5 ms·

I don't get it. Mojang already made "all the money" from selling minecraft and are largely maintaining it now. I haven't heard if they even have any new games o

I don't get it. Mojang already made "all the money" from selling minecraft and are largely maintaining it now. I haven't heard if they even have any new games on the way? The space one was cancelled. What exactly is MS possibly getting that could be worth $2B?

tdicola 12y ago
The ability to make a popular game franchise exclusive to their gaming hardware. Just take some money you would have spent on advertising and dump it into buying some franchises for exclusivity. Also since Mojang is a European company MS can no doubt use some of it's $90+ billion stockpile of money outside America without getting hit for taxes.
- __Joker 12y ago
  But minecraft already released on ps4. Unlesss MS buys and takes back the minecraft of ps4, there is no exclusivity. This move will make MS face a shit-storm. The gamers are not taking well to tomb raider (timed) exclusivity. It is accepted that you can have exclusive gaming franchise. But you should not most certainly take a multi-platform and try to make it exclusive.
  - vlunkr 12y ago
    It also runs on linux or OSX. As well as other editions for xbox360, iOS, android, and even raspberry pi! So... that's not it
  - MrZongle2 12y ago
    But minecraft already released on ps4. Unlesss MS buys and takes back the minecraft of ps4, there is no exclusivity. True. Unless you planned on a Minecraft 2. The brand name, the look and feel and the concepts within the game are still worth a lot.
  - yaur 12y ago
    Of note. They did something similar with the odd world franchise which basically killed it.
josu 12y ago
Sequels? Movie rights? Merchandising? More platforms? But yeah, $2B sounds disproportionate.
- NDizzle 12y ago
  I see multiple kids wearing creeper shirts every day as I walk my daughter to elementary school.
  - GuiA 12y ago
    Like for Angry Birds- what percentage of these are china town knockoffs?
    - nickstinemates 12y ago
      I buy them for my son for $8 at Target. So, maybe some of them?
JanSolo 12y ago
Agreed. I can only assume that MS are going to insist on a sequel with all of the 'NextGen' trappings we've come to expect from them. Minecraft2: MasterChief Edition. With Kinect! And day1 DLC! And product placement... (Use the new MTN DEW powerup to double your building speed! Feed your animals DORITOS to improve their stats!) Good for Markus and the Mojang guys though... they built a multi-billion-dollar empire out of nothing. It's real indie-games success story. An inspiration to the rest of us! Congrats!
- tdicola 12y ago
  Sorry, you can't build any more wood blocks today! Would you like to buy an extra 10 wood blocks for 99 Mojang bucks?
  - chris_mahan 12y ago
    You Died! (Respawn for $2.99?)
- tracker1 12y ago
  I was just thinking that a kinect interface could be really interesting... Not that I'd use it personally, but it could be fun for kids to interact with. Not sure what it's written in, or how difficult of a port to Unity would be (another possibility).
- varkson 12y ago
  Stop this MS h8 shit m8 if anything, MS will bring some stability to that company. Right now it's just a bunch of children making shittonnes of money for an indie games accident. They didn't work for it, they got lucky. Notch just prefers to be a little bitch on Twitter over everything while spending his 10mil a year on holidays. Anyone who can bring accountability to Mojang will be a good thing.
- exDM69 12y ago
  There's two obvious monetization strategies that I can think of. The first one they're already doing: that's a commercial server hosting service (Minecraft Realms). The other one is bringing mods to the console versions as paid DLC. Mods are popular on PC (but miserable to install and maintain) but I don't know if there are any modding options for the console versions. At least the Android Pocket Edition doesn't seem to have any modding options. Well, there's a third strategy but I don't think they'll go that way. Pay real money for getting some in-game goods or consumables. I don't think this would work very well, because it seems like people really like grinding for hours in search of the elusive diamond blocks. I certainly do :)
Fizzer 12y ago
Most likely a free-to-play Minecraft 2 that's loaded with microtransactions. Or retro-fitting microtransactions into the existing Minecraft.
- Navarr 12y ago
  Oh please, next you'll be telling me they're charging users for "skin packs"
  - Pyrodogg 12y ago
    Not sure if serious, They have been selling skin packs on x360 since it launched. http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Skin#Skin_Packs http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Skin#Skin_Packs
- jmcqk6 12y ago
  They could probably do this pretty successfully following the tf2 model, where they bring in community contributions, but also pay the community contributors royalties.
jamespitts 12y ago
Think about it... what kind of new Microsoft hardware could Minecraft exclusively target? At the very least, controlling the most successful proto-VR "creative platform" can be used to gain leverage with facebook / Oculus Rift.
