Opinions on Microsoft buying Mojang

  • Please make sure you are posting in the correct place. Server ads go here and modpack bugs go here

Democretes

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,134
0
1
I've heard it has much better performance than win7 as well.
Yup. And despite being skeptical at first, I Personally like it more than windows 7, even though my laptop isn't a touchscreen. Right clicking the start icon at the bottom give you a lot more options than before. It's honestly one of the best OS's I've seen so far.
 
  • Like
Reactions: YX33A

Dorque

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,022
0
0
Yup. And despite being skeptical at first, I Personally like it more than windows 7, even though my laptop isn't a touchscreen. Right clicking the start icon at the bottom give you a lot more options than before. It's honestly one of the best OS's I've seen so far.
Do bear in mind that is Windows 8.1 you are referring to. I have to agree with the crowd opinion that the initial release was pretty much a mistake born of Ballmer's delusions about tablets.

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: YX33A

keybounce

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,925
0
0
My experience with microsoft windows was so bad that I will not use their operating systems. Even when I did, every other release was a disaster. 95 - good; 98; bad. 98 second edition: good, ME, bad. In the NT kernel world, much the same.

My experience with Skype, now that microsoft has bought it? They recently forced everyone to upgrade, claiming that the older clients were no longer compatible ... except that my old PPC client is just happy and fine. It has no ads. The older intel clients had no ads -- they date from when Skype was trying to sell phone time. Now? New client wants to display ads at login; new ToS basically lets Microsoft do anything they want with our conversations. Hmm.

My experience with other microsoft products? They've gone from "sell it once" to "sell an ongoing subscription". They've implemented "Change the save format, so people with older versions can't work with it, and have to buy new versions just to share with you". They push updates with "features" that very few people actually need.

My expectation if Microsoft buys Mojang? ... Sure, Minecraft on windows devices, that's a given. Scrolls ... I can see Scrolls moving to a "milk more money" model, maybe even giving the game away for 99 cents, or free -- and requring purchases to make more advances. Actually, that's a good reason to hold off on the game -- I'd rather wait, and make sure that there's no disaster change in the model of the game before I buy.

I can certainly see the realms system expanded, big-time, and made cheaper; with the goal of putting all competing low-cost hosting services out of business.

Do I expect them to kill modding? No. If they did, or even tried, then there would be a good working clone of the game within months. They don't want that; they'll keep modding available. But I wonder what kind of license their modding API will have, and what modders will have to do. Right now, for example, Mojang does not require your source code, but I can see Microsoft, in the same view as their app store, saying "we need to see your code before we'll approve your mod". Combine that with the existing "we can redistribute your mod or any part of your mod" ...

I expect paid-mods. Just like their app store. But you'll have to sell your mod through their site, and they take a percentage.

How will they make that 2 billion back? Pennies here, pennies there. Volume. Lots of pennies from scrolls, from mods, etc. Very very high volume.
 

ProfessorMudkip

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
274
0
0
sales != profit

1 billion in sales, I'll buy that. in profit...? citation needed.

edit: quote borked, I'm at work and can't fix :/
Yes, I said sales, not pure profit. But, it is a substantial profit; clearly enough to make Microsoft interested. Also, Minecraft was recently released on the Xbone and PS4, further increasing sales.

GTA 5 was one of the most sold games, but it has ~20 million fewer users than Minecraft. Minecraft's ~54 million playerbase is a very large cash cow for a corporation to exploit, and that is likely what Microsoft wants. With such a large userbase, it is very easy to make a lot of money with microtransactions.
 

Dorque

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,022
0
0
Yes, I said sales, not pure profit. But, it is a substantial profit; clearly enough to make Microsoft interested. Also, Minecraft was recently released on the Xbone and PS4, further increasing sales.

GTA 5 was one of the most sold games, but it has ~20 million fewer users than Minecraft. Minecraft's ~54 million playerbase is a very large cash cow for a corporation to exploit, and that is likely what Microsoft wants. With such a large userbase, it is very easy to make a lot of money with microtransactions.
On that topic they may not even expect to make anything further through Minecraft; they may simply want a vehicle to offer 54 million people new products. And I'm quite sure they could manage to offer better server hosting than is available almost anywhere else for a competitive price.

If the merger is a go, I doubt it is about monetizing current Mojang products at all. This is a marketing decision.

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: YX33A and midi_sec

VikeStep

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,117
0
0
Of course they expect a profit in the end. They are a corporation.


Who are these people and where did you get this figure? In 5 years, Mojang has made roughly a billion USD across all platforms on Minecraft sales alone; not including merchandise, Minecon profits and obviously the upcoming Cobalt/Scrolls .
I was told by pixlepix over twitter but research shows that is only the profits for minecraft in 2013. I'm getting mixed sources for how much profits there were for all of Mojang last year however given that Mojang got $1bn (as you claim) in 5 years and I am assuming that the profits have already peaked, it still means they will have to rake out more money than mojang is already getting
 

Quesenek

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
396
0
0
I honestly hope this is just hear say and not finalized. First before microcraft inevitably dies a fiery death we will be faced with payed patches, DLC to add different colored blocks, mods won't be a problem because there will be no PC version to be able to mod the game on, Oh and servers will have a subscription fee and you'll have to rent a server from them so they can squeeze out every bit of money out of you.

