
Yes, we’re being bought by Microsoft - jordanmessina
https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/
======
gokhan
For people without children, here are some quick notes on the situation in
kiddieland:

\- My son is 7. We bought iPad edition first, shelled some more for PC edition
last month, and I'm sure I'll be forced to buy more in the future if MS puts a
price tag on it.

\- I spend a fair amount of time during weekends for deciphering the modding
world, trying to find something called CraftBukkit, learning to mod, finding
launchers, finding maps shown on some Youtube video etc. because the son is
mad about it. BUT, he's spending hours trying to learn JS (ScriptCraft on
Bukkit) just to make an exploding arrow. I truly believe this is analogous to
C64 days back then.

\- School started today, he's moved to another school this year. The first
thing he asked to his news friends was about Minecraft. Then he advertised how
PC version is superior to the one on iPad.

\- My 2 yo daughter knows what Minecraft is, tells she'll play Minecraft when
she grows up.

\- While we were shopping for school supplies last week, saw two people asking
for Minecraft licensed school bags for their kids.

\- We live in Turkey.

~~~
sdegutis
My children (ages 6 through 10) had a similar experience to what you described
in your comment.

It pretty much sums up why we've banned Minecraft from our house.

EDIT, To clarify:

I fully encourage them to learn to code. We let them use Scratch and write
love2d games.

I've banned it from our house because we want them to build real things that
they can actually use. We want them to learn how to build furniture and tree
houses and real circuits.

I banned it because we want them to live in the real world.

EDIT 2:

Don't be shy, downvote me if you disagree. It helps me to know just how far
off my perspective on life is from that of the average HN visitor. Which in
turns helps me to know whether I should just reading/writing comments.

~~~
radicaledward
A few scattered thoughts about the parent comment's statements:

1) Your first edit makes it sound like you value hardware over software. I
don't think that is your intent, but it confused me for a bit.

2) The implied definition of "the real world" scares me. It seems to be a
common cultural thread. It creates instances like this, where parents dismiss
interactions in video games as less real than those in flesh and blood. But,
in its extremes, it also creates a culture where threatening someone on social
media or in game chat is ok, because "it is not real". It creates a weird
dichotomy where making a new friend at a bar is somehow better than making a
friend online. A lot of pop culture media is currently struggling with the
narrow pre-internet definition of the real world. I think that this is going
to be an ongoing issue as our lives become more digital.

3) Based on your other comments below, it sounds like, if you had been my
parents, you would have banned everything I loved for my entire childhood. My
childhood was defined by a series of obsessions up until I graduated high
school. A large portion of my early life can be summed up by Legos, Power
Rangers, GI Joe, Sonic the Hedgehog, Scooby Doo, Dragon Ball Z, anime, and
live theater (think Shakespeare). None of those things have any direct real
world application, but they did give me a series of common frameworks for
social interaction. "Oh you liked Scooby Doo when you were a kid? Me too!"

4) Based on Edit 2, I would downvote you, but I don't think that is the
purpose of downvoting. I don't favor downvoting items that are adding to a
discussion just because I disagree with them. Instead downvotes should be
reserved for posts that are off topic (to the point of attempting to derail a
discussion), incendiary, etc.

~~~
sdegutis
1) It's more of a distinction between the virtual world and the physical
world. My household values the physical world much more. Call me old-
fashioned, but I take my notes on a pen and pocket notebook, rather than an
iPhone or text editor or todo-app.

2) I used that phrase out of habit. I meant the physical world as opposed to
the virtual world. But even though they're both "real", there are very
important differences.

3) Yeah, I probably would have.

4) The fact that there is no official clear purpose for downvoting implies
it's up to the community to decide. Which is actually a really cool social
experiment on their end, but in practice it's just utterly stupid, and I'm
really sick of it.

~~~
DanBC
You deny your children's autonomy because you wish to impose your values on
them.

I find that deeply disturbing.

Your choice to ban a fun relaxing game because your children enjoyed it is as
weird to me as people who ban rock music because SATANIC SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES
or people who ban Elvis Presley because JUNGLE MUSIC or the Scottish cult who
banned calculators not because they wanted to improve mental math but because
SATAN TALKS TO YOU THROUGH SCREENS.

Children have obsessions - see lists of dinosaurs for one example. And of
course they're competive - "zx spectrum is much better than vic 20". It's
probably a good idea to remind them that they're not infallible and to
encourage a few other interests.

But, your children your choice, I guess.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
My wife and I are planning to have children soon. We have thought about this
heavily and have considered a non-digital household at least until they are 9
or 10 specifically so we can encourage them to express their individuality.
This isn't an easy choice: it is much easier to entertain a kid with an iPad
than with a box of Lego's.

