This could be very, very bad

#1 · 2014/09/10, 10:27

http://kotaku.com/report-microsoft-trying-to-buy-mojang-creators-of-min-1632692098?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

I don't like to fuel scepticism and fear, but if Microsoft bought Mojang, I can't see any way it would turn out for the best.

All I could ever see would be the end of servers for a Microsoft pay version, and the end of free updates to the game. Pay for play items that would be exclusively available for additional fees, etc. Mojang most certainly uses a FAR different business model than Microsoft. This article scares the hell out of me as far as my love for Minecraft goes.

I REALLY hope I am worried over nothing and that this is all wrong, and poor speculation.

#2 · 2014/09/10, 11:30

Quote from uncovery on 2014/09/10, 11:30
Ok, I have been trying to avoid this topic, but since it's on the table now, let me make a point about this:

For those who have not been following by themselves the recent developments, here is a short write-up. Not all of this was mentioned by me on the blog so far.

1) Someone of the top developers at Bukkit threw the towel and declared Bukkit (our plugin/server environment that anables us to be not just a plain vanilla minecraft server) for dead.
2) Mojang stepped up and said that's not possible, and admitted that they own the Bukkit IP rights since years which nobody knew, not even the people who have worked on Bukkit for years now. Mojang also said they will continue to develop Bukkit on their own, after having announced that they want to create their own plugin-API for minecraft but did not get anywhere usable in the last 2 years
3) Someone who has worked on it for years issued a DMCA takedown notice against Bukkit. This was on the base that Minecraft, a closed-source software was distributed along with the open-source software that was contributed by the voluntary contributors over the last years. The open source license prohibits closed source to be distributed along with open-source software. From my last information (I do not remember the details) Mojang is working to resolve this and it should be resolved soon, it just takes time until the legal issues are nailed down.

What does that mean?

It means that

a) The bukkit community is falling apart. A lot of propgramers who have been writing bukkit itself or the most important plugins for it, are turning around because they feel that there is a lot of insecurity around the project and the legality of what they are doing.
b) Mojang does not have a team to support bukkit themselves - at least right now. While they are able to continue bukkit, the hundreds of volunteers and mainly the top devs (and there is a dozen) who ran away will not be replaced that easily by Mojang. The issue here is that Mojang is still a small company and not a corporation which can easily build up a department of 10-20 people and run the system as it is supposed to be run once you need to pay people for what they are doing. Specially not since Notch left his former job specifically because he does not like to work in a large corporation.

So currently, while the future of minecraft itself looks good, the future of servers like I run it here is extremely foggy. There is no saying how fast Mojang will resolve the legal issues around Bukkit or what they will do to continue Bukkit. The truth of the matter is however that:

a) Mojang would have to start operating differently if they want the server community to survive. The largest servers almost all violate the EULA by selling in-game items. Bukkit needs a developer team - quickly. These are both topics that Mojang has been dealing with quite poorly in the future. It is safe to assume that any larger company that is used to deal with larger development teams would do a better job at this than Mojang.

b) Notch was quite upset at Facebook buying the Oculus Rift. This would indicate that he would not like Microsoft to buy Minecraft - but one has to keep in mind that he does not know what the contractual details behind that deal were - and what Microsoft offered to Mojang. It can be that Mircosoft bought them with conditions that guarantee a continuation of the current setup for a number of years - who knows.

c) Minecraft has 50 Million users. To manage this many users and their expectation cannot be run by the people who are running it right now. You can see that in the whole EULA fallout, the current issues with bukkit and so on. They are making huge blunders that is destroying the community, not because of what they are intending, but much more because so many people have huge expectations towards Notch and his team because they are not a large corporation but more and idol. And because Mojang simply does not have a proper legal and PR team that can deal with this sort of thing. These guys are mainly programmers, not managers. And you need managers to navigate around these issues. And as we can see to what happened to the developer of Flappy bird, it's quite hard to stand up against 50 Million users who throw their guts at you and send you death threats. If you have a large company in your back to protect you from being attacked and harassed personally, this is a completely different matter.