arrrg 12y ago
They still sell around 10k PC copies per day … It’s not growing, but it’s also not exactly shrinking (I remember obsessively checking those stats years ago and they always hovered around 10k), and hasn’t for years. Minecraft might be a different beast than other video games, truly more like Lego than video games actually. There are always new young people you can sell the game to and with constant maintenance for free that might just work out. That’s even ignoring other platforms and merchandise – or however much Minecraft Realms (their server hosting service) makes or how much potential that has. The believe that they already made all the money seems completely wrong to me.
- skyebook 12y ago
  I like this strategy a lot. When you release something that, on day one, already has 'dated' graphics, you don't have to worry about keeping up with the latest graphics cards or poly-counts or anything of the sort. Its just about the game. Like Legos there are countless others, The Game of Life (Milton Bradley, not Conway) has been around since the 1800's. The beauty of this is that you've never completely saturated since kids are coming of age every day and growing into the game.
  - jebblue 12y ago
    Arguably dated graphics yes but amazing computational thinking and creative empowerment combined with exciting gameplay.
  - dahart 12y ago
    Nintendo likes that strategy too. But, it's arguably hurting them now.
- phkahler 12y ago
  >> ...truly more like Lego than video games actually... Which is really funny considering what Lego did in the video game space - they made video games where many things were made of Lego, but there was no "building" involved at all.
- NegativeK 12y ago
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
Nextgen Minecraft could be a XboxOne exclusive maybe as a launch title with whatever VR/AR device MS is supposedly working on. So, I could buy the Oculus that works only on a super-powered gaming PC that costs more than I make in a month, or the Sony Morpheus product which I'm sure will be great, but Sony won't have Minecraft, they'll have Playstation Home II. MS will have Minecraft. Which one will kids buy? I'm guessing the system with Minecraft. This all could be as soon as next xmas or even 2Q 2015. Even if we ignore the VR/AR stuff, Minecraft with Kinect would be loads of fun. The Kinect's killer app may not be been dancing games. It could be world-building games. Imagine lifting your hand to move a brick and flicking your wrist to toss it. ...and thats on top of revenue MS would make on more traditional Minecraft monetizations. Look at how Disney is re-invigorating the Star Wars IP. Suddenly new movies and games are coming out. We're finally getting a third Battlefront and upcoming movies that seem under the aegis of more... competent creators than the recent prequels (Sorry George!). People are more excited than ever about an IP, that frankly, has been treading water for the last 20 years. MS could do something like that to Minecraft, which always seemed more than a bit under-commercialized.
- commandar 12y ago
  Minecraft came out on the PS4 last week.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    Maybe Minecraft + Morpheus has MS running scared. If they owned the IP they could stop that and make it a Kinect/VR/AR exclusive. I doubt the current license would allow Sony to port Minecraft to their Morpheus platform without permission.
- Tepix 12y ago
  Minecraft is not ideal for VR in the near future because it's a game where you run around which causes simulator sickness for a significant percentage of the population. VR is better suited for other types of games, especially those were you are inside a cockpit and your avatar is sitting just like you are in real life.
jebblue 12y ago
They don't need a new game or sequels. 1.8 just came out, it was months in development. All they need to do is come out with releases, some small, some large, add new stuff where it makes sense and as computers and game systems pick up the power to handle the additional computations. This could go on for decades.
hobarrera 12y ago
They can make is windows-only, make a WindowsPhone port, etc. Try to lure even more people into their platform, and let the other die (which is pretty microsofty).
- Artemis2 12y ago
  Absolutely not. Microsoft ports OneNote to OS X, iOS and Android. Same for Office that is available on OS X. On the other hand, Google, for instance does everything it can to make smallish platforms like Windows Phone die.
  - hobarrera 12y ago
    I can quite clearly tell you omited Linux from that list, for example. Also OneNote is one of those things where MS benefits from cross-platformism. Games are not.

tdicola 12y ago

The ability to make a popular game franchise exclusive to their gaming hardware. Just take some money you would have spent on advertising and dump it into buying some franchises for exclusivity. Also since Mojang is a European company MS can no doubt use some of it's $90+ billion stockpile of money outside America without getting hit for taxes.

