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What people here aren't getting with the references to XBox and iOS is that Notch's objections aren't to closed platforms. He objects to PCs as closed platforms

What people here aren't getting with the references to XBox and iOS is that Notch's objections aren't to closed platforms. He objects to PCs as closed platforms. Minecraft was originally an indie game developed for PCs due to their open ecosystem. It was only able to reach closed markets like iOS and XBox because of its success as a side project on an open platform. Notch strongly believes that the computer should stay a bastion of openness in order to sustain a indie game community--indeed, the majority of my own games I play today are small, independent games that provide a unique experience that I would hate to lose due to higher barriers to entry.

kenjackson 14y ago
How would the existence of Windows 8 stopped the creation of Minecraft? He still could have developed with it (there's the desktop). He could have deployed his app, had it certified, etc... There doesn't seem to be anything that openness would have provided him. Open platforms are good for a few classes of devs: 1) Devs at competing companies. Closed platforms make it easier for one company to shut out a competitor. 2) Malware creators. 3) HW tinkerers. This is probably the class I have the most empathy for. With that said Win8 has a complete desktop mode fully available for tinkering.
- Retric 14y ago
  There is no way to do a truly large scale beta on iOS. Your options are to release it to a select group, or go though the review process are release to everyone. That's not to say all Closed platforms would have caused issues with Mincraft just some of them.
- thetabyte 14y ago
  "had it certified" Bam. I have no idea quite how intensive the review process is (I'm no Windows programmer, so the requirements don't mean much to me) but any additional barrier is something that holds back the finnicky and decentralized indie crowd. Not only will it present another technical barrier that they will have no interest in surpassing, but there will likely be a cultural and psychological backlash of having to certify their version 0 project with Microsoft. Not to mention how certification requirements would impact beta releases and feedback.
- maratd 14y ago
  You have no experience dealing with a 3rd party that controls the marketplace. Apple's behavior is not exceptional. It's how every monopolist behaves when they own the market. I dealt with the very same issues when I had my own business selling on eBay. At the end of the day, when you have to move your product through someone's market, it's not your product, it's not your business, and those aren't your customers. It's all theirs. Because if you do something they don't like, they will just turn you off ... or worse, they'll call you and tell you to change it. > There doesn't seem to be anything that openness would have provided him. It would have provided him the freedom of developing the product he wants, without compromise. It would have allowed him to take his vision directly to his customers. And nobody would be able to get in his way. > With that said Win8 has a complete desktop mode fully available for tinkering. Have you tried installing unsigned software on Windows 8? You get a huge window pretty much saying NO. Only after clicking on more info, do you get an option to override. I can only guess what will happen with Windows 9?
  - Mythbusters 14y ago
    Signing the software is still different than getting it approved by Microsoft. I am guessing it's done by third party certificates? I still don't understand what the concern is? The model you described is the app store model and though I partially agree with you the heavy handed behavior is only possible when you have a monopoly. I don't think Microsoft can afford that at this point.
    - maratd 14y ago
