Opinions on Microsoft buying Mojang

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wolfpax181

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Jul 29, 2019
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Microsoft is going to want every bit of that 2.5billion back in future sales. can we say paid DLC. fees to access servers. pay to get next major update

my other concern is possible new registration system. will people need an live account to log into or play online the game(pc)?

Paid DLC and the possibility to pay for the next update are going to be thorny as hell. Alpha buyers were promised every update to Minecraft for free forever. That's less than a fiftieth of the player base, probably significantly less so active, but a lot of those people are also the vocal ones that got the wheel rolling.
 

wolfenstein19

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Jul 29, 2019
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Paid DLC and the possibility to pay for the next update are going to be thorny as hell. Alpha buyers were promised every update to Minecraft for free forever. That's less than a fiftieth of the player base, probably significantly less so active, but a lot of those people are also the vocal ones that got the wheel rolling.
Im one of those people. One of my accounts is an alpha account. I bought that on the premise that I would get all future content for Minecraft for free. Failing that would be grounds for demanding a refund, legally, in my country.

I think whats gonna happen though is they will merchandise even more, and monetise the hell out of existing users. Monthly subscription to be permitted to enter any servers? Possibly. Future DLC and expansion packs? most likely. Mods only with inhouse API and with purchase price? maybe.
 
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Dorque

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Jul 29, 2019
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Im one of those people. One of my accounts is an alpha account. I bought that on the premise that I would get all future content for Minecraft for free. Failing that would be grounds for demanding a refund, legally, in my country.

I think whats gonna happen though is they will merchandise even more, and monetise the hell out of existing users. Monthly subscription to be permitted to enter any servers? Possibly. Future DLC and expansion packs? most likely. Mods only with inhouse API and with purchase price? maybe.
I think our most likely monetization routes are server hosting and merchandising. I really don't feel Microsoft gaming would ever recover if they tried to monetize current content.

Realistically? I don't think they expect a DIRECT ROI almost at all. I'm pretty confident this has a lot more to do with selling high-price-point hardware than microtransactional revenue.

Sent from my Toaster using Tapatalk
 

TheMechEngineer

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Jul 29, 2019
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Microsoft is going to want every bit of that 2.5billion back in future sales. can we say paid DLC. fees to access servers. pay to get next major update

Initially I thought that Microsoft would be happy to just own the popular Minecraft software, but I realised that they have actually been laying off employees recently due to financial reasons.
Something just doesn't add up and it can only lead to some form of additional monetization, it just depends on how much and how much Microsoft want to sell out the Minecraft brand.
 

moltenbrain

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Jul 29, 2019
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Historically, Microsoft's core business has been to create platforms like Windows, encourage people to build for the platforms, and then make their money from the licenses for the platforms. I or anyone else can develop an application for Windows without needing Microsoft's permission or paying it a cent. MS not only allows this, but encourages it by providing free development tools, resources, conferences, etc. This has always been its business strategy.

The most important part of the announcement today was the following from MS's CEO: "Minecraft is more than a great game franchise – it is an open world platform". MS would not pay 2.5 billion dollars for a game, but it would for a platform, a platform that all of today's kids have already adopted, a platform that can be extended to education, modeling, and is already a virtual version of facebook for kids.

If MS is consistent with its past practices, it will not only allow modding but encourage it, because that adds value to the platform. I suspect MC will be ported to C# (supported by Mono on non-MS platforms), that we will quickly see a Minecraft SDK, and quite possibly a Visual Studio Express Minecraft Edition. Moreover, MS will probably seek out people who have already proven they can add content successfully, e.g. developers of popular mods, and offer to support them in various ways. What I would not expect to see is MS in any way trying to block modding. That would decrease the value of their platform.
 
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Blue

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Jul 29, 2019
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Im one of those people. One of my accounts is an alpha account. I bought that on the premise that I would get all future content for Minecraft for free. Failing that would be grounds for demanding a refund, legally, in my country.

