Opinions on Microsoft buying Mojang

[midi_sec]

Plot twist: Microsoft is after Scrolls and Cobalt.

Nah just Scrolls. Blizzard's game gives a satisfying user experience for $1.99, and still doesn't shut out the people who are willing to pay $100 for the same experience. My prediction that Scrolls will be what they focus more time on.

Btw, check this out. It was all planned ermagherd!

https://twitter.com/notch/status/281139739304800256

Anyway, my price is two billion dollars. Give me two billion dollars, and I'll endorse your crap.

 

[VikeStep]

Nah just Scrolls. Blizzard's game gives a satisfying user experience for $1.99, and still doesn't shut out the people who are willing to pay $100 for the same experience. My prediction that Scrolls will be what they focus more time on.

Btw, check this out. It was all planned ermagherd!

https://twitter.com/notch/status/281139739304800256

Endorsing isn't the same as owning their company. Still quite interesting nonetheless

 

[midi_sec]

Endorsing isn't the same as owning their company. Still quite interesting nonetheless

I was being facetious.

that tweet was just perfect though.

 

[ewsmith]

microsoft buying mojang?

Spoiler

in all seriousness, calm down. ._.
it seems every other week the worlds ending...

 

[asb3pe]

A quick google search pulls up some interesting information on "Access Software" later known as "Indie Built". (most of this information is from Wikipedia, so is therefore not a rock solid source but seemed to be within wholey sensible bounds). Access was bought by Microsoft in 1999. A few games were released between this point and 2004, when MS sold the studio to Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two then suddenly closed the studio down in 2006. So it was T2, not MS that killed your game.

Access Software and their products were quality stuff. If you want some proof of that, go read the reviews of a game series called "Tex Murphy" on gog.com and you'll see just how their product has held up over time. Links386, back in its heyday, was an outstanding simulator of golf with a very large community making "open source" golf courses that could be played by the game. Access was a little family owned software firm in Utah, and just going by my recollection, the elder fella (Bruce Carson?) got sick and I think that might have been what precipitated the sale to MS at that point.

And quote me all the technicalities you want from wikipedia... I was there and lived it. Microsoft killed Links. Great, some other firm they sold it to for pennies on the dollar hammered in the last nail? Big deal I say. I have no idea what they did or why, but they absolutely destroyed a great community that had been built up over time around that Links game. Online tournaments, leagues, ladders (remember Case's Ladder?)...

Now why do I spend time typing all this? Because I see Access Software as being nearly identical to Mojang, and I see the destruction of the Links golf-course-making community frighteningly similar to the potential for our Minecraft community of mod-makers. Both are small, closely-knit, closely-held private software firms with one or two huge games. And here comes Microsoft offering them big bucks? What am I supposed to think after Links and MS Flight Sim? You're really trying to convince me my experience-based opinion is woefully off base? Really???

I do agree about chilling out. I'm just telling what I know, not that it may be worth very much to most. Let us pray this is all just a very weird and odd rumor (which it most certainly is to me).

Memories... the game was beautiful, and this was more than a decade ago!!!
http://www.3dgolfdesign.com/creative.html

 

[Dorque]

Well, yes, being that it's more than a decade later and we're presenting fact-based opinions.

Mojang and Access are drastically different, and so is this sale, if for no other reason than that the gaming climate is drastically (I want to say ludicrously) different. Microsoft would be utter fools to kill Minecraft - an INCREDIBLY popular and profitable product - and one they have nothing else like.

I understand your feelings but I'm afraid they simply don't bear up under reality. Microsoft produced Links games until they sold the studio; explain how they killed the series please?

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[Zenthon_127]

I notice most of your choices start off with "Microsoft ruins...". Bias much?

I have been part of such acquisitions in the past, and in all the cases I experienced the only thing that changed was the fact that our financial info was forwarded to a head office, and some infrastructure (accountants, etc.) were allowed to transfer to other subsidiaries as their roles at our site declined.

In fact, in all cases our company heads became directors of new departments if not roles like "Chief of Research" (these were all tech companies) and everyone ended up getting promotions and/or pay raises when the deal finalized.

I can see Microsoft continuing Mojang as it's own brand with no changes while at the same time providing resources to create "Minecraft II", complete with a standard API.

Microsoft isn't blind and sees how the modding communities have extended many markets beyond their natural lifespans (Doom/Quake, Unreal, etc.) and are probably interested in that facet of the modern gaming business.

I wasn't really trying to be hyper-negative or anything. I just don't see Microsoft actively improving the product and frankly if they just leave it as-is I don't expect much change, as you pointed out.

 

[Dorque]

I wasn't really trying to be hyper-negative or anything. I just don't see Microsoft actively improving the product and frankly if they just leave it as-is I don't expect much change, as you pointed out.

