10 ms·

The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame

148 points by mitmads 14y ago

astar 14y ago
From the article: Since the game’s release, in 2009, Minecraft has sold in excess of twenty million copies, earned armfuls of prestigious awards, and secured merchandising deals with LEGO and other toymakers. Last year, Persson earned over a hundred million dollars from the game and its merchandise. Persson—better known to his global army of teen-age followers by his Internet handle, Notch—has a raggedy, un-marketed charm. He is, by his own admission, only a workmanlike coder, not a ruthless businessman. “I’ve never run a company before and I don’t want to feel like a boss,” he said. “I just want to turn up and do my work.” ---- He sounds like a modern day Woz, except he was successful despite not wanting to get involved in business. (by that I mean, Woz was successful, but we don't know how he might have turned out if Steve Jobs didn't push him to cofound Apple)
- cma 14y ago
  Reminds me of Veblen's "The Instinct of Worksmanship"
- tobylane 14y ago
  He has something more easily translatable to a product, just add a login system. Woz had blueprints and a few of his own, a physical product with massive costs for each one.
locofacetwice 14y ago
http://kotaku.com/minecraft-creator-we-did-not-pay-anyone-to-party-462712664 http://kotaku.com/minecraft-creator-we-did-not-pay-anyone-to...
- lutze 14y ago
  Wow, some real schadenfreude going on there. I really don't understand some of the bile that follows Persson around. Are people really that fucking bitter that a guy who by his own admission is a complete klutz (programming and business-wise) can become so successful?
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Either they're bitter or extremely gullible. Or both.
  - antirez 14y ago
    I think that from the programming side he is just too modest, not klutz at all. Maybe he is also good at business in some way he don't even realize.
  - stopline 14y ago
    He's just being modest. Anyone who's seen his coding livestreams could tell you that. He's also in Mensa, not that it means much nowadays, but I think it moves him out of the 'klutz' category regardless.
  - shardling 14y ago
    Hmm, I didn't really see any bitterness in the article (even in the tweets they list). Are you talking about the comments?
    - lutze 14y ago
      Yeah sorry, should have made that clear.
      - chris_wot 14y ago
        Someone tagged the picture of the DJ with the comment "This just in : Mojang might have paid a famous DJ to help people feel more inclined to party. This is disgusting." Apt.
        shardling 14y ago
        And exactly why do you think that's apt? To me, it seems like a superficial comment that misses any of what actually matters about the topic for the sake of a smug joke.
DanBC 14y ago
> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what they told you then something different would happen, where you finally ran the game. That sense of power was intoxicating.” It's kind of weird to think that no-one gets their start like this anymore.
- lutze 14y ago
  How could they? You can't do this on your Wii et al. Modern home systems are geared towards a strictly consumerist experience, not a creative one. This is one of the reasons the Raspberry Pi was created.
  - IanCal 14y ago
    What about JS, or writing games in Haxe that compile to run in Flash (which, even if people hate it, is incredibly common). I can even use AIDE on my phone to write applications for my phone! I have no idea why anybody claims we have less programming freedom than in the past.
    - lutze 14y ago
      The claim is that it's less accessible for children, not that we have less freedom.
      - jamesrcole 14y ago
        Modern computing environments are way more accessible (and far more readily available).
- arrrg 14y ago
  I'm willing to bet that tons of people get their start this way. Obviously not exactly that way, but in very similar ways. Access to this kind of information is easier than ever. All this doom and gloom is self-pitying bullshit.
diminoten 14y ago
I thought he was charged with murder or something.
- VexXtreme 14y ago
  Yeah same here. It's obvious that this kind of headline could be interpreted as sensationalist, but perhaps it was just incidental. We'll never know.
- malkia 14y ago
  Yup. Felt the same way.
- detritus 14y ago
  no - it's abundantly not trying to be sensationalist. Life typically means just that - it's not some shorthand for a term of imprisonment.
  - kyrias 14y ago
    Not sure if sarcastic?
  - gngeal 14y ago
    "Life typically means just that - it's not some shorthand for a term of imprisonment." Can you show me an actual statistics on what percentage of "X faces life" in English texts relates to severe criminal charges, and what percentage means something "non-sensationalist"? Because as a non-native speaker, I've always seen it in the former context.
    - detritus 14y ago
