I've read through most of the comments on this thread, especially from about where it was first stated in this thread that MS had indeed purchased Mojang.
There's been some pretty heated discussion, and in the last few pages, I think that a few people have alluded to what I think may be the reason that MS forked out for the purchase.
MS, is at core, a company that makes an OS. That is their cash cow, remove their revenue from that, and they suddenly struggle to make money from everything else. That's why MS started pouring money into universities to get Windows installed on all of the computers there, they want to imprint people who in 20 or 30 years when they're in a position to make a decision, that MS Windows is the way to go for their server infrastructure. Look at how UNIX started getting into businesses.
Now, I use Linux at work and home, but I believe that there were/are issues with Windows 8 and Minecraft. I don't know the details, so this could be completely wrong. But suppose that you're a software company, you've only recently released a new Operating System, and it's getting mixed reviews, and then a very popular game is having issues running, and the developer of that game is a bit ambivalent about getting their game to work on your operating system. What do you do?
Also, I don't believe that anyone here has mentioned Bungie. They used to make Mac games, most noticeably Marathon, most people these days probably know it for Halo. If you want to play any version of Halo, what hardware did you have to own? Xbox. When the Xbox first came out, Halo was the "killer app", Xbox sold a lot of units simply because you had to have one if you wanted to play Halo. Exclusive titles make and break in the console wars. I have heard elsewhere, and others have said in this thread, that what if the Xbox One and the Windows phone came with Minecraft? Yes, it's only a $20 game for those devices, but for some, that may be make or break.
Right now, I'm in a lull of MC. I've played it a lot in previous times, and I've taken breaks from it. It's a game that I'll probably keep coming back to because it's always changing and with mods, there are so many ways of playing it. My hope, is pretty much the same as a lot of other people have said. I hope that cross platform support stays, and I hope that mod support continues. At this stage, I'm not going to make any predictions on what Microsoft are going to do with their purchase. We just don't know. Yes uncertainty sucks, seeing a game that you've played heaps being sold to a company with a not so great record sucks, for those who's livelyhood relies on being able to make money on MC, this really sucks.
But things change. That's what happens in the world. For all we know, someone will release an MC killer in the next 6 months, and we'll all have a good laugh at Microsoft (especially Notch). As someone else said, MC may already be waning, it's been an app on the forefront of people's minds for 3 or 4 years now, it was first released in 2009. If you had told someone, in 2008 that a game was going to launch in 12 months, that would last for 5 years and still be going strong with only incremental updates over those 5 years, how many of you would have laughed?
Yeah, this is going to be interesting. MS aren't (hopefully) going to change anything overnight, they have their reasons for purchasing Mojang, we may not know those reasons for another 12 months. For the time being, I'm going to keep MC and FTB installed on my PC for when I know I'll want to play it again. At some point I may start having issues because of the MS purchase, until that time, I'll continue to enjoy my experience and I'll remember with fondness the countless hours that I've spent/wasted playing MC, mostly modded.
There's been some pretty heated discussion, and in the last few pages, I think that a few people have alluded to what I think may be the reason that MS forked out for the purchase.
MS, is at core, a company that makes an OS. That is their cash cow, remove their revenue from that, and they suddenly struggle to make money from everything else. That's why MS started pouring money into universities to get Windows installed on all of the computers there, they want to imprint people who in 20 or 30 years when they're in a position to make a decision, that MS Windows is the way to go for their server infrastructure. Look at how UNIX started getting into businesses.
Now, I use Linux at work and home, but I believe that there were/are issues with Windows 8 and Minecraft. I don't know the details, so this could be completely wrong. But suppose that you're a software company, you've only recently released a new Operating System, and it's getting mixed reviews, and then a very popular game is having issues running, and the developer of that game is a bit ambivalent about getting their game to work on your operating system. What do you do?
Also, I don't believe that anyone here has mentioned Bungie. They used to make Mac games, most noticeably Marathon, most people these days probably know it for Halo. If you want to play any version of Halo, what hardware did you have to own? Xbox. When the Xbox first came out, Halo was the "killer app", Xbox sold a lot of units simply because you had to have one if you wanted to play Halo. Exclusive titles make and break in the console wars. I have heard elsewhere, and others have said in this thread, that what if the Xbox One and the Windows phone came with Minecraft? Yes, it's only a $20 game for those devices, but for some, that may be make or break.
Right now, I'm in a lull of MC. I've played it a lot in previous times, and I've taken breaks from it. It's a game that I'll probably keep coming back to because it's always changing and with mods, there are so many ways of playing it. My hope, is pretty much the same as a lot of other people have said. I hope that cross platform support stays, and I hope that mod support continues. At this stage, I'm not going to make any predictions on what Microsoft are going to do with their purchase. We just don't know. Yes uncertainty sucks, seeing a game that you've played heaps being sold to a company with a not so great record sucks, for those who's livelyhood relies on being able to make money on MC, this really sucks.
But things change. That's what happens in the world. For all we know, someone will release an MC killer in the next 6 months, and we'll all have a good laugh at Microsoft (especially Notch). As someone else said, MC may already be waning, it's been an app on the forefront of people's minds for 3 or 4 years now, it was first released in 2009. If you had told someone, in 2008 that a game was going to launch in 12 months, that would last for 5 years and still be going strong with only incremental updates over those 5 years, how many of you would have laughed?
Yeah, this is going to be interesting. MS aren't (hopefully) going to change anything overnight, they have their reasons for purchasing Mojang, we may not know those reasons for another 12 months. For the time being, I'm going to keep MC and FTB installed on my PC for when I know I'll want to play it again. At some point I may start having issues because of the MS purchase, until that time, I'll continue to enjoy my experience and I'll remember with fondness the countless hours that I've spent/wasted playing MC, mostly modded.
