
Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie - bconway
http://www.develop-online.net/news/35973/Minecraft-creator-banks-350k-a-day
======
aresant
The most refreshing part of this story is that it's not about the Apple /
Google / etc App stores.

Shows that exceptional indie products can get huge traction on a traditional
platform, sort of like Braid on XBOX / PC / etc.

That said, also excites me for the future when MSFT's & Apple's standard OS
come with a servicable app store baked in.

~~~
nihilocrat
On a similar note, Minecraft is written in...

get this

...

 _Java_

Which seems to be the dorkiest and most uncool language on the planet if you
were to ask HN.

~~~
raganwald
A plumber climbs out of a manhole, and his arms are covered with - guess what?
- excrement! A beautiful little girl in a beautiful white dress happens to
pass by. The plumber seizes the opportunity and quickly, but firmly sweeps his
hands over the girl’s white dress.

Little girl (appalled): AAAH!!

Plumber (outraged): Oh yeah? I bet you love to take a shit though.

[http://www.yosefk.com/blog/the-cardinal-programming-
jokes.ht...](http://www.yosefk.com/blog/the-cardinal-programming-jokes.html)

So yeah, Java is dorky and uncool, but I bet we love to play Minecraft (I
don't know, since I haven't played a video game in at least a decade).

~~~
lrm242
The poop leaves my bottom and goes into the toilet. I never touch it. Do you?

~~~
yafujifide
Actually, you do touch it.

~~~
Groxx
With your arms?

------
simplegeek
Amazing stuff. Honestly, when I saw this post I thought man I should have been
a games programmer (and the desire to learn how to create games started to
surface). Then, I went searching on Google and it seems that this guy has
found his luck after working hard as a games programmer for around 10 years
(<http://www.mojang.com/notch/>). After reading this, I smiled & felt happy
for the programmer and went back working ;)

~~~
SwellJoe
Behind nearly every "overnight success" story is a reality of years of
practice and persistence.

~~~
steveklabnik
<http://startupquote.com/post/1164724792>

------
zeteo
The sales graphs are public:

<http://m00d.net/minecraft/sales/>

The best day (9/23) had 25663 sales, or about $255k. This came on top of the
server being down (0 sales) for 3 previous days. The recent average is around
10k sales ($100k / day).

EDIT: As pointed out by bananaandapple below, the price is in euro not USD,
which brings the best day to $347k. The recent average works out to about
$136k / day.

~~~
vaksel
according to that he sold 230,441 copies which comes out to €2,292,887.95
euros.

1 euro = $1.36 USD

so that comes out to

$3,118,327.612

After all the fees and costs, that's 3 mil before taxes,

~~~
studer
His company (Mojang Specifications) is a sole proprietorship, so the tax
situation is interesting (i.e. most of it is taxed as personal income, and
Sweden has a progressive tax system, and he has to pay insurance contributions
as well). I can understand why he's scrambling to establish a real company :)

~~~
barrkel
Indeed, a quick glance at online calculators indicates it's pretty horrific,
i.e. that he'd be lucky to see more than 35% of gross, assuming that sole
props get whacked for employer taxes too, which I'd expect to avoid a simple
loophole.

------
twymer
Valve: "We heard you were making $350k/day, how would you like a job making
$50k/year?"

~~~
kevingadd
1) Health care, taxes, payment processing fees, development tools... There are
a lot of expenses covered by an employer, especially when you're a game
developer. 2) It's not $350k/day versus $50k/year, unless he can somehow
sustain his current income indefinitely (he can't). 3) The value of games
publishers and platform developers being willing to talk to you (and having
access to development kits, etc) is hard to put monetary value on. Working at
a studio like Valve gives you that, too.