      > I still don't understand what the concern is? Where do you buy your groceries? Do you go to a guy who sells tomatoes and then drive to the other side of town to get apples from a different guy? Most of us just go to a market and buy all our groceries there. Now tell me, Mr. Customer, what is the name of the guy who grows your tomatoes? What is the name of the farm? Do you consider yourself his customer or the customer of the market? If the tomatoes taste bad, who will you complain to? Who are you loyal to? If the market starts buying tomatoes from a different guy ... will you shrug your shoulders and buy the new tomatoes ... or will you drive across town to get the original tomatoes? I'm sure you see my point. The very same thing is happening to the software market. Yes, we will make more money. But there is more to life than money! We will no longer have any customers. We will become employees of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Mind you, not employees with benefits, no. Independent contractors who are "hired" and "fired" at whim. Again, yes, we can all make more money. But if money is all we wanted, we would have chosen to work for the big boys to begin with! This movement toward centralized markets is the fundamental reason I chose to go into web development and avoided app development like the plague. Each part of my stack is easily replaceable and my customers are my customers. I don't care if I make less money. I have the freedom to see my vision come to life and to see it being put to work by people I know and who know me. Funny enough, the same push-back is happening in the food biz. The entire local food movement is based on a fairly similar desire.
- krichman 14y ago
  It's possible to have an open platform and keep malware out. It's possible to go as far as OS X-style sandboxing but allow certificate authentication by more than one CA. But the track that Win and OS X are taking is to try and create monopolies and control the entire software experience. This is detrimental to the users as well as the developers; try to make a utility app that launches other apps, resizes windows, alters your network connections on a system-wide basis, or includes plugin functionality and put it in the App Store. Trying to make an argument like "oh but users can change the settings and run untrusted apps" is just a huge cop-out because the average user is not going to do that ever.
- greggman 14y ago
  I'm going to guess, * Not being able to ship Minecraft in the Win8 store because it uses Java and Java doesn't (yet?) follow the rules required for the store. Store apps require you to use approved APIs, where as Java, being older, calls all kinds of stuff not allowed by store apps. * Not being able to provide updates anytime you want as each update requires approval. * Not being able to give away free copies of paid apps (need codes from MS) * Not being able to bundle with other apps like the humble bundles as the store provides no way to bundle apps. * Not being able to resell licenses (not sure if Minecraft supports that. If not they could decide to in the future. But not if they're in the Win8 store) I'm sure others can list more things you can't do on the W8 store that you can do on an open platform.
  - megaman821 14y ago
    None of this has anything to do with being certified. Certification basically verifies a publisher's identity and ensures users can do things like cleanly uninstall your program. For this, you get the have a link to your game or application in the Windows Store. Users can click on the link and download like normal. All the other stuff you said applies (may apply?) when Microsoft is hosting and distributing your app (Metro apps).
- throwaway64 14y ago
  >here doesn't seem to be anything that openness would have provided him. you are clearly not familiar with the history of minecraft, they have a long history, especially in the begging of pushing out features very rapidly, along with the bugfixes that inevitably come with rapid development, not to mention their recent weekly development builds anyone can run. this kind of very rapid development/response was a big factor in the "viral" nature of minecraft, users could get excited about new features that might be comming tomorrow How much of this would have been possible, while waiting for months for apple/etc approval? not to mention the huge modding community that has grown up around minecraft, with virtually every multiplier server and most single player clients being heavily customized and modded. That would be completely impossible under an iOS style system.