My problem isn't so much that digital devices can't be used creatively (we
know they can), just that they are too easy for kids to slip into deep passive
consumption modes (like say TV).

~~~
wiredfool
I'll just point out that a large percentage of my kids' screen time is taken
up using the iPads to look up lego instructions online.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That is reassuring. I'm really ok with them having access after early
childhood.

------
jacquesm
That's 2.5 Instagrams, or 0.33 Nokias. What do you feel, realistic, too much,
too little?

Personally I feel this makes (much) more sense than instagram, these guys have
a very loyal following, a tremendously strong product and actually make money.

Congratulations to everybody on the selling side in this deal, too bad it had
to be Microsoft but with amounts like that there are not too many companies on
the acquiring side.

Does anyone know if this was stock / cash / a mix?

edit: this Microsoft - Mojang deal will do more to get people into (games)
programming than a million $ adspend by codecademy would

edit2: right now (16:43 my time) microjang.com is still free

Wonder how long it will take before that is a registered domain.

edit: microjang.com is now no longer free.

    
    
       Registrant:
          Microjang Development (DR is US)
          PO Box 100439
          NY, NY 10163-4668
          US (UNITED STATES)

~~~
_delirium
It feels pretty reasonable to me, unless you think that it's a flash-in-a-pan
that will decline fairly soon. If you think it's a franchise brand that will
either hold steady or grow, then it's not really a huge purchase price. Mojang
has profits of somewhere around $100-150m on revenues of $300-400m, so this
values them at 15-25x profits, or 6-9x revenues, both of which are lower than
most recent major tech purchases (e.g. Google paid something like 10-12x
revenues for Nest). Heck, a 15-25 P/E ratio isn't even out-of-line for an
established tech company without huge growth expectations (Intel and Microsoft
both trade around 20).

The terms seem pretty generous, though, a completely clean buyout with no
requirement that the principals stay for even a little bit.

~~~
jacquesm
Is it a cash deal or a stock deal or both? The release mentions 'dollars'
which makes it seem this is an all cash deal. That would be quite something,
but since there is no lock-up for the founders it makes good sense that it
would be just a cash deal.

~~~
jychang
For Microsoft stock?

I think it doesn't matter that much. Microsoft stock is notoriously stable for
tech stocks, so the difference between an all cash deal and an all stock deal
wouldn't be too big after, say, a year or something.

Notch also probably wasn't too pressured to make the sale, so the terms would
be understandably in his favor.

~~~
jacquesm
I think it would matter a great deal.

If an opportunity to re-invest came along in that window then you'd miss out,
microsoft stock is relatively stable but has seen both 'up', 'down' and
'neutral' years where up and down were on the order of 20 to 30%.

On top of that, cash is king, simply put: there is absolutely no uncertainty
at all.

Given the option between x in cash and x in stock or a mix or stock and cash
you should _always_ go for the cash.

And something a bit less than x is probably still preferable in cash.

~~~
dannypgh
Yes, heaven forbid the 2.5B drops down to 1.75B. They'll have to move to the
poor house, for sure.

~~~
jacquesm
Let me give you a hint: if you ever are in the position to do a major exit get
yourself a tax lawyer. Or you indeed might find yourself in the poorhouse
after all.

------
scrollaway
There goes all hope of Minecraft being released as open source.

There was a blog post from several years ago from Notch saying that after he
made enough money with the game, he would "probably clean it up and release it
as open source". Oh well.

Instead now we have the DMCA-infighting and an atrocious modding community
that hosts their binaries on shady file upload sites, their "project page" in
a forum thread, make their measly money from adfly-like sites and have never
heard of Github.

So much wasted potential. Anyhow, congratulations Microsoft.

~~~
spain
To be honest, despite what Notch said _several years ago_ I don't think it was
ever well on its way to being open-sourced. Any hope that he would "clean it
up" vanished when he lost interest in taking active part in development and
passed it on. Not to mention that they've been working on a public modding API
for years that never took off.

> Instead now we have the DMCA-infighting and an atrocious modding community
> that hosts their source code on shady file upload sites, make their measly
> money from adfly-like sites and have never heard of Github.

Couldn't agree more, but it's more of a consequence of most modders being new
and inexperienced developers and kids. Some of the bigger and more
professional modding projects like Bukkit are already hosted on GitHub [0], so
I wouldn't blame it on just being closed source. It's not guaranteed that it
would be that much better, though it might be because that way a lot more
existing developers might feel like contributing.