      eh? It's all about context, isn't it? ‘Life after x’ never refers to a life sentence—neither I nor anyone will have a statistical reference to back them up on this assertion—it's just not needed. shrugs - ed well, i suppose 'faces life after quadruple homicide' would.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
pjungwir 14y ago
What is the longevity of Minecraft? As a social sandbox game, people can play for a long time. We have a habit of treating games like movies, good for one time through, and perhaps most are. But what if some games are more like Legos, playable for years? Instead of a franchise (King's Quest I, King's Quest II, ...), what if there is some other extendable model, like buying a new Lego kit? I have no idea, but Minecraft is one of a handful of long-lasting games that suggest a different business model entirely. The MMPORGs are like this, too. I'm curious to see what they do with Minecraft Realms.
- simonh 14y ago
  I just got into Kerbal Space Program. It's another massive sandbox game by an independent developer that's now teamed up with two other devs to build out the game. It's like Minecraft for space rocket enthusiasts. I love the idea of Minecraft but never got into it, but KSP is irresistible to me. I just can't get enough of it. I wonder what it is about these open ended sandbox games that favours independent devs. Maybe it's the fact they don't rely on a massive ammunt of pre generated content, or even really a designed experience even. Instead they are based on a suite of components you then create content with yoursef. They're really toolkits, just as Leggo is.
- recoil 14y ago
  > What is the longevity of Minecraft? There's an unofficial modding API and thousands of mods [1], some of which are extremely sophisticated. For instance, "Red Power" [2] includes an in-game 6502-based computer for which the author wrote a Forth interpreter that can be used to control in-game objects, and somebody else has embedded a Lua interpreter that can do similar things, IIRC. There are also dozens of user-created game modes (some of which only have informally-enforced rules) and special maps like "Feed the Beast" [3]. The only games I can think of with comparable amounts of content are MMOs and possibly the Elder Scrolls series, though in both of those cases the content is nothing like as varied, nor does it rely on its user's creativity to anything like the same extent. Minecraft is very much like Lego, only you can also program your own bricks. [1] http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mods http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mods [2] http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/365357-125-eloraams-mods-redpower-2-prerelease-5b2/ http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/365357-125-eloraams-mods... [3] http://feed-the-beast.com/ http://feed-the-beast.com/
applecore 14y ago
> “I have the ability to get code done, but I’m impatient and it’s scrappy as a result. Maybe that helped me with Minecraft, as it came quickly. But, well, at some point, I’d like to actually become a good programmer.” It's amazing that he doesn't consider himself to be a good programmer. In what other profession would someone as accomplished as Persson say that?
- kostya-kow 14y ago
  From programmer's perspective, Minecraft is nothing special (and it's written in Java!). There is much better code out there. Quality of programming and success are not necessarily related.
  - ilaksh 14y ago
    Have you actually seen him coding? From what I have heard/seen on video, he is very fast, his code is readable and relatively concise (for Java). And efficiently displaying this giant fully-modifiable voxel world on all types of hardware is no small feat. Also the procedural landscape generation is fairly brilliant. And the whole crafting system that allowed for world modification. I think you should give him credit for doing a great execution of some really cutting edge ideas.
    - pdog 14y ago
      Watched him live coding August 2011 -- it was incredible. I know there are better programmers, especially on a systems level, but it's still just... wow. http://www.twitch.tv/notch http://www.twitch.tv/notch
    - BSousa 14y ago
      Not wanting to take anything from notch, but I do concur with the parent. I've seen his live casts, and sure they are great, but let's not kid ourselves, his code is not that great. He is fast cause he knows the libraries he uses very well (which is admirable) but at the time, put me in front of DX9 and my speed was the same. Now put me in front of iOS code and I can probably match it. I think he just got to that status where people idolise him (heck, I remember when his first livecast was out, 100s of blogs doing their own 'what I learn from watching notch code' like he was some super coder, which weren't much more than typical stuff you learn in the first 2-3 years working at a company(at least in games). And from other sources (can't verify) minecraft code is reported to be quite bad, which is the main reason many of the bugs weren't fixed very fast. Having said that, he had a vision, executed it well and made a lot of money. My hat is off to him for that.