~~~
efsavage
"unless he can somehow sustain his current income indefinitely"

If he sustains it for 2 weeks he's pretty much set for life.

~~~
zacharycohn
He's already sustained at least $250k/d for two weeks. These numbers are 100k
bigger than the last ones I saw a few weeks ago.

Pretty sure he could BUY Valve at this point. :p

~~~
sshumaker
Considering he's made about 4mm, and Valve turned down a multi-billion dollar
offer not too long ago, I think you might be a bit off-base. :)

~~~
zacharycohn
Slight exaggeration. :)

------
msie
Good news: Indie developers can still get rich doing what they love.

Bad news: You will probably not be one of them.

;-)

~~~
SwellJoe
Best news: You probably can make a pretty good living, even if you don't get
rich.

~~~
rikthevik
That's a great sentiment. I'm not interested in getting super rich, I'd just
like to do interesting work and have some freedom in my life. Hopefully that's
not too much to ask.

~~~
SwellJoe
I can assure you it's not.

I'm not the most amazing software developer in the world, nor am I the most
astute businessman, but after a little more than decade of work and
persistence, I'm in a position where I can do pretty much everything I've
always wanted to do. Part of that time was spent figuring out _what_ I
actually always wanted to do (age brings clarity of focus, I think). I travel
full-time (I'm in Bozeman, MT right now, on my way to Yellowstone), I run a
company that builds stuff I'm really proud of and millions of people use, I
work with two guys that I really enjoy working with, I occasionally get to
meet up with our users and customers and they're awesome, and I make enough
money to live on without having to think too much about money, and the
revenues continue to grow at a modest but steady rate. I'm definitely not
rich, and the subject of this story has made more in a couple months than I've
made in four years of running Virtualmin, but I've got nothing to complain
about.

Most importantly, I have as much freedom as anyone I know, including several
millionaires and a few billionaires.

~~~
matwood
Your story is my goal. I don't need cars or giant houses, I just want the
freedom to solve interesting problems and the responsibility of making the
business decisions.

------
Groxx
> _turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie_

Thank _God_. Not that they haven't been successful, but I _really_ want this
to stay _entirely_ in Notch's control, as that's _precisely_ why it's
succeeding.

~~~
mdwrigh2
This may be a good thing ultimately, but if there was a gaming company I'd
consider working for, it'd likely be Valve. They seem very community focused,
and I imagine they'd give this guy the freedom to run the game how he likes,
considering its his 'baby'. Plus, they'd give him some risk-free (to him)
resources to build a second game if he needed it, and they probably have way
more experience handling multiplayer side stuff that he could benefit from.
But this is pure speculation. As it is, him keeping it is probably a good
thing for the community.

~~~
weaksauce
Just look at the game that the team they purchased made: portal. The indie
game was very ugly. The final game was polished, funny, and fun. If he were to
bring his game to valve they could probably improve it a lot.

------
pirko
Considering that he'd quit his job as a game developer to be able to develop
indie games (<http://www.minecraft.net/about.jsp>) it's not so surprising that
he turns down the job offers. And it also seems that he's in the beginning of
starting his own company and hiring developers
([http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1205447916/im-sorry-about-
the-l...](http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1205447916/im-sorry-about-the-lack-of-
updates))

------
wushupork
Why would you work for a software company if you are making that much?

~~~
aresant
Think Hollywood director type job offer.

Use somebody else's money to build your dream product with a huge incredible
staff.

Get gauranteed, huge up front salary to do so.

Take away a sizeable piece of the action on the success.

~~~
icefox
And being forced to justify every small thing and have to use outlook.

~~~
awakeasleep
When you're eminent in your field those sorts of things may become negotiable.

------
gavingmiller
I don't know where this website pulled their numbers from, but I think they're
incorrect.

According to Minecraft's stats[1], in the last 24 hours 12,025 people bought
the game, times 9.95 Euro = 119,499.50 Euro, which is a bit less than
$163k/day in American dollars.

[1] <http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp>

~~~
bananaandapple
A week ago, he was selling up to 36000 copies a day.

~~~
zeteo
Either give a reference, or you must be confusing sales and downloads.

~~~
bananaandapple
<http://m00d.net/minecraft/sales/>

~~~
zeteo
That shows the maximum as 25000, not 36000 sales per day.

~~~
yafujifide
The number of copies are in Euros, and there are 1.44 US copies per Euro copy,
so the number sold is 36000 US copies per day.

