Opinions on Microsoft buying Mojang
- Thread starter buggirlexpres
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Wow, he's doing FAR better than any mod developer I've seen, but he'd likely make more at a McDonald's.
Do we have to outbid Microsoft? I think I figured out how to keep everyone, including Microsoft, happy. After Microsoft purchases Mojang a group of developers(from the modding community) approaches Microsoft to buy the rights to the personal computer version of Minecraft, and only the personal computer version of Minecraft, from Microsoft. Microsoft gains royalties from the sales, and they keep Realms and the ability to merchandise Minecraft. Realms remains the official server-hosting service. That's where Microsoft will gain their $2b back.
If anyone is interested in this then I can post the agreement I have figured out so far.
How big a budget do you think the developers have....... Even if we opened that to the entire modded MC community through a kickstarter I bet we'd have a VERY tough time coming up with enough to interest MS in any way. They'd also never want to see a label they control free to develop out of their reach. If they allowed the PC community to develop separately all there would need to be is a viral outbreak caused by a malicious mod hitting the news and taint the entire Minecraft label.
@PODonnell What if people like Direwolf20 and other Youtubers spread the word about the kickstarter? The agreement I have come up with so far actually includes protections against things like malicious mods and piracy. Think about Curseforge. If we use something like that to manage mods and keep a malicious mod from being widely spread, then neither we nor Microsoft would have to worry about something tainting the Minecraft label. Anyone who does download a malicious mod probably downloaded it from an untrustworthy source.
This is my opinion too. I think Minecraft became much bigger than Mojang anticipated. I think the demands of continuing to keep the game updated was becoming overwhelming. If they had thoughts of a version 2 of Minecraft they probably didn't have the resources to maintain version 1 while working on a version 2.
It sounds like Mojang approached Microsoft so, maybe, with Microsoft having vastly more resources, would be able to make a 'Minecraft 2'.
Again, my opinion, but I can envision a Minecraft 2 coming out with a beautiful look and feel, smooth and pretty, etc. - at somewhere between 49 to 69 bucks a pop. Isn't that what a lot of games are costing these days? That would be the vanilla version.
Then shortly after that, they come out with an addon called "The Industrial Pack" where you can use create machines to mine the world and power your base and such. Maybe that sells for 19 to 29 dollars.
You could then add the magic pack for another 19 to 29 dollars.
There would be a designer pack where you have prettier blocks and furniture and lighting, etc. Another 19 - 29 dollars.
Microsoft may be looking at what Sony is doing with the Everquest Landmark game and wanting to do something along those lines.
I'm too old to get my panties all in a bunch over 'shoulda, coulda, woulda' scenarios. I guess we'll all know soon enough where this takes us.
I've been playing modded minecraft for years now and I love what the modders do for the game. They put in a lot of work for the love of the game and share their vision of a better minecraft with us. And, as long as it is possible to play this game in a modded state I will be there supporting them.
If every last one of direwolf followers contributed about 5 grand we could compete with microsofts current bid for Mojang. Even if we assume the PC version is only seen as being worth 1/5 of the total that's an awful lot of people, many of them minors, who'd need to be able/willing to contribute at least a grand.
That is still assuming that MS would even be willing to carve off the PC version and risk diluting their label.
Your right, we can logically limit the viral threat, but you must know that regardless of where it gets downloaded if an exploit in the PC version hits the news, all versions of the game will tend to be seen as tainted by the unwashed masses.
Why keep bringing up the same points that have already been refuted 6-10 pages back? Microsoft Flight is a completely different situation than Minecraft and Mojang. Let's compare apples to apples, can we?
The reasons I do not care about FlightSim when brought into this context are simple; MS FlightSim has/had a lower playerbase than Minecraft, MS didn't acquire FlightSim in a multiplatform deal that has already established modding as a precedent, and 5% of 54 million copies of minecraft is still more than FlightSim could have ever dreamed. Modded FlightSim players? How many of those actually existed? If anything, I see them pushing modding harder, for...*gasp*...monetization.
It's not like mods would be kind of like crowdsourcing content for your game or anything...
but fret not
because it's this post that has my vote for the least informed comment in the thread.
*GASP* Who in their right mind has ever relied on a modding community to add content and fix bugs for a game! *Cough Bethesda Cough*
It's a decently likely outcome. I'm still just waiting for he shoe to drop before I make any final judgment calls on the deal.
You can prevent an exploit by keeping the code for the login top-secret. With Forge being the only real worker in deobfuscated code that could be done. I am putting the agreement I have developed so far in a spoiler.
- <company with tbd name> acquires the rights to Minecraft for the personal computer (Windows, Mac, Linux)
- <company with tbd name> does not acquire the right to sell Minecraft without express permission from Microsoft
- <company with tbd name> sponsors all non-personal computer versions of Mincraft owned by Microsoft
- <company with tbd name> does not acquire the rights to merchandise Minecraft. Microsoft keeps this right.
- All changes to Minecraft PC edition by <company with tbd name> will be given to Microsoft for their use in non-personal computer games.