StacyC 14y ago
My wife and I have had so much fun playing Minecraft with our two sons and their friends. It really is special. We have a Minecraft server running on an older Mac mini in the house, and my kids’ have friends — some local and some from other states — that log in and play with them. Sometimes they are all on Skype, talking to each other while they play. It is so cool, and fun to watch them all interacting in their Minecraft world together.
jgoney 14y ago
"Last year, Persson earned over a hundred million dollars from the game and its merchandise." If you made that kind of money, why would you even bother to do anything but just retire and enjoy life?
- codygman 14y ago
  In his case retire and enjoy life might be the exact same as what he's doing now. Programming minecraft :D
- DanBC 14y ago
  I guess he enjoys programming and making games.
- ChikkaChiChi 14y ago
  Boredom?
- kingkawn 14y ago
  I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen, but often the people who have this kind of success don't get there by aiming for retirement.
- KVFinn 14y ago
  >If you made that kind of money, why would you even bother to do anything but just retire and enjoy life? >“When you have the kind of success Minecraft has brought, you can just choose yourself the way you want to do things,” said Persson. “I don’t want to feel like I’m in charge or anything... I try to have a studio where people go to make games for the fun of it, not just because some investor has said we have to make money.” He pretty much is retired. Making the games he wants to with other people is how he enjoys life. Profit is not at the top of the list. Sounds awesome to me!
- Someone 14y ago
  In some sense, enjoying life is hard when you have lots of money. It gives you lots of options, and you cannot do all you would ever want to do. Say, you are a programmer, and you are enjoying your work. Would you enjoy yourself more riding a Ferrari today? Sitting on some Caribbean beach? Following your favourite NBA team by going to all their games? Study medicine? Start a charity? How do you know you would stay happy doing that? Would you feel guilty spending your life lying on a beach, where you might have written some useful software instead? Most people would shrug of those ideas or not even think about them because "that's life". If you have a hundred million in the bank, though, all of these are realistic options. If money is no objection, some feel that they really are themselves to blame if they aren't happy for a minute or don't accomplish anything they feel valuable in the rest of their lives.
gruseom 14y ago
This struck me as extraordinary: “My strongest early memory is of my dad dragging me through very deep snow on a sled,” he said. “I looked up at him and he seemed annoyed at me. Perhaps it was tough work, dragging me, or perhaps I had been crying. And I realized that—hang on—he’s actually a real person, with his own perception of things. It’s not just me looking at things; he is also looking at things.” I wonder if it's rare for someone so little to experience empathy so powerfully. Certainly I don't recall realizing anything like that until much later. The whole story about Notch and his father is very moving.
phil 14y ago
He sounds pretty sad.
- kragen 14y ago
  Most people are pretty sad when their family members commit suicide.
cygwin98 14y ago
Compared to the other story of a $100M GOOG Exec, this is a story I really like, as a programmer.
- dopamean 14y ago
  Apples and oranges.
  - cygwin98 14y ago
    How so? The GOOG exec story is about how to get rich by climbing the "Corporate Ladder", while Persson's way is to become successful by going indie and producing games people want. The interesting fact is that their wealth are comparable number-wise.
    - dopamean 14y ago
      I guess I wasn't really focusing on the wealth as it seems to me to be only mentioned in an effort to get people's attention. I think both stories are fascinating.
      - cygwin98 14y ago
        Agreed on the link-bait factor. Though the perfect timing of these two stories got me think why so many great programmers go indie: if you are great at building stuff, try to be next Persson, or if you have great vision, PG will be your model. Otherwise, you're screwed.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
DavidGX 14y ago
He's rich as fuck. I think he'll be okay.
wfn 14y ago
Another finely written newspaper article about indie game development / mindsets involved, titled "Where Do Dwarf-Eating Carp Come From? / The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress", centering around the two brothers, mainly focusing on Tarn Adams: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of...