__Joker 12y ago
But minecraft already released on ps4. Unlesss MS buys and takes back the minecraft of ps4, there is no exclusivity. This move will make MS face a shit-storm. The gamers are not taking well to tomb raider (timed) exclusivity. It is accepted that you can have exclusive gaming franchise. But you should not most certainly take a multi-platform and try to make it exclusive.
- vlunkr 12y ago
  It also runs on linux or OSX. As well as other editions for xbox360, iOS, android, and even raspberry pi! So... that's not it
- MrZongle2 12y ago
  But minecraft already released on ps4. Unlesss MS buys and takes back the minecraft of ps4, there is no exclusivity. True. Unless you planned on a Minecraft 2. The brand name, the look and feel and the concepts within the game are still worth a lot.
- yaur 12y ago
  Of note. They did something similar with the odd world franchise which basically killed it.

josu 12y ago

Sequels? Movie rights? Merchandising? More platforms? But yeah, $2B sounds disproportionate.

NDizzle 12y ago
I see multiple kids wearing creeper shirts every day as I walk my daughter to elementary school.
- GuiA 12y ago
  Like for Angry Birds- what percentage of these are china town knockoffs?
  - nickstinemates 12y ago
    I buy them for my son for $8 at Target. So, maybe some of them?

JanSolo 12y ago

Agreed. I can only assume that MS are going to insist on a sequel with all of the 'NextGen' trappings we've come to expect from them. Minecraft2: MasterChief Edition. With Kinect! And day1 DLC! And product placement... (Use the new MTN DEW powerup to double your building speed! Feed your animals DORITOS to improve their stats!) Good for Markus and the Mojang guys though... they built a multi-billion-dollar empire out of nothing. It's real indie-games success story. An inspiration to the rest of us! Congrats!

tdicola 12y ago
Sorry, you can't build any more wood blocks today! Would you like to buy an extra 10 wood blocks for 99 Mojang bucks?
- chris_mahan 12y ago
  You Died! (Respawn for $2.99?)
tracker1 12y ago
I was just thinking that a kinect interface could be really interesting... Not that I'd use it personally, but it could be fun for kids to interact with. Not sure what it's written in, or how difficult of a port to Unity would be (another possibility).
varkson 12y ago
Stop this MS h8 shit m8 if anything, MS will bring some stability to that company. Right now it's just a bunch of children making shittonnes of money for an indie games accident. They didn't work for it, they got lucky. Notch just prefers to be a little bitch on Twitter over everything while spending his 10mil a year on holidays. Anyone who can bring accountability to Mojang will be a good thing.
exDM69 12y ago
There's two obvious monetization strategies that I can think of. The first one they're already doing: that's a commercial server hosting service (Minecraft Realms). The other one is bringing mods to the console versions as paid DLC. Mods are popular on PC (but miserable to install and maintain) but I don't know if there are any modding options for the console versions. At least the Android Pocket Edition doesn't seem to have any modding options. Well, there's a third strategy but I don't think they'll go that way. Pay real money for getting some in-game goods or consumables. I don't think this would work very well, because it seems like people really like grinding for hours in search of the elusive diamond blocks. I certainly do :)

Fizzer 12y ago

Most likely a free-to-play Minecraft 2 that's loaded with microtransactions. Or retro-fitting microtransactions into the existing Minecraft.