- Microsoft will gather Royalties from all versions of Minecraft sold by <company with tbd name> after the transfer of rights. Royalties will start at $5 per unit and decrease by $0.50 per unit every year for eight years. After 8 years the royalty will remain $1 per unit for perpetuity.
- The price of Minecraft per unit will not drop below the royalty at any time. The price will not rise above $40 per unit without a corresponding change in the Royalty.
- <company with tbd name> will actively engage in preventing piracy of the PC version.
- The transfer of rights will be accompanied by <TBD amount of money> from <company with tbd name> to Microsoft.
- The <TBD amount of money> will be raised using Kickstartr or a similar crowd-funding method.
- Any money raised over <TBD amount of money> will be split evenly between Microsoft and <company with tbd name>
- The money will be raised over a 45-day period, beginning with the acceptance of this agreement.
- If <TBD amount of money> is not raised within 45 days of the acceptance of this agreement, the transfer of rights will not happen.
- If <TBD amount of money> is raised within 45 days of the acceptance of this agreement, the transfer of rights and the transfer of <TBD amount of money> and half of the extra funding will occur 15 days after the completion of the crowd-funding campaign.
- If <company with tbd name> goes bankrupt or is otherwise unable to continue development of Minecraft PC edition, Microsoft regains all rights transferred to <company with tbd name>.
- Microsoft will not be obligated to provide support or payment to <company with tbd name>
- In addition to the Royalty, Microsoft will gain 20% of all profits, including non-minecraft related projects, gained by <company with tbd name>.
- Microsoft will keep Minecraft Realms. All versions of Minecraft created by <company with tbd name> will support Minecraft Realms.
- If Microsoft wants a feature in Minecraft PC edition, <company with tbd name> will add it.
- Microsoft will not be able to control the price of Minecraft PC edition other than what is previously specified.
- Microsoft will not be able to control the EULA for Minecraft PC edition, however Microsoft's suggestions will be gladly considered.
and they have completely destroyed, not progressed, modding not only in that one game/series, but in all of theirs. amirite? eh? eh?
edit: The way I see it, if people leave over this, they leave. There have been exodus' (exodii?) in modded history in the past, and this will not be the last. It's not over until Microsoft actually buys mojang and actually kills modding as we know it. Until then, it's all chicken little bs.
Microsoft doesn't have to make $2bn off of minecraft for this to be profitable for them.
Microsoft isn't buying a product, they are buying a brand.
George Lucas demonstrated years back that licensing and franchising were worth far more than anyone realized. He found money were no one was looking.
Microsoft only needs to think "We can see something that everyone else is blind to" to be able to justify $2bn. It doesn't have to be off of Minecraft, or Scrolls, sales.
What if Xbone comes with free minecraft with your purchase? Microsoft won't make a cent from Minecraft, but you can be sure it will kill the PS4. Isn't that worth $2bn to them right there with nothing else?
That alone -- winning the console war which is currently 50/50 -- is enough. Everything else is gravy.
Microsoft isn't buying a product, they are buying a brand.
George Lucas demonstrated years back that licensing and franchising were worth far more than anyone realized. He found money were no one was looking.
Microsoft only needs to think "We can see something that everyone else is blind to" to be able to justify $2bn. It doesn't have to be off of Minecraft, or Scrolls, sales.
What if Xbone comes with free minecraft with your purchase? Microsoft won't make a cent from Minecraft, but you can be sure it will kill the PS4. Isn't that worth $2bn to them right there with nothing else?
That alone -- winning the console war which is currently 50/50 -- is enough. Everything else is gravy.
I got it[DOUBLEPOST=1410544067][/DOUBLEPOST]
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/buying-minecraft-from-mojang.50973/
That's the thing. Technically, we already have. In the theoretical worst case scenario: MS buys Mojang. Decides to stop/disable modding, decides to be a bag of dicks about it, etc; that doesn't END everything. We all have licenses to use Minecraft as released by Mojang, access to future updates to Minecraft under MS could be held, but we still have every right to play with the version(s) we had prior to the sale. The downside being that nobody but Mojang (and MS by extension) has the right to distribute those files. Furthermore, under fair use we have the right to do whatever we want, including decompiling, to those files. Again, we just can't distribute those files. Mods would still be able to be written, and distributed, as long as they contained no code created by Mojan (which is legally true now (pre-buyout) as well). I don't know about the core files of forge, so I can't comment on how those would be distributed.
The final thing in our favor is how Minecraft functions. Minecraft is a "roaming" app. Its files don't "install" like a lot of programs do, making lots of registry changes and other crud in the process. So once you have a working "installation" of Minecraft, you can easily back up those pristine files to your choice of backup (presuming again that this is all done privately. otherwise that would fall under distribution). So in essence we don't have to worry about the older versions being locked behind a "always-online" gate.
And just to be clear, I'm not advocating any piracy. Distribution of any Mojang (or Microsoft) created content/code is and will be illegal. However we can hold onto our own files (that we paid for) as long as we want.
edit: formatting