4 ms·

Nah. Microsoft did a great job handling Minecraft imo. I thought they were out of their mind paying that much money for something that I didn't think had many o

Nah. Microsoft did a great job handling Minecraft imo. I thought they were out of their mind paying that much money for something that I didn't think had many opportunities left to grow. But now I think it was the perfect time for Persson and his team to give it to someone with the resources and the reach to make those opportunities. Yes, Microsoft changed some things about Minecraft the game, but overall they didn't touch the core gameplay loop. Instead they focused on expanding the minecraft universe with genre crossing spinoff games and cooperations that the old Mojang could've never done. And kids loved most of it. Stuff like Minecraft: Story Mode added a richness to the franchise that you could completely ignore if you wanted to, or dive into if it appealed to you. Microsoft grew Minecraft because it still had a lot of growth in it. It might clash with your nostalgia, but it evolved such that it still broadly appealed to its growing core audience. And that is and always has been children. And children still love Minecraft.

codeulike 2y ago
Underrated thing Microsoft have done is allow Bedrock to cross-play between Windows, IOS, Playstation, Switch and XBox
fbdab103 2y ago
Nah. Microsoft did a great job handling Minecraft imo. I am still peeved that my lifetime license "mysteriously" broke during Microsoft's account transitions. Trillion dollar company lacks the manpower and technical capability to handle it? Or someone cannot be arsed to maintain "freeloader" customers.
- herbst 2y ago
  Same here. Had one of the first few thousand accounts. Since Microsoft took over: - it got hacked. Got it back but name was changed, history not perfect anymore - much later somehow lost my account due to me trying to keep my old account I guess. Whatever I wasnt noticed that my account is going to die. It just did. Microsoft support also never answered to my request getting it back - Never played Minecraft again
  - strogonoff 2y ago
    Microsoft’s bean counters immediately set about milking as much profit from Minecraft as they can right after the purchase, be through Minecoin, premium skins, or by collecting PII via requiring phone numbers from everyone for “SMS verification” due to “security alert” blackmail (total joke—the attacker could just as well provide their own phone number and lock me out—except, of course, there is no actual suspicious activity: my account was never hacked, and I was not playing for years). It was the first game I bought in my life, and 30 EUR was quite a chunk of change. Since the acquisition, it stopped being a game I have; it is now a game that Microsoft may or may not let me play. As a result, I don’t bother.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- kenmorechalfant 2y ago
  Oh man, I guess I was so angry about that at some point I blocked it out. My dumb ass actually bought a 2nd account because I couldn't convince my friends to play with me until it was free. After MSFT purchased Minecraft I could never recover either of those accounts!
- Version467 2y ago
  Yeah, that's fair. That was just a shitty thing to do. I was more focusing on the creative development that Minecraft saw under Microsoft. Fandoms are often extremely nervous when a large corporation buys the rights to a beloved media ip, largely because this has gone wrong so many times, with poor adaptions or obvious cashgrabs milking a property until the fanbase turns away. This really hasn't happened to Minecraft. It grew further in popularity, even though it was already massively popular at the time and it did it mostly without driving away the existing fans. That in itself is quite unusual (I think) and definitely not what I would have expected. At the time I really thought that the sale would mark the beginning of Minecraft's slow descent into irrelevancy and I definitely remember that being a fairly common sentiment. But I fully understand people being mad at the license issues you mention. They should be. Might not have been illegal, but that was essentially theft.
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    I was at least ambivalent about a lot of the changes, but the combat update did ruin things.
- trinix912 2y ago
  They did provide several notices regarding that years in advance to shutting down the old auth servers and also had a long migration period during which you could log in with both accounts (assuming you have migrated the old account to Xbox/Microsoft). The whole reason they did it is that you can now easily switch between Java and Bedrock, and that it's not as laughably easy to hack accounts as it used to be.
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    Their notices required you to re-verify your original email address, which so far has never been required. So lots of people (myself included) had their passwords and could play fine, never mind the 10-year-old @aol.com account tied to it, and could do nothing but watch that deadline approach before being locked out.
kenmorechalfant 2y ago
Minecraft STILL doesn't have a lot of stuff Notch was planning on adding. Instead of becoming an actual living breathing world you want to explore more they focus on premium skins and an occasional update with mostly bewildering content. Usually big projects like movies and games have a director(s) with a grand vision. Notch had a vision but he gave up on it for money. Microsoft's only vision for Minecraft has ever been sponsorship deals and merch. Honestly, I feel more betrayed by Notch than by Microsoft.
- Version467 2y ago
  > Notch had a vision but he gave up on it for money. That's certainly one way to see it, but I don't think Notch was ever really in a position to turn some of his more grand ideas for the game into a reality. Not because he couldn't afford it, but because he didn't have the skill (or interest) in leading a Studio that's much bigger than ~20 people. From everything I've read about him it seems like he never liked any of the additional responsibilities that came with Minecrafts growing success and there are some accounts from some early members of the team that seem to corroborate this. So I really don't think he sold out. I think he realized that he couldn't be the person to manage Minecrafts generational success and that he'd rather have 2 billion dollars in exchange for giving another company a shot at that, versus not having that money and then seeing himself fail to bring his ideas to fruition. In the end that's of course just speculation. It could just as well be that he never had any of those thoughts and just fucked off, laughing all the way to the bank and then to the biggest hollywood mansion that money can buy. In that case I'm still glad that he got the bag from Microsoft, because I can imagine much worse ways that this could've gone.
herewulf 2y ago
Microsoft sure has grown a lot of merch. And yes, children love it. Including my own.
verdverm 2y ago
They just added the autocrafter and trial chambers, enhancements for redstoners, adventures, and builders They need to get a handle on inventory management, probably the most complained about thing. 100s of new blocks but inventory is still largely the same

