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>> That's 2.5 instagrams. What do you feel, realistic, too much, too little? I don't think there's the revenue growth potential in Minecraft like there is in I

>> That's 2.5 instagrams. What do you feel, realistic, too much, too little? I don't think there's the revenue growth potential in Minecraft like there is in Instagram. On the other hand, Mojang made $330 million in revenue and $129 million in profit last year. They can probably hold on to those margins because their sales system doesn't share revenues with retailers or distributors (or Valve, Google, or Apple for that matter). The interesting question is whether Minecraft has legs to continue selling for ten or twenty more years. I think it might. I know lots of parents that don't let their kids play video games except for Minecraft. When I pick my kids up from school, I always see a handful of kids wearing Minecraft shirts and carrying Minecraft lunch boxes. It could become like Lego--a toy that's viewed as educational and beneficial by parents. If I was Microsoft, I'd do two things: First, I'd work on performance and clean up the presentation a bit, especially on the loading screens and menus. Second, I'd roll out a service to make it easy for parents to set up a locked-down server for their kids. You wouldn't believe the number of parents who have asked me for help in setting up a Minecraft server for their kid and his/her friends. I finally stopped showing them because it's too complicated for them to keep running. A service that cost $4.95/month and was reputable, simple, and secure could make a killing.

petercooper 12y ago
On the other hand, Mojang made $330 million in revenue and $129 million in profit last year. They can probably hold on to those margins The margin is interesting, because Mojang supposedly paid Notch personally another ~$129m in licensing fees. If he has managed to sell the company and will still collect such large licensing fees, he's laughing all the way to the bank. If he sells whatever rights he is licensing to Mojang/Microsoft first, however, then their margin will leap up as their expenses are, in reality, a lot less than they seem due to this arrangement. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-19-mojang-made-a-USD129-million-profit-in-2013 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-19-mojang-made...
- readerrrr 12y ago
  I'm curious and seems like no one has addressed this. Notch owns the Minecraft ip and it is licensing it to Mojang. Does this mean Mojang( now Microsoft ) will have to keep paying the license?
jpwright 12y ago
There are quite a few Minecraft hosting providers that are even cheaper than that, actually. But it would make sense for Microsoft to handle that themselves.
mcb3k 12y ago
I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but Mojang recently (within the last year or so) started a service called Realms[1] which is exactly what you mentioned: hosted, invite only Minecraft servers. The only difference is that it's 13.99 a month, although it's cheaper if you do a longer term (3-month or 6-month). It'll let 10 players on at a time, with a 20 player white list. I'm not sure what their current implementation for Realms' backend is, but if it's not on Azure or another cloud provider, moving to Azure would probably cause a decrease in price. I do agree about improving performance and presentation within the game though. My understanding is that there is a lot of room for improvement. 1:https://minecraft.net/realms https://minecraft.net/realms
SunShiranui 12y ago
Mojang already has a service like that - it's called Minecraft Realms.

petercooper 12y ago

On the other hand, Mojang made $330 million in revenue and $129 million in profit last year. They can probably hold on to those margins The margin is interesting, because Mojang supposedly paid Notch personally another ~$129m in licensing fees. If he has managed to sell the company and will still collect such large licensing fees, he's laughing all the way to the bank. If he sells whatever rights he is licensing to Mojang/Microsoft first, however, then their margin will leap up as their expenses are, in reality, a lot less than they seem due to this arrangement. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-19-mojang-made-a-USD129-million-profit-in-2013 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-19-mojang-made...

readerrrr 12y ago
I'm curious and seems like no one has addressed this. Notch owns the Minecraft ip and it is licensing it to Mojang. Does this mean Mojang( now Microsoft ) will have to keep paying the license?

jpwright 12y ago

There are quite a few Minecraft hosting providers that are even cheaper than that, actually. But it would make sense for Microsoft to handle that themselves.

mcb3k 12y ago

I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but Mojang recently (within the last year or so) started a service called Realms[1] which is exactly what you mentioned: hosted, invite only Minecraft servers. The only difference is that it's 13.99 a month, although it's cheaper if you do a longer term (3-month or 6-month). It'll let 10 players on at a time, with a 20 player white list. I'm not sure what their current implementation for Realms' backend is, but if it's not on Azure or another cloud provider, moving to Azure would probably cause a decrease in price. I do agree about improving performance and presentation within the game though. My understanding is that there is a lot of room for improvement. 1:https://minecraft.net/realms https://minecraft.net/realms

SunShiranui 12y ago

Mojang already has a service like that - it's called Minecraft Realms.