I think whats gonna happen though is they will merchandise even more, and monetise the hell out of existing users. Monthly subscription to be permitted to enter any servers? Possibly. Future DLC and expansion packs? most likely. Mods only with inhouse API and with purchase price? maybe.
oh god no no no if they pay for expansions pack like in wow im gone gone gone I can see small DLC but rewording updates as exspansion packs thats it im out. and they have to lock out the modding community ebcause what would stop poeple from getting all that stuff through modds
 

ratchet freak

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Nov 11, 2012
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Initially I thought that Microsoft would be happy to just own the popular Minecraft software, but I realised that they have actually been laying off employees recently due to financial reasons.
Something just doesn't add up and it can only lead to some form of additional monetization, it just depends on how much and how much Microsoft want to sell out the Minecraft brand.
they've been saving up to buy the steaming pile known as mojang
 

trajing

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Jul 29, 2019
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The issue is:
A) The SDK/Dev environment will be monetized.
B) Well, MC will be in a C language. @Strikingwolf, care to take it from here on why that'll end modding as we know it?
 

FyberOptic

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Jul 29, 2019
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How many of you would be bothered if Microsoft made a proper modding API and supported it and whatnot, however they charged you £5 to install mods. Also, a fraction of that money would go to the modders. I could see the former happening but the latter would be a lot less likely.
EDIT: I meant £5 to get access to install any mod, not per mod. Just realised that that may have caused confusion.

I think the key words there are "proper modding API". Even before all of this, it didn't sound like Mojang themselves were going to provide us with a "proper" modding API. It was going to be a "plugin" API which sounded more like some limited form of Bukkit, or worse, a scripting language oriented around command block functionality. Either way you look at it, an official API won't be what Forge is. But releasing an official API might be the justification they need to put a stop to Forge, unfortunately.

Charging for mods though is ridiculous and I don't personally want any part of Minecraft: App Store Edition. Especially when there's absolutely no chance that any of them could be worth anything based on the kind of API they would provide to do it with.
 
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ratchet freak

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Nov 11, 2012
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I think the key words there are "proper modding API". Even before all of this, it didn't sound like Mojang themselves were going to provide us with a "proper" modding API. It was going to be a "plugin" API which sounded more like some limited form of Bukkit, or worse, a scripting language oriented around command block functionality. Either way you look at it, an official API won't be what Forge is. But releasing an official API might be the justification they need to put a stop to Forge, unfortunately.

Charging for mods though is ridiculous and I don't personally want any part of Minecraft: App Store Edition. Especially when there's absolutely no chance that any of them could be worth anything based on the kind of API they would provide to do it with.
one of the strengths of Forge is that if you have a good reason (and they listen) then your feature request would come out before the next MC update
 
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moltenbrain

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Jul 29, 2019
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MS monetizes enterprise development tools, but makes tools available for free to single developers/small shops. Again, they see it as in their interest for people to develop content for their platforms. And there is nothing wrong with C as a modding language. The vast majority of games are written in C++. Microsoft's version, C#, is very similar to Java. The only issue is that you are dependent on the API.
 

FyberOptic

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Jul 29, 2019
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one of the strengths of Forge is that if you have a good reason (and they listen) then your feature request would come out before the next MC update

The even greater strength is that you don't have to wait for anyone to do literally anything you want to the game. You're not constrained by the API, it's just there to help you. FML gives you the power to modify the code at the lowest of levels, and an official API would never allow that.
 
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Hambeau

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Jul 24, 2013
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Microsoft is going to want every bit of that 2.5billion back in future sales. can we say paid DLC. fees to access servers. pay to get next major update

my other concern is possible new registration system. will people need an live account to log into or play online the game(pc)?

Nope. Not until it actually happens.
 

ratchet freak

Well-Known Member
Nov 11, 2012
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The even greater strength is that you don't have to wait for anyone to do literally anything you want to the game. You're not constrained by the API, it's just there to help you. FML gives you the power to modify the code at the lowest of levels, and an official API would never allow that.
modifying code at the lowest levels is an invitation for incompatibilities which an API is designed to avoid
 

GreatOrator

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Jul 29, 2019
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It has been said a few times, but the focus on Minecraft the game as the revenue stream?

You realize the purchase means all licensing is now microsoft's too? Legos, Books, Toys, etc, all revenue generated by minecraft outside of the game is theirs too now.

The $100 million annually was only for the game sales, I don't know if any definitive figure has been released for merchandising and licensing fees. And it all goes to microsoft. I think minecraft will end up just fine if not even better personally.