[0] [https://github.com/Bukkit/Bukkit](https://github.com/Bukkit/Bukkit)

~~~
scrollaway
Bukkit is possibly the only shred of sanity in the Minecraft world. I know its
original developer (Nathan Adams) and he is absolutely top-notch (no pun
intended) and deserves every bit of success he had with Bukkit and later with
Mojang - he now works there.

So no, bukkit isn't the problem. The problem is all the bukkit mods, and the
situation between bukkit and mojang. Urgh.

------
rcamera
I have been trying to understand why Microsoft would buy Minecraft. Even
though Minecraft is really important, and wildly successful, but the price tag
for a game studio with one successful game is rather odd, considering it is
unlikely Minecraft will sell millions of copies more (it is already the most
sold game ever made). This is a long shot, but it may explain it:

If Microsoft is trying to build its own Steam competitor (which given Valve's
current strategy to make Linux an alternative gaming platform to Windows,
makes sense), then Minecraft is the perfect acquisition to start it up, for a
number of reasons. It is the best selling video game of all time, with over 15
million copies sold for the PC (54 million copies across all platforms), and
it has over 100 million accounts registered. It is possibly the only
successful indie game that has never integrated with Steam, and that has a
very young userbase (based on my experience) which, given their ages, probably
isn't part of Steam's userbase. All of these aspects make it a great strategic
acquisition if Microsoft wants to make a new and successful game marketplace
and platform for Windows.

Anyone else has any other idea why the 2.5 billion price tag?

~~~
ryandvm
Look at what Microsoft was able to do with Bungie. They took Bungie, who was
effectively a one-hit shop, and milked the Halo IP for the better part of 10
years. Hell, they were centimeters from spinning it into a Hollywood
blockbuster.

This is the exact same play and frankly, they're pretty good at it. They're
going to turn the Minecraft franchise into a Xbox/Windows exclusive. Obviously
that's going to piss off a lot of folks, but it's still going to result in a
ton of XBox sales - at least as many as Halo was responsible for. They'll
iterate on this for the next 10 years and my guess is they'll do it quite
successfully.

~~~
rcamera
The thing is that what makes Minecraft strong is its community, unlike Halo.
You won't see Minecraft succeeding at being Windows exclusive, or by making
Minecraft 2, 3 or 4. There is a plethora of community mods made and being made
for MC, you won't see that happening for any sequel, not at the same level.

~~~
ryandvm
I don't think that's true - at least not for children.

My kids are fairly young, but both of them play Minecraft on the Xbox purely
for the creative outlet. They've only played a few times with other kids on
Xbox live.

I suspect as they grow older they'll be more interested in online multiplayer.
However, like most parents, I haven't figured out how to let that happen and
still shelter them from the frothing insanity I used to regularly encounter
when I'd play Halo back in the day.

~~~
gknoy
Private servers, with whitelists. Because the other players are not anonymous,
they're less likely to behave poorly. As the admin, you can ban them, and
either call their parents or let your kids deliver the news in person, much as
you could if someone came over and started breaking things in person on a play
date.

""" Hi, this is Alice's dad. Mal has been really mean to her when playing on
our Minecraft server. It's a shared creative world that Alice, her friends,
and cousins have been cooperating to build a city in together. Mal decided it
would be fun to destroy most of the city, and cover the rest of it in lava.

This really Alice's feelings, as she and the others have spent a long time
building together.

Unless Mal will apologize to Alice and the rest of their friends, we aren't
willing to let Mal play with us this way. """

There's probably a better way to give the "your kid's being a jerk to my kid"
than what I came up with off the top of my head, of course. I suspect that the
rest of your kids' peers would swiftly ostracize griefers, as well.

~~~
ryandvm
Great idea. Thanks!

------
mattdotc
Very peculiar seeing this news after Notch was so critical of the OculusVR
sale to Facebook.

Seeing as I bought my premium Minecraft account on 8/1/2010, I must be due
some sort of equity for supporting him at such an early stage.

edit: Oh, and what do you think will become of the old alpha/beta/release
builds? I'm thinking about going ahead and archiving them all in case access
to them is revoked. Not sure if I'm being too paranoid, but I much preferred
the simpler versions without all the distractions like XP, hunger, and those
weird tall black guys.

~~~
michaelt

      Very peculiar seeing this news after Notch was so 
      critical of the OculusVR sale to Facebook.
    

Well, a lot of the criticism of the Oculus sale was because the product seemed
so at odds with Facebook's main products and lines of revenue.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has the xbox and has been publishing games since
at least the 1990s, maybe the 1980s?

~~~
tellarin
Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.00 is from 1982. It's the oldest I know about.

Even QBasic Gorillas is from 1991, and published by IBM. Not Microsoft.

------
TillE
> He’s decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of
> such global significance

> The founders: Notch, Carl, and Jakob are leaving

Yeah, that's exactly what I suspected when the rumors started. Markus doesn't
really want to run a company, so he's cashing out and doing his own thing.
Good on him.

~~~
norswap
What I wonder is what Carl and Jeb are going to do though. Do those three have
another collective project? Or is it all sunny beaches and martinis? Or a
Carl/Jeb project while Notch tinkers away?

