
Minecraft sales cross 600k mark - bjonathan
http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp
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sammcd
I think it is very important to note that Notch (the creator) has developed
many other games before minecraft. Just check out is resume:

<http://www.mojang.com/notch/>

I think this is just more evidence that over-night success, takes lots of
prior work.

~~~
MortenK
Agreed, he has the experience needed to make an "over-night success". His
Mensa membership and thereby accompanying massive brain doesn't hurt either.

~~~
notphilatall
Is mensa generally respected? I've always figured it was a pseudo-scam for
intellectually competitive people, since one has to pay to take their test
(and no sample tests are available.

~~~
eru
At least for Mensa in Germany you can also take an alternative test, that's
not provided by them.

I know some people who are quite involved with Mensa in Germany, and they seem
sane, so far.

~~~
barrkel
My GF is German, and a member of Mensa, and was involved in Germany.

When she moved to the UK and signed up with the local branch here, however,
she was horrified by what she saw: self-important pretentious people lazily
philosophizing about things they knew nothing about, with little intellectual
rigour. The magazine still comes every month, but she wants no more part of
it.

~~~
eru
I was a bit involved with the university branch of Mensa in Germany, i.e. Mind
Hochschulnetzwerk. But my contact with them is mostly through alumni from the
Deutsche SchuelerAkademie.

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kmfrk
To anyone who might misread the title like I did, we're talking 600,000
_copies_ , not sales in USD.

What might be even more fascinating is Notch capitalizing on what was only the
alpha version of his game. I'm sure that breaks with some of the
preconceptions a lot of people on HN have.

~~~
high5ths
600,000 copies * 9.95 Euro = a lot of alpha money.

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jhrobert
Isn't it the first time in history that a software author makes money like
only athletes, writers and artists usually do?

Are we going to see the emerge of "software agents", who will help programmers
make money out of talent much like "Literary agents" do with writers?

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

~~~
wallflower
Interesting idea. However, I don't think that this is the first time. There
have been several others who preceded Notch. Jordan Mechner of Prince of
Persia comes to mind first.

<http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/>

~~~
d_r
Wow, thanks for sharing this. This deserves to be on the front page! We're
lucky in 2010 to have a glimpse into what it was like to create things in
1986.

Also, I loved this bit:

 _October 23, 1986

Everyone in the office has been playing a lot of Tetris – a Russian submission
for the IBM PC. It’s a classic, like Breakout. But I don’t think Broderbund is
going to publish it. The knaves._

~~~
wallflower
You're welcome. I actually learned about it from the HN front page, almost a
year ago. I spent about 9 hours (6pm to 3am) that day reading the _entire_
journal on an iPhone (plugged in). It was the best non-book book that I'd read
in a long while.

April 3, 1989

> We chatted for an hour about peripherally related topics. Broderbund,
> corporate America, the rat race, capitalism, freedom. I was seducing him. At
> the critical psychological moment, I remarked:

“You know, all my clipping is done on the byte boundaries.” There was a pause

<http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/page/33>

May 6, 1989

> The other thing is, I liked them. Lately I’d been starting to feel jaded
> about this whole enterprise – “Oh well, it’s just a computer game” – but
> watching Chris and Stu, I realized: These guys love games. They love games
> the way I loved movies in college. Even more, because they’re not interested
> in girls yet. Computer games are like the air they breathe. If I can make
> one that they can get excited about, that’s a real accomplishment. That’s
> something I can be proud of.

So I worked till ten with renewed enthusiasm.

<http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/page/36/>

~~~
Natsu
Another good one:

<http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/page/4/>

July 18, 1985

Driving me to the airport, Tomi said:

"I think you should pursue screenwriting. Go for it."

I was surprised and asked her why. She said that Broderbund is a really nice,
warm, friendly place to work, but for programmers it’s actually not that great
a deal. The older ones, like Chris and David, are starting to get scared,
because programming’s the only marketable skill they have, and it’s a young
man’s game. The new crop of kids coming up are willing to work harder and
cheaper, and don’t have girlfriends or families yet to cut into their working
hours. And nobody knows how long the games market will be around, or what
it’ll be like next year.

I never would have thought of it quite like that.

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ugh
Dan Benjamin recently interviewed Markus “Notch” Persson (the creator of
Minecraft): <http://5by5.tv/pipeline/30>

I thought it was especially interesting that Notch essentially hired to
“business” people because he thinks that he isn’t any good at it and because
he wants to focus on developing.

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bryne
Roughly ~$8 million, without any distribution cut to speak of (other than
bandwidth costs).

It'll be interesting to see what his newly incorporated studio does next, as
he seems to be expanding fast and putting resources toward a sophomore effort
already.

~~~
olegkikin
paypal fees

~~~
dangrossman
Since he qualifies for merchant rates due to his volume, it's just 1.9%.
Better than he'd get with most banks.

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kmfrk
To anyone who might misread the title like I did, we're talking 600,000
_copies_ , not sales in USD.

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ashleyw
That should work out at ~£4.5MM profit, after PayPal takes their cut and misc.
bills are paid (e.g. bandwidth.) Not bad for a one-man company (until
recently, anyway.)

~~~
ugh
Don’t forget taxes. I would about half his gross revenue to get a realistic
handle on the kind of money he is making. Three million Euro so far seems like
a realistic estimate to me.

~~~
ashleyw
Ah, the taxman, how could I forget thee! It'll be around ~51.3% in Sweden
incl. the VAT.

~~~
jacoblyles
I'm not sure how Notch has his affairs organized, but the corporate tax rate
over there is only 26%.

I remembered to check this because all European countries have lower corporate
tax rates than America.

~~~
wlievens
Corporate tax rates are way lower but personal income tax rates are
significantly higher. So if he pays all of that money as salary to himself,
that 50% number is quite realistic.

~~~
jacoblyles
I'm assuming he will keep at least part of his money in a corporation to
develop his game.

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vladocar
Here is an interview with Markus "Notch" Persson <http://5by5.tv/pipeline/30>

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wlievens
For reference: when the hype first peaked, in mid august, there were 135k sold
versions.

He generated about $5M in less than three months.