148 points by mitmads 14y ago

astar 14y ago

From the article: Since the game’s release, in 2009, Minecraft has sold in excess of twenty million copies, earned armfuls of prestigious awards, and secured merchandising deals with LEGO and other toymakers. Last year, Persson earned over a hundred million dollars from the game and its merchandise. Persson—better known to his global army of teen-age followers by his Internet handle, Notch—has a raggedy, un-marketed charm. He is, by his own admission, only a workmanlike coder, not a ruthless businessman. “I’ve never run a company before and I don’t want to feel like a boss,” he said. “I just want to turn up and do my work.” ---- He sounds like a modern day Woz, except he was successful despite not wanting to get involved in business. (by that I mean, Woz was successful, but we don't know how he might have turned out if Steve Jobs didn't push him to cofound Apple)

cma 14y ago
Reminds me of Veblen's "The Instinct of Worksmanship"
tobylane 14y ago
He has something more easily translatable to a product, just add a login system. Woz had blueprints and a few of his own, a physical product with massive costs for each one.

locofacetwice 14y ago

http://kotaku.com/minecraft-creator-we-did-not-pay-anyone-to-party-462712664 http://kotaku.com/minecraft-creator-we-did-not-pay-anyone-to...

lutze 14y ago
Wow, some real schadenfreude going on there. I really don't understand some of the bile that follows Persson around. Are people really that fucking bitter that a guy who by his own admission is a complete klutz (programming and business-wise) can become so successful?
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Either they're bitter or extremely gullible. Or both.
- antirez 14y ago
  I think that from the programming side he is just too modest, not klutz at all. Maybe he is also good at business in some way he don't even realize.
- stopline 14y ago
  He's just being modest. Anyone who's seen his coding livestreams could tell you that. He's also in Mensa, not that it means much nowadays, but I think it moves him out of the 'klutz' category regardless.
- shardling 14y ago
  Hmm, I didn't really see any bitterness in the article (even in the tweets they list). Are you talking about the comments?
  - lutze 14y ago
    Yeah sorry, should have made that clear.
    - chris_wot 14y ago
      Someone tagged the picture of the DJ with the comment "This just in : Mojang might have paid a famous DJ to help people feel more inclined to party. This is disgusting." Apt.
      - shardling 14y ago
        And exactly why do you think that's apt? To me, it seems like a superficial comment that misses any of what actually matters about the topic for the sake of a smug joke.

DanBC 14y ago

> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what they told you then something different would happen, where you finally ran the game. That sense of power was intoxicating.” It's kind of weird to think that no-one gets their start like this anymore.

lutze 14y ago
How could they? You can't do this on your Wii et al. Modern home systems are geared towards a strictly consumerist experience, not a creative one. This is one of the reasons the Raspberry Pi was created.
- IanCal 14y ago
  What about JS, or writing games in Haxe that compile to run in Flash (which, even if people hate it, is incredibly common). I can even use AIDE on my phone to write applications for my phone! I have no idea why anybody claims we have less programming freedom than in the past.
  - lutze 14y ago
    The claim is that it's less accessible for children, not that we have less freedom.
    - jamesrcole 14y ago
      Modern computing environments are way more accessible (and far more readily available).
arrrg 14y ago
I'm willing to bet that tons of people get their start this way. Obviously not exactly that way, but in very similar ways. Access to this kind of information is easier than ever. All this doom and gloom is self-pitying bullshit.

diminoten 14y ago

I thought he was charged with murder or something.