/rant
If this is real I really hope someone makes a clone of minecraft or a game that is designed with the spirit and mechanics of minecraft at heart and continues where mojang obviously gave up, notch gave up on the company awhile ago when he stopped developing the game himself to play with his other code creations.
Maybe the backbones of the modding community could come together and make a game like minecraft?
rant\
 

Dorque

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,022
0
0
I've tried to say this subtly but apparently it's not getting through, so let's try again; I'm disappointed and perplexed by everyone suggesting that this means Microsoft will immediately start DLCing the heck out of Minecraft, damaging the game, etc. You're all smarter than that; on so very many different levels that makes no sense for them to do whatsoever, starting with the fact it'd be a massive PR disaster and continuing with the fact a good part of the playerbase will simply jump ship.

Assuming Microsoft acquires Mojang, they have no motive to mistreat the game and every reason to improve it. This isn't directly about money. 2 billion is pocket change to them. This is about driving the Microsoft brand, not lining their pockets.

Microsoft is not EA and this "they'll try to squeeze us dry" paranoia is sad and silly, folks. You're all better than that.

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk
 

Quesenek

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
396
0
0
I've tried to say this subtly but apparently it's not getting through, so let's try again; I'm disappointed and perplexed by everyone suggesting that this means Microsoft will immediately start DLCing the heck out of Minecraft, damaging the game, etc. You're all smarter than that; on so very many different levels that makes no sense for them to do whatsoever, starting with the fact it'd be a massive PR disaster and continuing with the fact a good part of the playerbase will simply jump ship.

Assuming Microsoft acquires Mojang, they have no motive to mistreat the game and every reason to improve it. This isn't directly about money. 2 billion is pocket change to them. This is about driving the Microsoft brand, not lining their pockets.

Microsoft is not EA and this "they'll try to squeeze us dry" paranoia is sad and silly, folks. You're all better than that.

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk
Yeah we will see, However I cannot find a single bit of evidence that backs up the fact that Microsoft is different than any other game developer, microsoft games have DLC, the games I can actually think of that are microsoft games are forza and halo both of which the most recent releases are console exclusive, just imagine what kind of reaction they might have if they make minecraft an xbox exclusive sure they may lose a ton of people but like you said 2 billion is pocket change so they do not care. All they want is their Xbox to be number one so adding minecraft to the list of exclusive games would give their console an edge among people who are deciding between the PS4 and the Xbone.
 

Antaioz

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
237
0
0
I've tried to say this subtly but apparently it's not getting through, so let's try again; I'm disappointed and perplexed by everyone suggesting that this means Microsoft will immediately start DLCing the heck out of Minecraft, damaging the game, etc. You're all smarter than that; on so very many different levels that makes no sense for them to do whatsoever, starting with the fact it'd be a massive PR disaster and continuing with the fact a good part of the playerbase will simply jump ship.

Assuming Microsoft acquires Mojang, they have no motive to mistreat the game and every reason to improve it. This isn't directly about money. 2 billion is pocket change to them. This is about driving the Microsoft brand, not lining their pockets.

Microsoft is not EA and this "they'll try to squeeze us dry" paranoia is sad and silly, folks. You're all better than that.

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk


if expecting the worse is paranoia, then expecting the best is naive

I think we can all agree that microsofts goals, whatever they are will most certainly be different to what mojang's goals were/are.
This means changes, a lot of which we probably won't want, as microsofts most likely goals (profit, marketing, etc) will probably start removing freedoms that we've enjoyed.

As for PR disasters, microsoft has proven lately that they can't see the obvious PR disasters infront of them until they're smack bang in the middle. re: the Xbone internet fiasco they had to redact.
 

Bigpak

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
539
3
1
I'm over this to be honest. Whatever happens happens. I'm glad that I have finally made the decision to load my world back up and boot up my local server and continue my space program. Plus Thaumcraft 4 looks pretty neat too and I haven't gotten to check that out either!

Like honestly I worried myself into exhaustion and im just over it. I'm happy as long as everyone is nice and considerate with eachother. I just like to play games, not constantly argue :p

I also regret posting that picture earlier about the I'm out m8. My sincere apologies.
 
Last edited:

Dorque

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,022
0
0
Some people just hate new things that work better :D
Win 8 totally had problems at release of you didn't have a touch screen. It's still more difficult to navigate in its native GUI than Win 7 was if you don't have a touchscreen, and its multi-monitor support is lacking, in my opinion.

New and working better is well and good, but I haven't been a fan of the Microsoft "form over function" philosophy since they introduced the "ribbon" to office.

Or since they stripped the power out of the DOS command line but I can deal =P

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: YX33A

Hambeau

Over-Achiever
Jul 24, 2013
2,598
1,531
213
I never had problems with 8.0, or the developer preview for that matter. Then again I've never had many issues with any OS since CP/m, having professionally supported Intel-based OSes since 1978 and know how to streamline performance by disabling services I don't need or use.
 
  • Like
Reactions: YX33A

Dorque

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,022
0
0
I never had problems with 8.0, or the developer preview for that matter. Then again I've never had many issues with any OS since CP/m, having professionally supported Intel-based OSes since 1978 and know how to streamline performance by disabling services I don't need or use.
I find certain tasks much more obtuse than they used to be. I rather liked the old tree structure of the start menu; to reach an application shortcut now through that menu is rather more complicated.

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: YX33A