kenjackson 14y ago

How would the existence of Windows 8 stopped the creation of Minecraft? He still could have developed with it (there's the desktop). He could have deployed his app, had it certified, etc... There doesn't seem to be anything that openness would have provided him. Open platforms are good for a few classes of devs: 1) Devs at competing companies. Closed platforms make it easier for one company to shut out a competitor. 2) Malware creators. 3) HW tinkerers. This is probably the class I have the most empathy for. With that said Win8 has a complete desktop mode fully available for tinkering.

Retric 14y ago
There is no way to do a truly large scale beta on iOS. Your options are to release it to a select group, or go though the review process are release to everyone. That's not to say all Closed platforms would have caused issues with Mincraft just some of them.
thetabyte 14y ago
"had it certified" Bam. I have no idea quite how intensive the review process is (I'm no Windows programmer, so the requirements don't mean much to me) but any additional barrier is something that holds back the finnicky and decentralized indie crowd. Not only will it present another technical barrier that they will have no interest in surpassing, but there will likely be a cultural and psychological backlash of having to certify their version 0 project with Microsoft. Not to mention how certification requirements would impact beta releases and feedback.
maratd 14y ago
You have no experience dealing with a 3rd party that controls the marketplace. Apple's behavior is not exceptional. It's how every monopolist behaves when they own the market. I dealt with the very same issues when I had my own business selling on eBay. At the end of the day, when you have to move your product through someone's market, it's not your product, it's not your business, and those aren't your customers. It's all theirs. Because if you do something they don't like, they will just turn you off ... or worse, they'll call you and tell you to change it. > There doesn't seem to be anything that openness would have provided him. It would have provided him the freedom of developing the product he wants, without compromise. It would have allowed him to take his vision directly to his customers. And nobody would be able to get in his way. > With that said Win8 has a complete desktop mode fully available for tinkering. Have you tried installing unsigned software on Windows 8? You get a huge window pretty much saying NO. Only after clicking on more info, do you get an option to override. I can only guess what will happen with Windows 9?
- Mythbusters 14y ago
  Signing the software is still different than getting it approved by Microsoft. I am guessing it's done by third party certificates? I still don't understand what the concern is? The model you described is the app store model and though I partially agree with you the heavy handed behavior is only possible when you have a monopoly. I don't think Microsoft can afford that at this point.
  - maratd 14y ago
    > I still don't understand what the concern is? Where do you buy your groceries? Do you go to a guy who sells tomatoes and then drive to the other side of town to get apples from a different guy? Most of us just go to a market and buy all our groceries there. Now tell me, Mr. Customer, what is the name of the guy who grows your tomatoes? What is the name of the farm? Do you consider yourself his customer or the customer of the market? If the tomatoes taste bad, who will you complain to? Who are you loyal to? If the market starts buying tomatoes from a different guy ... will you shrug your shoulders and buy the new tomatoes ... or will you drive across town to get the original tomatoes? I'm sure you see my point. The very same thing is happening to the software market. Yes, we will make more money. But there is more to life than money! We will no longer have any customers. We will become employees of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Mind you, not employees with benefits, no. Independent contractors who are "hired" and "fired" at whim. Again, yes, we can all make more money. But if money is all we wanted, we would have chosen to work for the big boys to begin with! This movement toward centralized markets is the fundamental reason I chose to go into web development and avoided app development like the plague. Each part of my stack is easily replaceable and my customers are my customers. I don't care if I make less money. I have the freedom to see my vision come to life and to see it being put to work by people I know and who know me. Funny enough, the same push-back is happening in the food biz. The entire local food movement is based on a fairly similar desire.
krichman 14y ago
It's possible to have an open platform and keep malware out. It's possible to go as far as OS X-style sandboxing but allow certificate authentication by more than one CA. But the track that Win and OS X are taking is to try and create monopolies and control the entire software experience. This is detrimental to the users as well as the developers; try to make a utility app that launches other apps, resizes windows, alters your network connections on a system-wide basis, or includes plugin functionality and put it in the App Store. Trying to make an argument like "oh but users can change the settings and run untrusted apps" is just a huge cop-out because the average user is not going to do that ever.
greggman 14y ago
I'm going to guess, * Not being able to ship Minecraft in the Win8 store because it uses Java and Java doesn't (yet?) follow the rules required for the store. Store apps require you to use approved APIs, where as Java, being older, calls all kinds of stuff not allowed by store apps. * Not being able to provide updates anytime you want as each update requires approval. * Not being able to give away free copies of paid apps (need codes from MS) * Not being able to bundle with other apps like the humble bundles as the store provides no way to bundle apps. * Not being able to resell licenses (not sure if Minecraft supports that. If not they could decide to in the future. But not if they're in the Win8 store) I'm sure others can list more things you can't do on the W8 store that you can do on an open platform.
- megaman821 14y ago
  None of this has anything to do with being certified. Certification basically verifies a publisher's identity and ensures users can do things like cleanly uninstall your program. For this, you get the have a link to your game or application in the Windows Store. Users can click on the link and download like normal. All the other stuff you said applies (may apply?) when Microsoft is hosting and distributing your app (Metro apps).
throwaway64 14y ago
>here doesn't seem to be anything that openness would have provided him. you are clearly not familiar with the history of minecraft, they have a long history, especially in the begging of pushing out features very rapidly, along with the bugfixes that inevitably come with rapid development, not to mention their recent weekly development builds anyone can run. this kind of very rapid development/response was a big factor in the "viral" nature of minecraft, users could get excited about new features that might be comming tomorrow How much of this would have been possible, while waiting for months for apple/etc approval? not to mention the huge modding community that has grown up around minecraft, with virtually every multiplier server and most single player clients being heavily customized and modded. That would be completely impossible under an iOS style system.