VexXtreme 14y ago
Yeah same here. It's obvious that this kind of headline could be interpreted as sensationalist, but perhaps it was just incidental. We'll never know.
malkia 14y ago
Yup. Felt the same way.
detritus 14y ago
no - it's abundantly not trying to be sensationalist. Life typically means just that - it's not some shorthand for a term of imprisonment.
- kyrias 14y ago
  Not sure if sarcastic?
- gngeal 14y ago
  "Life typically means just that - it's not some shorthand for a term of imprisonment." Can you show me an actual statistics on what percentage of "X faces life" in English texts relates to severe criminal charges, and what percentage means something "non-sensationalist"? Because as a non-native speaker, I've always seen it in the former context.
  - detritus 14y ago
    eh? It's all about context, isn't it? ‘Life after x’ never refers to a life sentence—neither I nor anyone will have a statistical reference to back them up on this assertion—it's just not needed. shrugs - ed well, i suppose 'faces life after quadruple homicide' would.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

pjungwir 14y ago

What is the longevity of Minecraft? As a social sandbox game, people can play for a long time. We have a habit of treating games like movies, good for one time through, and perhaps most are. But what if some games are more like Legos, playable for years? Instead of a franchise (King's Quest I, King's Quest II, ...), what if there is some other extendable model, like buying a new Lego kit? I have no idea, but Minecraft is one of a handful of long-lasting games that suggest a different business model entirely. The MMPORGs are like this, too. I'm curious to see what they do with Minecraft Realms.

simonh 14y ago
I just got into Kerbal Space Program. It's another massive sandbox game by an independent developer that's now teamed up with two other devs to build out the game. It's like Minecraft for space rocket enthusiasts. I love the idea of Minecraft but never got into it, but KSP is irresistible to me. I just can't get enough of it. I wonder what it is about these open ended sandbox games that favours independent devs. Maybe it's the fact they don't rely on a massive ammunt of pre generated content, or even really a designed experience even. Instead they are based on a suite of components you then create content with yoursef. They're really toolkits, just as Leggo is.
recoil 14y ago
> What is the longevity of Minecraft? There's an unofficial modding API and thousands of mods [1], some of which are extremely sophisticated. For instance, "Red Power" [2] includes an in-game 6502-based computer for which the author wrote a Forth interpreter that can be used to control in-game objects, and somebody else has embedded a Lua interpreter that can do similar things, IIRC. There are also dozens of user-created game modes (some of which only have informally-enforced rules) and special maps like "Feed the Beast" [3]. The only games I can think of with comparable amounts of content are MMOs and possibly the Elder Scrolls series, though in both of those cases the content is nothing like as varied, nor does it rely on its user's creativity to anything like the same extent. Minecraft is very much like Lego, only you can also program your own bricks. [1] http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mods http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mods [2] http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/365357-125-eloraams-mods-redpower-2-prerelease-5b2/ http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/365357-125-eloraams-mods... [3] http://feed-the-beast.com/ http://feed-the-beast.com/

applecore 14y ago

> “I have the ability to get code done, but I’m impatient and it’s scrappy as a result. Maybe that helped me with Minecraft, as it came quickly. But, well, at some point, I’d like to actually become a good programmer.” It's amazing that he doesn't consider himself to be a good programmer. In what other profession would someone as accomplished as Persson say that?

kostya-kow 14y ago
From programmer's perspective, Minecraft is nothing special (and it's written in Java!). There is much better code out there. Quality of programming and success are not necessarily related.
- ilaksh 14y ago
  Have you actually seen him coding? From what I have heard/seen on video, he is very fast, his code is readable and relatively concise (for Java). And efficiently displaying this giant fully-modifiable voxel world on all types of hardware is no small feat. Also the procedural landscape generation is fairly brilliant. And the whole crafting system that allowed for world modification. I think you should give him credit for doing a great execution of some really cutting edge ideas.
  - pdog 14y ago
    Watched him live coding August 2011 -- it was incredible. I know there are better programmers, especially on a systems level, but it's still just... wow. http://www.twitch.tv/notch http://www.twitch.tv/notch
  - BSousa 14y ago
    Not wanting to take anything from notch, but I do concur with the parent. I've seen his live casts, and sure they are great, but let's not kid ourselves, his code is not that great. He is fast cause he knows the libraries he uses very well (which is admirable) but at the time, put me in front of DX9 and my speed was the same. Now put me in front of iOS code and I can probably match it. I think he just got to that status where people idolise him (heck, I remember when his first livecast was out, 100s of blogs doing their own 'what I learn from watching notch code' like he was some super coder, which weren't much more than typical stuff you learn in the first 2-3 years working at a company(at least in games). And from other sources (can't verify) minecraft code is reported to be quite bad, which is the main reason many of the bugs weren't fixed very fast. Having said that, he had a vision, executed it well and made a lot of money. My hat is off to him for that.