~~~
kissickas
Jakob =/= Jens

[http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Jakob_Pors%C3%A9r](http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Jakob_Pors%C3%A9r)

[http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Jens_Bergensten](http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Jens_Bergensten)

~~~
norswap
Haha, I just realized this and came back to see if someone had corrected the
mistake. Sure enough :)

------
cptskippy
I could see this being a huge play for young developers by Microsoft. They
have been positioning themselves as a platform agnostic services provider,
investing in or purchasing cross platform development frameworks, and
opensourcing a lot of their technologies (e.g. C#, .NET, Rosetta, OWIN). Now
all they need are developers to adopt their technologies.

Minecraft has a huge modding community and a lot of first time coders are
getting into the scene because they love Minecraft. Imagine Microsoft ports
Minecraft to C# or possibly C while maintaining full support for all existing
platforms. Then go about developing a great API/SDK for modders and making it
incredibly easy for anyone to download Visual Studio and the Minecraft SDK.

They just introduced an entire generation of developers to MS technology.

~~~
Rapzid
Don't forget ASP.NET vNEXT project will run their testing suite against mono
as well:)

I made a similar comment. Confirmation bias tells me your on the ball :)

------
joemaller1
I'm trying, but I just don't see any good coming of this. The comments from
Mojang seem incredibly naive, everything is going to change.

First people to make money on this will be lawyers. There's going to be a
blizzard of copyright takedown notices going out to every unlicensed (most
all) Minecraft merchandise and spinoffs. The offline fan ecosystem is going to
get slaughtered.

Mostly I'm just sad for all the kids. They love Minecraft, and this won't end
well.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
Same thing was said when Facebook acquired Oculus Rift. We have yet to see the
horrible "downfall" and "messing around" with Oculus by Facebook. I think
sometimes people are exaggerating the perceived damage acquisitions cause.

~~~
tensor
They haven't even shipped a product. It's way too early to tell how hands off
Facebook is going to be.

------
danschuller
I think this just demonstrates the power of the internet/social networks and
an increasingly interconnected world.

Notch creates a small game on his own, improving on Infiniminer, it catches
the imagination of an entire generation. Without the internet and social
networks this would have never happened. Without this game having a
multiplayer mode added (which happened fairly early on) it wouldn't have
happened. I wonder what it would be like it Doom was first released into a
similar environment but maybe it's a little less universal.

People in their bedrooms recording themselves playing video games speak as
loudly, or more loudly than traditional media. PewDiePie has 30 million
subscribers - he can make any game just with a mention.

It's interesting now our networks are concentrating and distributing
influence, power and wealth. Nothing I could have predicted and I'll enjoy
seeing what comes next.

------
DanBC
Be interesting to see how MS deal with YouTubers.

Shutting down Etho, Yogscast, etc is likely to lead to hordes of 13 year olds
_hating_ MS for ever.

Maybe there'll be an MVP programme for YouTubers? </s>

I just hope MS can sort out modding: a sane mod interface would make many
people very happy.

~~~
Mithaldu
Why would this lead to those channels shutting down? Did i miss something in
the posts?

~~~
DSMan195276
I presume the assumption is that with Microsoft now owning Minecraft (and
presumably the copyright over it, among other things), they could leverage
that to get videos of Minecraft pulled off of Youtube.

Personally I doubt it extremely, but you never know.

~~~
Someone1234
Microsoft hasn't done that with any of their other properties in the gaming
division. Now Nintendo has quite a few times.

------
malloreon
That Mojang is worth 62.5% of Star Wars is a testament both to Minecraft's
value and how much Lucas destroyed Star Wars in the last 20 years.

------
worklogin
> There’s no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac,
> Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions of Minecraft
> to stop. Of course, Microsoft can’t make decisions for other companies or
> predict the choices that they might make in the future.

Linux is absent, but I wonder if they lump that in with "PC".

------
diltonm
I'd feel much better if they would clarify the term PC. As a long time Linux
user and Minecraft fan; I'd hope the Linux client continues to thrive similar
to the way the Skype client has after the Microsoft acquisition. The fact that
the list uses the term PC instead of spelling out "Windows,Linux,etc." worries
me some.

~~~
morganvachon
Unless Microsoft moves the game away from Java to some other language, I don't
see how that would happen. The "Linux client" is just the raw .jar that is
wrapped by the Minecraft.exe Windows executable. They both pull down the same
assets and Java bits and pieces before running the main process.