d) Of course, if MS bought MC, there is a certain uncertainty how they would run the show. However, the way Mojang has been running the show in the last months, this was not good either. At the current moment, I for example, am in a huge limbo. I do not know if it's worthwhile to continue programming on the server because I do not know if Bukkit will be upgraded to 1.8 before all users run away to REALMS or the big servers which already have been able to hack the new blocks into their software - just because they get rich on kids spending 200 USD and can hire programmers. Id' rather have someone to step up and make a statement saying "This is what it's gonna be" than the prolonged silence with the random statements of general intentions as done by Mojang so far.

That said, I will continue running this server as long as we can keep the user number stable. I do not want to see my work over the years go down the drain either. Neither all the code that I wrote nor the community we built together. But unfortunately, right now all we can do is wait and see what comes out of this whole thing.

Ok, I have been trying to avoid this topic, but since it's on the table now, let me make a point about this:

For those who have not been following by themselves the recent developments, here is a short write-up. Not all of this was mentioned by me on the blog so far.

1) Someone of the top developers at Bukkit threw the towel and declared Bukkit (our plugin/server environment that anables us to be not just a plain vanilla minecraft server) for dead.
2) Mojang stepped up and said that's not possible, and admitted that they own the Bukkit IP rights since years which nobody knew, not even the people who have worked on Bukkit for years now. Mojang also said they will continue to develop Bukkit on their own, after having announced that they want to create their own plugin-API for minecraft but did not get anywhere usable in the last 2 years
3) Someone who has worked on it for years issued a DMCA takedown notice against Bukkit. This was on the base that Minecraft, a closed-source software was distributed along with the open-source software that was contributed by the voluntary contributors over the last years. The open source license prohibits closed source to be distributed along with open-source software. From my last information (I do not remember the details) Mojang is working to resolve this and it should be resolved soon, it just takes time until the legal issues are nailed down.

What does that mean?

It means that

a) The bukkit community is falling apart. A lot of propgramers who have been writing bukkit itself or the most important plugins for it, are turning around because they feel that there is a lot of insecurity around the project and the legality of what they are doing.
b) Mojang does not have a team to support bukkit themselves - at least right now. While they are able to continue bukkit, the hundreds of volunteers and mainly the top devs (and there is a dozen) who ran away will not be replaced that easily by Mojang. The issue here is that Mojang is still a small company and not a corporation which can easily build up a department of 10-20 people and run the system as it is supposed to be run once you need to pay people for what they are doing. Specially not since Notch left his former job specifically because he does not like to work in a large corporation.

So currently, while the future of minecraft itself looks good, the future of servers like I run it here is extremely foggy. There is no saying how fast Mojang will resolve the legal issues around Bukkit or what they will do to continue Bukkit. The truth of the matter is however that:

a) Mojang would have to start operating differently if they want the server community to survive. The largest servers almost all violate the EULA by selling in-game items. Bukkit needs a developer team - quickly. These are both topics that Mojang has been dealing with quite poorly in the future. It is safe to assume that any larger company that is used to deal with larger development teams would do a better job at this than Mojang.

b) Notch was quite upset at Facebook buying the Oculus Rift. This would indicate that he would not like Microsoft to buy Minecraft - but one has to keep in mind that he does not know what the contractual details behind that deal were - and what Microsoft offered to Mojang. It can be that Mircosoft bought them with conditions that guarantee a continuation of the current setup for a number of years - who knows.