~~~
studer
That's not how currency exchange rates work...

~~~
sliverstorm
I choose to interpret your parent as a joke.

------
messel
I bought it a few weeks ago but only played twice (no time). My first time
playing the demo I immediately was struck by several opportunities

1) converting 2D images into 3D minecraft world for artists and lazy people

2) Connecting 26 adjacent worlds to have a fluid adaptive minecraft universe.
As users move from one world to the next it pulls in the data from the next
set of adjacent worlds (no crossing lag). Folks can host their own worlds and
pay for virtual real estate (hosting) or lay claim to a parts of a big cube,
Thematically clustered worlds would be fantastic (hell worlds, water worlds,
sky citiies, shopping districts, space worlds.. etc).

There's something oddly beautiful about building your own game world.

~~~
pshc
_cough_ Second Life _cough_

~~~
thumper
_cough_ Worlds Chat _cough_

Seriously, we had that exact idea implemented around 1997 -- and it even
supported multiple authentications (anonymous worlds, versus worlds with user
accounts) all transparently. And it could even do VRML, crowd control, dynamic
downloads (so you could link to new worlds), and a built-in world builder.

It seemed that we had thought of everything... And then management took over.

~~~
pshc
You should have let marketing take over and built up unsustainable hype and
corporate endorsement instead ;)

------
zenocon
As someone who is quietly lurking on HN, and working on my own product nights
and w/e, this gives me hope. I think the ISV model just feels right...at least
for me. I've been wavering on quitting the day job. Kudos to this chap. Long
live the ISV success stories.

------
bl4k
I wonder what the potential market size is for this game, and if he will reach
a large part of that while the game is in alpha and on special.

Something tells me he is selling it for too cheap, especially with all the
buzz it is getting. The license is also a lifetime license, so he has ongoing
server costs for the next 5+ years that need to be covered with what he is
bringing in atm (minus the huge tax bill he will be hit with).

He is selling what is a recurring service at a flat one-off rate, a
subscription at $20 year may have sold just as well.

~~~
teamonkey
He's selling it at $10 while it's in a preview state. The full RRP will be
$20.

~~~
bond
It's 9.95€ and 20€, around $13 and $26...

------
SwaroopH
Inspiring. I am going to work harder on my current personal project.

------
rdj
Not surprised. What could a job at either Valve or Bungie give him that he
doesn't get now?

~~~
kevingadd
Ask the Portal team? Or the guys who made Team Fortress? Or the guys who made
Counter-Strike?

To be more precise: Working at a larger studio like Valve means you trade some
creative control and (in notch's case) some short-term income for reliable
long-term income and access to things you could never get in the short term as
an individual, like access to devkits for consoles, access to well-trained,
highly skilled QA/art/programming departments, decades of design and
programming experience from leads and senior developers, etc.

~~~
city41
The Portal team was scooped up from Digipen. If their game was netting them
over $200k/day, something tells me they wouldn't have been so eager to join
Valve.

Hey I f'ing love Valve, my all time favorite game company. No one is trying to
suggest working for Valve is a bad thing. But a little perspective is needed
here.

------
rospaya
I image he would make loads more if he used a simpler distribution platform
like Steam.

~~~
ugh
PayPal is not exactly hard.

------
vaksel
their math is a little bit off, a copy sold every 3 seconds = 28,800 sales a
day.

Or 10.5 million copies a year. To tell the truth its pretty shocking how
minecraft has taken off...the guy will probably end up making 100 million off
the game. And if he sticks to iterating it, it might end up making over a
billion over it's lifetime(say 40-50 years).

Which may seem like a huge number, until you remember that World of Warcraft
is making close to a billion a year.

The reason the number looks that shockingly high, is because he is a one man
show.

My guess is that he is going to end up using his new found fame/resources to
start his own game development company.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Speaking as a someone who has never played either, it's also shocking because
World of Warcraft looks like this:

<http://www.sopheon.com/Portals/1/WoW%20Screenshot.jpg>

While Minecraft looks like this:

<http://www.indiegames.com/blog/images/timw/minecraft.jpg>