~~~
Aaron1011
I'm worried about that too - the real issues is the platform-specific
"natives" folder.

~~~
hornetblack
That's mostly lwjgl. So they would need to move away from that before that
goes away.

------
Joona
Holy crap, 2.5 BILLION? And on top of that Notch and Jakob (and Carl) are
leaving? I understand Notch's decision (as he has been doing his own thing),
but I did not imagine Jakob or Carl leaving.

------
calewis
Seems to me like the most sensible tech purchase in a while, PE ratio is a bit
more normal and it has massive and sustained traction amongst young people. It
remains to be seem if M$FT will fuck it up, but that's a different question.

------
tdicola
The thing I can't wait to see is how Microsoft intends to recoup the cost in
FY2015 like they say they will. From what I read Mojang only made ~$300
million off Minecraft last year, so where is the other $2.2 billion going to
come from in the next 9 months? I will be surprised if there isn't a big
write-down on this purchase come July.

------
DigitalSea
Worse kept secret ever.Good for Notch and everyone else though, a well-
deserved cash out and completely understandable. Notch never striked me as a
guy who wanted to run a big company like Mojang in the first place.

------
tyho
>What about the other editions of Minecraft? Will they stop being developed?

>There’s no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox
360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions of Minecraft to stop.

So what is happening to the Linux edition that has been fully supported since
day 1?

~~~
Joona
So Linux is not PC anymore?

~~~
seren
In a Microsoft press release, you have some rights to be circumspect on how
'PC' should be interpreted.

------
outside1234
One of the things you need to understand about these deals, and deals like it
(Nokia), is that Microsoft is using trapped overseas cash to make these
acquisitions.

(If they repatriated this cash to the US instead they would lose something
like 40% of it to taxes)

Its a good time to be a foreign (to the US) company.

------
shmerl
TL;DR: We don't know Microsoft's plans. But don't worry, everything will be
fine.

Yeah, right. It's MS we are talking about. MS don't even hide their mindset
here:

[http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2014/sept14/09-15n...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2014/sept14/09-15news.aspx)

 _> Minecraft fans are loyal, with nearly 90 percent of paid customers on the
PC having signed in within the past 12 months._

That's MS for you. DRM to be expected.

~~~
Thimothy
Minecraft has DRM. You have to register with Mojang and enter your account in
the game to play.

------
bru
> Microsoft acquired Mojang for a smooth 2.5 BILLION dollars.

Impressive.

I hope that Microsoft won't disrupt Minecraft's development (e.g. like they
did with Skype, making Linux a third-rate platform - which should not happen
since Minecraft's coded in Java).

~~~
talideon
I'm just waiting for them to announce a rewrite in C#.

~~~
weavie
Given how similar the two languages are, I wonder how hard it would be to
automate such a translation?

~~~
ygra
On a _language_ level, not that hard (though the result wouldn't be idiomatic
in a lot of places). But on a library and API level ... Either you move
everything that uses the stdlib to your own standard library excerpt that you
maintain for both languages to be identical. Or you find compatible
implementations in the other language (or translate Apache Harmony to C# as
well). Or you'll deal with all the things that your program could call and
emit code that does the same thing in the target language, with more code
where standard library functionality differs slightly.

And then there is the problem of external libraries and their APIs. Either
translate them as well, or find API-compatible replacements, or find
replacements and handle the API differences yourself.

Actually, it comes down to the same thing either way, when considering the
standard library just as _a_ library, among the others.

------
p1mrx
With $2.5 billion, you could buy 3 blocks of gold:

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+cubic+meter+of+gold](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+cubic+meter+of+gold)
== $765 million.

------
jccalhoun
One thing that needs some explanation is the fact that because Minecraft
predates Mojang, at one point Mojang was only licensing the Minecraft
trademark from Notch (even though Notch was the majority owner of Mojang). (If
you look at the bottom of minecraft.net you will see: "Mojang © 2009-2014.
"Minecraft" is a trademark of Notch Development AB")

I hope that MS's lawyers were smart enough to make sure they were actually
buying Minecraft and not just a license...

~~~
seanflyon
I'm sure they were smart enough to know what they were buying and I assume
they bought "Minecraft" as well Mojang.

------
programminggeek
$2.5 billion and the founders get to walk. That is impressive. No golden
handcuffs.

------
aaronbasssett
Coming soon, Minecraft 2.0! Exclusive to Xbox One.

~~~
jacquesm
That's my guess too. Or at least, released first on Xbox.

~~~
saalweachter
I'd package it for free on Microsoft platforms - the solitaire of the twenty-
first century - and keep selling it on other platforms at the current rate.

------
centizen
Well, this will be an interesting ride. At least now Notch will have enough
time and money to fund that Psychonauts sequel!