StacyC 14y ago

My wife and I have had so much fun playing Minecraft with our two sons and their friends. It really is special. We have a Minecraft server running on an older Mac mini in the house, and my kids’ have friends — some local and some from other states — that log in and play with them. Sometimes they are all on Skype, talking to each other while they play. It is so cool, and fun to watch them all interacting in their Minecraft world together.

jgoney 14y ago

"Last year, Persson earned over a hundred million dollars from the game and its merchandise." If you made that kind of money, why would you even bother to do anything but just retire and enjoy life?

codygman 14y ago
In his case retire and enjoy life might be the exact same as what he's doing now. Programming minecraft :D
DanBC 14y ago
I guess he enjoys programming and making games.
ChikkaChiChi 14y ago
Boredom?
kingkawn 14y ago
I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen, but often the people who have this kind of success don't get there by aiming for retirement.
KVFinn 14y ago
>If you made that kind of money, why would you even bother to do anything but just retire and enjoy life? >“When you have the kind of success Minecraft has brought, you can just choose yourself the way you want to do things,” said Persson. “I don’t want to feel like I’m in charge or anything... I try to have a studio where people go to make games for the fun of it, not just because some investor has said we have to make money.” He pretty much is retired. Making the games he wants to with other people is how he enjoys life. Profit is not at the top of the list. Sounds awesome to me!
Someone 14y ago
In some sense, enjoying life is hard when you have lots of money. It gives you lots of options, and you cannot do all you would ever want to do. Say, you are a programmer, and you are enjoying your work. Would you enjoy yourself more riding a Ferrari today? Sitting on some Caribbean beach? Following your favourite NBA team by going to all their games? Study medicine? Start a charity? How do you know you would stay happy doing that? Would you feel guilty spending your life lying on a beach, where you might have written some useful software instead? Most people would shrug of those ideas or not even think about them because "that's life". If you have a hundred million in the bank, though, all of these are realistic options. If money is no objection, some feel that they really are themselves to blame if they aren't happy for a minute or don't accomplish anything they feel valuable in the rest of their lives.

gruseom 14y ago

This struck me as extraordinary: “My strongest early memory is of my dad dragging me through very deep snow on a sled,” he said. “I looked up at him and he seemed annoyed at me. Perhaps it was tough work, dragging me, or perhaps I had been crying. And I realized that—hang on—he’s actually a real person, with his own perception of things. It’s not just me looking at things; he is also looking at things.” I wonder if it's rare for someone so little to experience empathy so powerfully. Certainly I don't recall realizing anything like that until much later. The whole story about Notch and his father is very moving.

phil 14y ago

He sounds pretty sad.

kragen 14y ago
Most people are pretty sad when their family members commit suicide.

cygwin98 14y ago

Compared to the other story of a $100M GOOG Exec, this is a story I really like, as a programmer.

dopamean 14y ago
Apples and oranges.
- cygwin98 14y ago
  How so? The GOOG exec story is about how to get rich by climbing the "Corporate Ladder", while Persson's way is to become successful by going indie and producing games people want. The interesting fact is that their wealth are comparable number-wise.
  - dopamean 14y ago
    I guess I wasn't really focusing on the wealth as it seems to me to be only mentioned in an effort to get people's attention. I think both stories are fascinating.
    - cygwin98 14y ago
      Agreed on the link-bait factor. Though the perfect timing of these two stories got me think why so many great programmers go indie: if you are great at building stuff, try to be next Persson, or if you have great vision, PG will be your model. Otherwise, you're screwed.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

DavidGX 14y ago

He's rich as fuck. I think he'll be okay.

wfn 14y ago

Another finely written newspaper article about indie game development / mindsets involved, titled "Where Do Dwarf-Eating Carp Come From? / The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress", centering around the two brothers, mainly focusing on Tarn Adams: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of...