~~~
vaksel
looks can be changed, my guess is that the first thing he'll do is update the
graphics to give the game mainstream appeal.

right now people are playing for the gameplay...just like they do with WoW

~~~
zacharycohn
The graphics are simple on purpose - because the game is essentially
infinitely scalable (theoretical max map size is 3x surface of the Earth),
simple graphics are super important for not lagging servers and clients to
hell.

He's said in interviews that the improvements he wants to make are
improvements that make the game more fun. He's not going to add features that
won't somehow add fun, and if he finds that something isn't fun, it's out.

Because the graphics are purposely so simplistic, people are okay with that.
As soon as you upgrade them and start to make them more modern, you start
getting compared to other modern games like WoW, etc.

Keep it simple, people won't worry about the graphics.

~~~
prawn
I also think he avoids any issues with the 'uncanny valley' of near-realism in
games. If something isn't going to look exactly like a pig wandering the
mountain slopes, why not make it look like a Lego pig and be done with it?

------
rwhitman
The question is how long will it take major game developers to build a similar
game and turn on the marketing faucet?

I don't know much about game development, but it sounds like it would be a
pretty easy game to replicate, right?

~~~
dasil003
If he's already sold hundreds of thousands of copies, it seems like he's made
significant inroads into the market. Not sure how much more the marketing
faucet could do.

------
lujz
His business model is very appealing to the customer: pay only once and
receive all future versions. The "downside" is that, once market saturates,
you have to come up with a completely new product.

~~~
ido
That's basically how almost all games work tho (with a handful of exceptions)
- most people eventually get tired of playing the same game and move on to
something else.

------
CGamesPlay
Notch's story proves what indie game developers have been praying for all
along:

 _Gameplay is everything._

------
CrankFrank
Looks like that the site is down now :)

------
retube
that's... $127,750,000 a year!

~~~
mrtron
He will earn...a billion dollars this decade!

------
clistctrl
I get the impression that this game was built because he wanted to build
something he himself would enjoy, not something he could become rich off.
Maybe there's something to that philosophy ;)

~~~
houseabsolute
Maybe. On the other hand, people do things every day for the love of it that
get little traction in the market place. It seems more likely this confluence
is just a coincidence.

~~~
Groxx
I wonder if it might be a _requirement_ (or nearly) for run-away successes
though, while obviously not _sufficient_ for it.

~~~
kranner
Careful, you never know if Malcolm Gladwell is lurking here.

~~~
Groxx
I'm not aware of that reference... care to enlighten me? The wikipedia entry
didn't really answer it for me.

~~~
scrame
Malcolm Gladwell writes books about "success" where he uses many anecdotal
(albeit fascinating) stories to come to a very vague conclusion of how people
can be "successful". GP was referring to "qualities of success" (passion,
writing something for yourself), which don't necessarily cause success.

It was tongue-in-cheek.

~~~
kranner
Thanks, well put, just what I meant.

------
klbarry
It's kinda sad that the Dwarf Fortress creator only earns about 2k a day. It
shows what some business savvy will do for you.

Then ago, the DF creator is passionatr about his vision, so who knows.

~~~
fossuser
Not sure if it's business savvy. While Dwarf Fortress is a great indie game I
don't think it has the wide spread appeal of a game like mine craft. Mine
craft's 3D world and game play is more intuitive to your average person. Not
to mention Notch's luck with going viral certainly helps as well.

~~~
zacharycohn
Agree. I played a bit of Dwarf Fortress, and there was definitely a learning
curve. Minecraft has, essentially, no initial "how to play" learning curve.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Crafting is the biggest part of the learning curve right now, although Notch
has some ideas about how to address it. One way might be by having the player
unlock "recipes" as they gather resources and experiment.

Redstone is the other part of the game with an epic learning curve. It can be
used to craft functional logic gates. Some guy on YouTube made a massive ALU
using it...

