are scrambling just to get to a subsistent existence. It's hard even for
veterans, and it turns up all that tragic stuff to 11.

There is in-game programming that people have used to make adders and ROMs and
clocks. There are notes that you can use to make music (my doorbells play
Raiders of the Lost Ark). You can make secret doors that open with pistons.

And that's all in the base game! Modders have had an endless field day with
this game. It's now a game that contains other games, contains multitudes.

~~~
ricardobeat
Best description of Minecraft I've ever read. Watching a beautiful scene
unfold, alone, the urge to share the experience; knowing your structures won't
be worth anything but still doing it for fun or to share with friends; it's
something very unique. Few games generate the same kind of emotional
attachment that minecraft does.

------
mmastrac
Couldn't have happened to a greater bunch of indie gamers.

Also from the article here: "Markus Persson gave away his part, about 27
million, to the employees."

~~~
gebe
That was last year though. And it was 27 million SEK not USD.

edit: Just wanted to make it clear what the article said, it was not meant to
sound negative. It is truly an awesome and very kind gesture from Markus!

~~~
mmastrac
Thanks for the clarification - looks like 27MM SEK = ~4MM USD. Still not a bad
chunk of change.

------
blhack
Check out Mojang's next project: <http://0x10c.com/>

Minecraft-sized space game? Where you have to program your ship?

Yes please!

~~~
speg
Don't forget about scrolls!

<http://scrolls.com>

~~~
timdorr
And Cobalt: <http://playcobalt.com/>

~~~
kefs
..and if you haven't played it yet.. buy it now! it will not disappoint.

<https://minecraft.net/>

------
Zimahl
Wow, it just almost seems impossible that an indie game can be that
successful. It's unfortunate that it's such a rarity, I'm sure there are
hundreds of great games out there that languish.

If anyone wonders, the PC version is not the best seller (currently) for
Mojang. The XBox version sells more than the PC version and the Pocket Edition
(iOS, Android) sells more than both combined[1].

[1] <http://www.mojang.com/2013/01/christmas-stat-attack/>

~~~
arrrg
But, maybe surprisingly, the PC version has been selling at a pretty constant
pace for years now, between 8,000 and 12,000 copies per day. It never sold
much more than that per day (certain peaks excluded), so demand is not
shrinking, strangely enough.

Daily stats for the PC version here: <http://minecraft.net/stats>

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WestCoastJustin
Swedish to English translation:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fit24.idg.se%2F2.2275%2F1.490017%2Fmojangs-
monstervinst)

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peapicker
Java on the Desktop... in a biiig way.

My son loves it, especially building complicated redstone devices -- kind of a
form of in-game programming.

~~~
calinet6
It could have succeeded without being in Java... it's the game's design and
concepts that make it successful. Though to be fair, it helps make
multiplatform availability easier.

~~~
peapicker
I don't disagree... it was merely an observation. The largest-selling game
currently available just happens to run on desktop Java... and the consensus I
see recently around here is that Desktop Java is dead -- I like to point out
that millions of homes are actively using it, even if only to play a game that
really isn't dependent on what one would typically think of when they think
'desktop Java'.

Probably a few users of Eclipse out there, as well.

~~~
pyre
With the amount of money that enterprise has invested in Java, it'll probably
follow a similar trajectory to COBOL where "dead" isn't really dead.

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wtn
Why do you keep changing the title

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uncoder0
Congrats are in order for Notch and his team. Thanks for the great game and we
are all looking forward to 0x10c. :D

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sheraz
Is it just me or is the whole article in Swedish?

~~~
United857
Not just you. The Google translation is not that great, either.

To the OP, HN is not a Swedish language site.

~~~
Matti
It was submitted with the title "Minecraft brought in $92 million net in
2012". The linked URL is the original source and when it was submitted, there
were no translations available.

~~~
paulgb
Yet another example of mods removing context from a title

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chrislloyd
We've been tracking Minecraft's public sales over time: <http://minecraft-
sales.herokuapp.com>. That's _only_ for the PC version. We estimate that sales
of Minecraft across other platforms at least double that revenue.

------
evo_9
Gotta love these guys, great game too, something I play with the kids and we
all love it.

A great documentary you can download with ads on it from PirateBay, or buy a
full copy:

PB Free with Ads: <http://thepiratebay.se/search/story%20of%20mojang>

Purchase for $8 (US): <http://redux.com/minecraft-movie>

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keyboardP
Congratulations to the Minecraft team, well deserved. Hopefully this serves as
inspiration to other indie devs working on their projects.

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gala8y
Ooops, I paid twice - gift for son of my cousin (yay!) and for myself. How he
could go on an adventure and I would not follow? Also, trying to login while
he was offline felt so cheap.

After we started building together I tried to destroy our island in many ways,
including dying with handfuls of equipment, but am getting better fast.

P.S. Not that I didn't want to play MC in the first place...

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damian2000
My son plays several games online including Minecraft, League of Legends,
Clash of Clans and Lost Saga. Minecraft is the only one out of these which
doesn't have any pernicious "in app purchase" or online game credit system. I
totally admire the fact that Mojang haven't stooped to this level of trying to
gouge money from their customers pockets.

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ChuckMcM
Its gratifying to see Notch benefit from some really creative work. I do not
believe that Minecraft, as a building game, would not have been touched by any
of the 'major' studios had he proposed it to them directly. The games industry
is a bit crusty in that way.

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StacyC
My wife and I play Minecraft with our two sons and their friends, and we have
a blast with it. We have a family server running on an old Mac mini, a
whitelist for family and friends to jump on whenever they want. Minecraft is
absolutely brilliant.

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citricsquid
I remember when I bought Minecraft, at the time Minecraft had grossed less
than 100 Euros. I wish I could go back and tell myself that the game was going
to gross 1,500,000,000 SEK... hah.

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shurcooL
A hypothetical question I'd like to have some possible answer to:

What would've happened if Minecraft were made open source? How would that
alternative reality be different from our current one?

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caycep
One thing I wish I could do is import mesh models into Minecraft. Just so I
can write scientific papers featuring Minecraft visualizations and analysis ;)

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yesimahuman
And to think Mojang would have been known as a "lifestyle" business by many
people (no outside funding, etc.).

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klrr
Nice, hopefully they will invest in Reborn(A vaporware game told to be the new
Quake.).

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ChrisArchitect
Lego Group, 758 million in 2011. There's your target Minecraft.

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WaynesWorld
The awesome thing is that it is written in Java. All the Java haters (I'm
looking at you Ruby developers) wish it weren't so.

~~~
MattBearman
I'm a Ruby dev with no feelings about Java (never programmed in it).

I've gotta say these kind of posts piss me off. A programming language is a
tool, nothing more, nothing less. Certain tools are better than others for
certain jobs.

~~~
WaynesWorld
I feel the same. A programming language is just a tool. And yet your ilk have
been bashing it for way too long. Maybe not you, but a vocal group of Ruby
developers have.

I program in C,C++,Java,VBA,JavaScrip,PL-SQL and I've even dabbled in Ruby,
Perl and LISP. However, I still find it offensive that some noob Ruby
developers think somehow that they are the chosen ones and can bash other
developers without expecting any backlash.

~~~
illuminate
Preemptively "anti-fanboying" doesn't really raise the level of discourse.