------
citricsquid
A copy of the blog post if the site is down:
[https://archive.today/TbJQh](https://archive.today/TbJQh)

Xbox announcement: [http://news.xbox.com/2014/09/games-minecraft-to-join-
microso...](http://news.xbox.com/2014/09/games-minecraft-to-join-microsoft)

~~~
Joona
And an image mirror (credit to @duncangeere on Twitter):
[http://i.imgur.com/Vcyx0Yx.png](http://i.imgur.com/Vcyx0Yx.png)

------
spacecadet
Notch went from having trouble with Paypal over a poultry $750k to being a
Billionaire. That's awesome.

~~~
redstripe
How did he run afowl of paypal?

~~~
merrua
paypal tend to be weird

~~~
spacecadet
I've used PayPal for many years with no problems. While I don't defend what
they did to Notch- Any bank would have.

------
Pyrodogg
Well, there goes a ton of support for the current Forge-related modding
community.

"Take care everybody. rm -rf .minecraft MS free for 20 years. Not starting
now!" [https://twitter.com/minecraftcpw](https://twitter.com/minecraftcpw)

------
worklogin
He's a bit disingenuous.

Don't care about the money at all? Open-source it and let it thrive.

Care about the money a bit, but really want the game to survive? Want the
community to have faith in its future? Sell it to Valve for $25m or something
on the condition that an API gets built. If it's worth a fraction of its sell
price, Valve would have jumped on it.

But instead, it got sold to a company devoted to closed source software and
killing its game purchases. And Notch got a fat check for it.

Listen, I can't judge him, and I won't. The game is great, and he built it.
But every action in this says it's about money, while none of it shows a care
for the game. We'll see how it pans out, but history tells us to be
suspicious.

------
alyandon
I can't see this being a good thing for anyone that cares about Minecraft at
all. I wonder how long it'll be before:

1) The older Minecraft binaries suddenly become unavailable for download which
will effectively kill many launchers, mods and modpacks

1a) Microsoft aggressively uses DMCA notices to kill off the modding community
when the modding community tries to work around #1 by hosting the binaries
themselves

2) Microsoft adds unnecessary integration with the win32 API via JNI to
Minecraft in order to make it Windows-only despite the fact Minecraft is
written in Java

2a) More aggressive DMCA usage to kill off the community attempting to work-
around #2

Those are just off the top of my head but I'm sure I can come up with more not
too far-fetched scenarios.

~~~
Already__Taken
MS have open projects and code up on github now. I know it's inconsequential
but the old rules don't quite apply.

------
octo_t
I think the most significant part is that the founders at Mojang are leaving:

> The founders: Notch, Carl, and Jakob are leaving. We don’t know what they’re
> planning. It won’t be Minecraft-related but it will probably be cool.

------
dageshi
They'll probably create a market. Right now mods/skins are for the most part
being given away for free. I think the obvious thing to do is allow mod
creators to sell at a profit if they wish.

------
smoyer
Is this the first product Microsoft will own that's written in Java? They
support it on Azure but I'm not aware of them selling a software product
that's based on Java.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Interesting, I know it was released on PS4 and Xbox One. I imagine it was re-
written in C++ or, at least, a non-Java language. Porting from Xbox to PC
seems trivial if Mojang wants to replace their Java version. My guess is that
there will be a new Windows version with a sane mod system and written in C#
or C++ soon as MS's first hand-out to fans. The broken mod system and the
performance issues need to be addressed and getting off Java is the best way
to do this.

~~~
makomk
The console/mobile ports were a C++ rewrite, I think. The mobile version and
previous-generation console releases definitely were.

------
mindstab
Ran some math with friends. Minecraft is from 2009, so it's 5 years old.
[https://minecraft.net/stats](https://minecraft.net/stats) says it's sold ~16M
pc and mac copies and the front page says at $27. That's about $432M in its
entire life [assuming everyone paid full price, which they didn't, there have
been loads of deals over the years]. Now that doesn't take into account mobile
and console. For android the $7 pocket version is reporting 5M which is $35M.
I don't have numbers for iOS and console but I can't really imagine they come
close to PC and Mac. And as my friend reminded "Well I'm one if those 5m and I
paid $0.10 [for the android version]"

I have a hard time understanding where they get the $2.5B valuation
considering its revenues. Another friend thought advertising: " heck, even
brand recognition - if they put "Microsoft Minecraft" on the title, I'm sure
that's comparable to a few superbowl ads &tc"

So we ran that math.

"the average cost of a 30-second advertisement was around $4 million" \-
wikipedia [
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_advertising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_advertising)
] "Super Bowl XLV, played in 2011, became the most-watched American television
program in history with an average audience of 111 million viewers " \-
wikipedia. 16.7M people have bought minecraft [mincraft.com/stats pc and mac]
+ 5M for android. That's still a fraction of a super bowl ad (like 16%) or
~$670,000 value in super bowl advertising terms. Except I suspect anyone
actually in advertising would say the value of a finely crafted 30 second
video advert massively beats your company name under a game title.