c) Minecraft has 50 Million users. To manage this many users and their expectation cannot be run by the people who are running it right now. You can see that in the whole EULA fallout, the current issues with bukkit and so on. They are making huge blunders that is destroying the community, not because of what they are intending, but much more because so many people have huge expectations towards Notch and his team because they are not a large corporation but more and idol. And because Mojang simply does not have a proper legal and PR team that can deal with this sort of thing. These guys are mainly programmers, not managers. And you need managers to navigate around these issues. And as we can see to what happened to the developer of Flappy bird, it's quite hard to stand up against 50 Million users who throw their guts at you and send you death threats. If you have a large company in your back to protect you from being attacked and harassed personally, this is a completely different matter.

d) Of course, if MS bought MC, there is a certain uncertainty how they would run the show. However, the way Mojang has been running the show in the last months, this was not good either. At the current moment, I for example, am in a huge limbo. I do not know if it's worthwhile to continue programming on the server because I do not know if Bukkit will be upgraded to 1.8 before all users run away to REALMS or the big servers which already have been able to hack the new blocks into their software - just because they get rich on kids spending 200 USD and can hire programmers. Id' rather have someone to step up and make a statement saying "This is what it's gonna be" than the prolonged silence with the random statements of general intentions as done by Mojang so far.

That said, I will continue running this server as long as we can keep the user number stable. I do not want to see my work over the years go down the drain either. Neither all the code that I wrote nor the community we built together. But unfortunately, right now all we can do is wait and see what comes out of this whole thing.

#3 · 2014/09/10, 12:47

Yeah, Again, I wasnt trying to upset you or anyone else, it just seemed relevant. I know you have been dealing with a lot of crap with the new update Unc. I was more worried about what would happen with a Microsoft buyout. I would sincerely hope that Notch would want it to stay the same, but why would they pay 2 billion to keep the same model? Just not Microsoft's MO in the past with acquisitions.

I apologize if I was too quick to post this, but it was like a punch in the gut, and I wanted to see if anyone else had seen anything different maybe?

#4 · 2014/09/10, 14:17

No worries for posting it. I am just a bit frustrated with the topic as such, hence my first statement.

I think 2 billion does not mean that they will change the model. If you make a calculation:

2'000'000'000 / 50'000'000 = 40

Meaning if they can get an average of 40 USD per minecraft customer, they already made a profit.
If you make 2-4 full-featured minecraft movies, do a better job at merchandising and sell a couple of more copies, they get their money back already x 10.

For that, they do not have to turn the game into a pay-to-win scenario.

Plus, minecraft has a HUGE positive image, as opposed to Microsoft itself. Just the fact that Microsoft can for example package minecraft with windows or join it up in their PR, is worth a LOT for them.

#5 · 2014/09/10, 18:36

I actually think all Microsoft can do is good. We've been plagued by bad releases from Microsoft in the last few years and Windows 8 certainly hasn't helped but people forget that Microsoft is behind some of the best game franchises ever produced and have been completely faithful to the community at least with their video games (Maybe not the XBone). If Microsoft do buy Mojang and the rights to Minecraft it could be the final push Minecraft needs to make it onto every PC and ending the limitations of a small indie game developer group. Unc's suggestion of packaging it with Windows is an interesting one and is certainly not to be ignored since Windows (Not Windows 9 as they've stated :P) is getting closer and needs some nice solid hype to release into (think game support on Windows 95). I don't think Minecraft can get worse if that's what people are worried about, they can't make us pay extra subscription fees, they can't limit servers to only pay-to-plays/wins (also Microsoft to my knowledge has never done a pay-to-win) and they certainly can't kill the massive community behind the best game ever made! :)

#6 · 2014/09/12, 00:03

Personally, I believe Microsoft bloats and spoils everything it touches. That's just personal viewpoint, based upon observation since that company's being born.

However, I believe management is what is actually required, as Uncovery has told. For that, I would say that Microsoft has pretty good managers, despite everything I believe about them as a whole. So let's stay together, remain at what we have and do whatever possible to let the players' communities live and thrive.

Starting with Uncovery, of course. I like it here, even though there are times I can but have a brief look once a day at what's going on.