Navarr 12y ago
Oh please, next you'll be telling me they're charging users for "skin packs"
- Pyrodogg 12y ago
  Not sure if serious, They have been selling skin packs on x360 since it launched. http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Skin#Skin_Packs http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Skin#Skin_Packs
jmcqk6 12y ago
They could probably do this pretty successfully following the tf2 model, where they bring in community contributions, but also pay the community contributors royalties.

jamespitts 12y ago

Think about it... what kind of new Microsoft hardware could Minecraft exclusively target? At the very least, controlling the most successful proto-VR "creative platform" can be used to gain leverage with facebook / Oculus Rift.

arrrg 12y ago

They still sell around 10k PC copies per day … It’s not growing, but it’s also not exactly shrinking (I remember obsessively checking those stats years ago and they always hovered around 10k), and hasn’t for years. Minecraft might be a different beast than other video games, truly more like Lego than video games actually. There are always new young people you can sell the game to and with constant maintenance for free that might just work out. That’s even ignoring other platforms and merchandise – or however much Minecraft Realms (their server hosting service) makes or how much potential that has. The believe that they already made all the money seems completely wrong to me.

skyebook 12y ago
I like this strategy a lot. When you release something that, on day one, already has 'dated' graphics, you don't have to worry about keeping up with the latest graphics cards or poly-counts or anything of the sort. Its just about the game. Like Legos there are countless others, The Game of Life (Milton Bradley, not Conway) has been around since the 1800's. The beauty of this is that you've never completely saturated since kids are coming of age every day and growing into the game.
- jebblue 12y ago
  Arguably dated graphics yes but amazing computational thinking and creative empowerment combined with exciting gameplay.
- dahart 12y ago
  Nintendo likes that strategy too. But, it's arguably hurting them now.
phkahler 12y ago
>> ...truly more like Lego than video games actually... Which is really funny considering what Lego did in the video game space - they made video games where many things were made of Lego, but there was no "building" involved at all.
NegativeK 12y ago

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

Nextgen Minecraft could be a XboxOne exclusive maybe as a launch title with whatever VR/AR device MS is supposedly working on. So, I could buy the Oculus that works only on a super-powered gaming PC that costs more than I make in a month, or the Sony Morpheus product which I'm sure will be great, but Sony won't have Minecraft, they'll have Playstation Home II. MS will have Minecraft. Which one will kids buy? I'm guessing the system with Minecraft. This all could be as soon as next xmas or even 2Q 2015. Even if we ignore the VR/AR stuff, Minecraft with Kinect would be loads of fun. The Kinect's killer app may not be been dancing games. It could be world-building games. Imagine lifting your hand to move a brick and flicking your wrist to toss it. ...and thats on top of revenue MS would make on more traditional Minecraft monetizations. Look at how Disney is re-invigorating the Star Wars IP. Suddenly new movies and games are coming out. We're finally getting a third Battlefront and upcoming movies that seem under the aegis of more... competent creators than the recent prequels (Sorry George!). People are more excited than ever about an IP, that frankly, has been treading water for the last 20 years. MS could do something like that to Minecraft, which always seemed more than a bit under-commercialized.

commandar 12y ago
Minecraft came out on the PS4 last week.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  Maybe Minecraft + Morpheus has MS running scared. If they owned the IP they could stop that and make it a Kinect/VR/AR exclusive. I doubt the current license would allow Sony to port Minecraft to their Morpheus platform without permission.
Tepix 12y ago
Minecraft is not ideal for VR in the near future because it's a game where you run around which causes simulator sickness for a significant percentage of the population. VR is better suited for other types of games, especially those were you are inside a cockpit and your avatar is sitting just like you are in real life.

jebblue 12y ago

They don't need a new game or sequels. 1.8 just came out, it was months in development. All they need to do is come out with releases, some small, some large, add new stuff where it makes sense and as computers and game systems pick up the power to handle the additional computations. This could go on for decades.

hobarrera 12y ago

They can make is windows-only, make a WindowsPhone port, etc. Try to lure even more people into their platform, and let the other die (which is pretty microsofty).

Artemis2 12y ago
Absolutely not. Microsoft ports OneNote to OS X, iOS and Android. Same for Office that is available on OS X. On the other hand, Google, for instance does everything it can to make smallish platforms like Windows Phone die.
- hobarrera 12y ago
  I can quite clearly tell you omited Linux from that list, for example. Also OneNote is one of those things where MS benefits from cross-platformism. Games are not.