Regardless of quibbles, the advertising potential seems off by many orders of
magnitude. also as was mentioned: "Is brand recognition something ms has a
problem with?"

So where is the $2.5B coming from? Especially when the gamesutra article [
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/225611/Minecraft_studio_M...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/225611/Minecraft_studio_Mojang_has_been_bought_by_Microsoft_for_25B.php)
] has them saying they think they can recoup the full value in 1 year!

~~~
JacobAldridge
Mojang reported profits last financial year of $128 million (approx, allowing
for conversion rates to USD).

Microsoft is trading today on a P/E multiple of 17.6.

That means, in super simplistic terms, that $128 million in extra profit
increases Microsoft's market capitalisation by ($128 x 17.6 =) $2.2528
Billion.

Given those profit figures are 6 months old, and the negotiating team would
have access to current data, $2.5B is about on the money. Recoup full value !=
recoup the $2.5B in profit.

------
maljx
Personal statement by notch - [http://notch.net/2014/09/im-leaving-
mojang/](http://notch.net/2014/09/im-leaving-mojang/)

------
LeicaLatte
Mojang's new roadmap starting next sprint -

Minecraft kart racer, brawler, side scroller, kinect game, store.minecraft,
themed COD maps, Forza tracks, minecraft 2 pre-order beta access

~~~
MartinCron
I know you're joking, but if anything could get kinect to take off, it might
be a really great Minecraft implementation.

~~~
LeicaLatte
Agreed

------
tehwebguy
No one has mentioned merch or licensing yet here.

I would offer an educated guess that Minecraft is/was the single most valuable
indie game IP outside of actual game sales.

------
wiremine
I like this quote from Gruber:

"It’s almost impossible to overstate just how big a deal Minecraft is for my
son and his friends." [1]

My son is 8, and he and his friends are CONSUMED by the game. I wonder how
Microsoft is going to leverage this fact for reaching new users...

[1]
[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/07/25/minecraft](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/07/25/minecraft)

------
aabdocker
> The founders: Notch, Carl, and Jakob are leaving. We don’t know what they’re
> planning. It won’t be Minecraft-related but it will probably be cool.

------
netcraft
I look forward to a post from MS about their plans. I still believe that with
a proper modding API minecraft could quadruple its current impact.

------
georgehaake
Very interesting that my 8 and 10 year old sons two weeks ago declared
Minecraft boring after 3-4 years of all that they could consume play.

------
rurounijones
Ok, everyone here is bashing Microsoft and making doom and gloom predictions
but let us think about what the possible benefits could be:

* A bigger development team that could optimise and speed development of minecraft improvements

* Maybe actually make an official, well-designed, modding API.

I agree that the scope for them screwing it up is huge, but lets try to think
at least a little bit positive.

------
blueskin_
>There’s no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox
360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions of Minecraft to stop.
Of course, Microsoft can’t make decisions for other companies or predict the
choices that they might make in the future.

Translation: MS hasn't killed them yet, but probably will soon.

~~~
n09n
Just like they killed Skype and Office on iOS and Android?

~~~
tensor
Most opinion seems to be that Skype has consistently gotten worse after the
takeover.

~~~
n09n
That's subjective. An objective fact is that it still exists on non-MS
platforms, it's interoperable across platforms, and there hasn't been a "Skype
2" to replace it on MS platforms only. If that same holds true for Minecraft,
that allays most of the largest fears people have.

------
xedarius
I find it amazing that there wasn't a clause tying Notch and the other
founders to the company, at least for a transitional period. Usually when you
buy a games company it isn't the product you buy so much it's the creative
talent. But to counter my own argument, few games companies have a product as
strong as Mojang.

~~~
Havvy
Notch and the founders haven't been driving Minecraft for awhile now. They
hired from the community, and basically let them run things. And really, Notch
doesn't have much creative talent w.r.t to content. He did build a nice
framework though.

------
turshija
I hope they won't ditch cross-platform and go for Windows + Xbox only. Or try
to make "Minecraft 2". Damn

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
With Microsoft, I think Minecraft 2 is a given. You didn't expect Disney to
NOT release another Star Wars trilogy after acquiring the franchise from
Lucas, did you?

~~~
Avshalom
To be fair Lucas had been planning on the third trilogy since Empire Strikes
Back.

------
illumen
Ludumdare is bigger than Y combinator now.