codeulike 2y ago

Underrated thing Microsoft have done is allow Bedrock to cross-play between Windows, IOS, Playstation, Switch and XBox

fbdab103 2y ago

Nah. Microsoft did a great job handling Minecraft imo. I am still peeved that my lifetime license "mysteriously" broke during Microsoft's account transitions. Trillion dollar company lacks the manpower and technical capability to handle it? Or someone cannot be arsed to maintain "freeloader" customers.

herbst 2y ago
Same here. Had one of the first few thousand accounts. Since Microsoft took over: - it got hacked. Got it back but name was changed, history not perfect anymore - much later somehow lost my account due to me trying to keep my old account I guess. Whatever I wasnt noticed that my account is going to die. It just did. Microsoft support also never answered to my request getting it back - Never played Minecraft again
- strogonoff 2y ago
  Microsoft’s bean counters immediately set about milking as much profit from Minecraft as they can right after the purchase, be through Minecoin, premium skins, or by collecting PII via requiring phone numbers from everyone for “SMS verification” due to “security alert” blackmail (total joke—the attacker could just as well provide their own phone number and lock me out—except, of course, there is no actual suspicious activity: my account was never hacked, and I was not playing for years). It was the first game I bought in my life, and 30 EUR was quite a chunk of change. Since the acquisition, it stopped being a game I have; it is now a game that Microsoft may or may not let me play. As a result, I don’t bother.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
kenmorechalfant 2y ago
Oh man, I guess I was so angry about that at some point I blocked it out. My dumb ass actually bought a 2nd account because I couldn't convince my friends to play with me until it was free. After MSFT purchased Minecraft I could never recover either of those accounts!
Version467 2y ago
Yeah, that's fair. That was just a shitty thing to do. I was more focusing on the creative development that Minecraft saw under Microsoft. Fandoms are often extremely nervous when a large corporation buys the rights to a beloved media ip, largely because this has gone wrong so many times, with poor adaptions or obvious cashgrabs milking a property until the fanbase turns away. This really hasn't happened to Minecraft. It grew further in popularity, even though it was already massively popular at the time and it did it mostly without driving away the existing fans. That in itself is quite unusual (I think) and definitely not what I would have expected. At the time I really thought that the sale would mark the beginning of Minecraft's slow descent into irrelevancy and I definitely remember that being a fairly common sentiment. But I fully understand people being mad at the license issues you mention. They should be. Might not have been illegal, but that was essentially theft.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  I was at least ambivalent about a lot of the changes, but the combat update did ruin things.
trinix912 2y ago
They did provide several notices regarding that years in advance to shutting down the old auth servers and also had a long migration period during which you could log in with both accounts (assuming you have migrated the old account to Xbox/Microsoft). The whole reason they did it is that you can now easily switch between Java and Bedrock, and that it's not as laughably easy to hack accounts as it used to be.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Their notices required you to re-verify your original email address, which so far has never been required. So lots of people (myself included) had their passwords and could play fine, never mind the 10-year-old @aol.com account tied to it, and could do nothing but watch that deadline approach before being locked out.

kenmorechalfant 2y ago

Minecraft STILL doesn't have a lot of stuff Notch was planning on adding. Instead of becoming an actual living breathing world you want to explore more they focus on premium skins and an occasional update with mostly bewildering content. Usually big projects like movies and games have a director(s) with a grand vision. Notch had a vision but he gave up on it for money. Microsoft's only vision for Minecraft has ever been sponsorship deals and merch. Honestly, I feel more betrayed by Notch than by Microsoft.

Version467 2y ago
> Notch had a vision but he gave up on it for money. That's certainly one way to see it, but I don't think Notch was ever really in a position to turn some of his more grand ideas for the game into a reality. Not because he couldn't afford it, but because he didn't have the skill (or interest) in leading a Studio that's much bigger than ~20 people. From everything I've read about him it seems like he never liked any of the additional responsibilities that came with Minecrafts growing success and there are some accounts from some early members of the team that seem to corroborate this. So I really don't think he sold out. I think he realized that he couldn't be the person to manage Minecrafts generational success and that he'd rather have 2 billion dollars in exchange for giving another company a shot at that, versus not having that money and then seeing himself fail to bring his ideas to fruition. In the end that's of course just speculation. It could just as well be that he never had any of those thoughts and just fucked off, laughing all the way to the bank and then to the biggest hollywood mansion that money can buy. In that case I'm still glad that he got the bag from Microsoft, because I can imagine much worse ways that this could've gone.

herewulf 2y ago

Microsoft sure has grown a lot of merch. And yes, children love it. Including my own.

verdverm 2y ago

They just added the autocrafter and trial chambers, enhancements for redstoners, adventures, and builders They need to get a handle on inventory management, probably the most complained about thing. 100s of new blocks but inventory is still largely the same