I actually think they would. Certainly they'll want to improve the pocket edition to drive Windows Phone sales. Likely they'll want it to actually "just work" on PC as well, and possibly help improve their frankly horrible app store adoption.... and to be straight up it might not be good for modders but good lord this game needs to not be Java anymore.

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[Strikingwolf]

and to be straight up it might not be good for modders but good lord this game needs to not be Java anymore.

Give me a good cross-platform programming language we can easily decompile

 

[Dorque]

Give me a good cross-platform programming language we can easily decompile

Heavens, I don't know, I'm not a programmer; I just know that Minecraft is plagued with performance issues primarily because Java was never meant to do this.

Look at games like Civilization V. As far as I'm aware it'll run on any platform, full touchscreen support and through the Steam Workshop it has a very active modding community. Or Skyrim. I realize that Minecraft modders are very attached to Java but it's quite obviously not the only workable language out there.

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[Strikingwolf]

Welp...time for partial disclosure.

My retirement earlier in the year was a step back from Minecraft. Myself and some of the other devs were kicking around an idea. There's a google doc and everything.

There's also a rudimentary engine.

We'll see where this goes. Kickstarter isn't out of the question. I'm not a huge fan of Mojang I admit, but I'm far less fond of the idea of Microsoft owning it.

Question...is it open source /contributable to and can you list which devs these were?

 

[keybounce]

Re: Flight Simulator:

Back in the days, one of the biggest publishing expenses of Flight sim had to be the instruction book that it shipped with. This was practically a textbook on how to fly a simulator plane, all the details you needed. It was a book, so it was ordered, easy to follow, etc.

Next edition came out, with a digital book. Sort of. There was a bunch of files that were the chapters, but there was nothing to indicate anything about the order. When I attempted to read the manual, I got an open panel, with a bunch of files, and no indication what to read first.

Suddenly, this no longer taught you how to fly the plane -- either you already knew, or could not even get started.

I suspect the number of new people wanting to fly dropped sharply at that point. I know I tried to get a used copy of the last year's version, and only found one person who was willing to -- but he was under 18, and his dad refused to let him sell it, because the price paid new two or three years earlier was much higher than what we had agreed to. (If I recall correctly, $59 new versus $20 used several years later, for a two version out-of-date old copy).

What will I do if Microsoft is confirmed to be doing this? Probably considering buying scrolls BEFORE the confirmation. Does it still have the "Buy it now, get all future updates free" offer?

 

[Strikingwolf]

Or Skyrim

Do you know how hard it is to install Skyrim mods? They are a true PITA

 

[Zenthon_127]

Heavens, I don't know, I'm not a programmer; I just know that Minecraft is plagued with performance issues primarily because Java was never meant to do this.

Look at games like Civilization V. As far as I'm aware it'll run on any platform, full touchscreen support and through the Steam Workshop it has a very active modding community. Or Skyrim. I realize that Minecraft modders are very attached to Java but it's quite obviously not the only workable language out there.

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Java isn't bad. Minecraft's code is just terrible from what I understand.

 

[Strikingwolf]

Java isn't bad. Minecraft's code is just terrible from what I understand.

This. Java is definitely not for high-end games, but Minecraft is not a high-end game. It could use Java. Just the code is not optimized correctly

 

[Dorque]

Do you know how hard it is to install Skyrim mods? They are a true PITA

I've done it the hard way (SkyUI) and I've done it with the click of a button through Workshop. Neither struck me as any less complicated than the MC process, particularly the "insert them into the .jar" process.

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[Strikingwolf]

I've done it the hard way (SkyUI) and I've done it with the click of a button through Workshop. Neither struck me as any less complicated than the MC process, particularly the "insert them into the .jar" process.

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Anyway...I do know they wouldn't allow the true ripping apart of code by Minecraft mod devs

 

[midi_sec]

Anybody remember the acquisition of Twitch by Amazon?

Man, they really ruined that service

(more sarcasm)

Do you know how hard it is to install Skyrim mods? They are a true PITA

except it's really not. imo, minecraft is worse. or was, until 1.7

 

[NJM1564]

Hay guys? Isn't it written in Mojangs terms of service that they can do what ever they want with mod code? So Microsoft would gets all of the mods to!!! They could even claim aspects of FTB!

 

[YX33A]

Do you know how hard it is to install Skyrim mods? They are a true PITA

Have you even heard of .bsa files? Or, gods forbid, Mod Organizer?
Installing mods for Skyrim is way easier then it ever was for previous Bethesda titles as a result of Mod Organizer. True, one could use BAIN for that, if you had a head for it, and true, one could also in theory use NMM for the same thing. Mod Organizer may not be everything I want it to be, but it allows me to load and unload mods I use by not placing the data into the data folder until I launch the game through it.
And it can do this for all 15 characters I use with different mods in each game.