------
Immortalin
I hope that a clr port of minecraft would be out soon. Modding minecraft with
java is not an option for me as it is way too verbose. I am trying to use
clojure but getting it to work with the gradlew custom buildscripts used by
minecraft forge is very painful. Modding minecraft with F# sounds fun....

------
keypusher
Not clear to me exactly what Microsoft is buying here. As far as I know the
development studio Mojang is tiny, maybe a few dozen people. Minecraft itself
has a huge community, and made a lot of money, but it's not clear how
Microsoft leverages that into anything other than goodwill.

------
Pxtl
So, MineCraft 2 will be an X-Box/Win8 tablet exclusive made by a AAA
development studio, I suppose.

------
knd775
This makes me sad. I see that there is the potential for good to come from
this, I don't think it will happen. At least Jeb is staying. There might have
been some pretty big problems for Minecraft if he didn't stay.

------
stickhandle
I keep reading the lego comparisons but i think that's staying a little too
inside the box. Block for block, if you will. A better comparison is
"Minecraft is the digital equivalent of playing in the sandbox".

------
JoeAltmaier
Perhaps Microsoft has a similar project in the works, and instead of fighting
over IP and copyright, they just bought the company. Like Intel or Cisco
buying innovators to avoid patent litigation.

~~~
knd775
I very much doubt it. The two companies have been working closely on the Xbox
version. I don't think for a second that Microsoft has any intention of making
a game similar to Minecraft.

~~~
toupeira
Well, Project Spark certainly looks at least inspired by Minecraft.

~~~
knd775
Have you used Project Spark? I don't think it was.

~~~
_random_
Can you elaborate: better/worth? To me it seems impressive, the way remixes
remind git forks etc.

------
pinaceae
Did Minecraft ever take on any VC money? I think not, so this 2.5b is very,
very different than the stuff you see here. Not comparable to Instagram in net
profit for the founders.

~~~
merrua
2.5B is a lot of money anyway. But your right. I dont think you need to half
it for the founders (+company people)

------
easytiger
>There’s no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox
360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android

Confirmation that the Linux version has been killed then

~~~
jiggy2011
There never was a Linux "version" , it is built entirely in Java.

~~~
easytiger
just because it is java doesn't mean there isn't critical code in there to
make it work on Linux. Filepath code for instance is often platform specific
in java.

~~~
jiggy2011
It's pretty straight forward to write platform agnostic filepaths in java.
More likely Linux is just a subset of "PC" here or this press release was
hastily written.

~~~
easytiger
I think considering that was something most people were worried about before
the purchase it would have been a pertinent time to clarify.

~~~
jiggy2011
Linux installs are unlikely to be more than a couple of percent of their
customers. Even so I doubt that they would have a reason to ditch Linux
support and keep up support on other platforms unless there was a technical
reason to do so.

~~~
modsequalfags
Are you for real? What platform do people use to host the servers?

------
KhalilK
First thing to do: ditch Java; port the game to C#.

~~~
_random_
That would be awesome! But I doubt they would do it, some people might become
unhappy and also it means extra costs.

------
talmand
All I can say is that my daughters are so lucky that Games for Windows Live is
dead and won't be integrated into Minecraft.

------
neves
Hope they don't decide to bundle it with Windows. My kids will have zero
productivity for their whole life.

~~~
psykovsky
Install some *nix flavour on their computers and problem(s) solved....

------
Florin_Andrei
> _Everything is going to be OK._

Yeah, with $2.5 bil in the bank, I'm sure it will.

------
tomrod
More power to you, Mojang employees, and may you see many happy returns.

------
betabob
Think Microsoft-VR.

Billions in VR-device/console sales secured via platform exclusivity. See
Halo(Bungie)/Xbox etc. Games dictate console sales.

Minecraft will actually be a lot more effective. Massively popular among every
demographic. Smart move and good timing.

Hats off to New-Microsoft.

------
drivingmenuts
Well, it was fun while it was lasted. Being on OS X, I'm not going to pretend
that Microsoft will support us for any longer than they have to.

------
LERobot
The skype effect is near

------
eric_cc
Minecraft 2: now with Micro-transactions, Achievements and More!!

~~~
insertnickname
Minecraft already has achievements.

~~~
eric_cc
Gross

~~~
recursive
Don't worry, you can ignore them.

------
Fastidious
Next steps:

\- Replace Mojang/Minecraft account with a Microsoft Account, use it to login

\- Minecraft installer comes with Bing

\- Minecraft ported to C#, Java version discontinued. Name changed to
Microsoft Minecraft 1.0

\- Minecraft servers can only be run in Azure, legally

~~~
romanovcode
>Minecraft servers can only be run in Azure, legally

I wouldn't mind if it would use Azure Cloud CPU farms for some bad-ass physics
and other cool stuff. Not very likely though.

