5 ms·

Regardless of what the right amount of money is, microsoft will screw this up. Repeating the success of minecraft is nigh impossible, it was the confluence of

Regardless of what the right amount of money is, microsoft will screw this up. Repeating the success of minecraft is nigh impossible, it was the confluence of several factors at the right place and the right time. The best that can be hoped for is good stewardship of the minecraft community and client. Unfortunately this isn't the way microsoft thinks about games or products(see halo), expect a Minecraft 2: Creepers Return, Minecraft 3: the Blockening, etc... They didn't spend 2.5 Billion to steward a community. How long before they port it to C#?

jacquesm 12y ago
They don't have to repeat it. They just bought it. > How long before they port it to C#? I beat you there by a while :)
Mikeb85 12y ago
> How long before they port it to C#? They won't. They'll just take the C++ ports that already exist (Xbox, mobile) and port that to desktops. Or rewrite the whole thing in C++. While C# is MS' baby, it makes no sense to write a 3D game in it (and for everyone who thinks Unity is C# - it isn't - Mono is just used for scripting).
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Minecraft isn't heavy duty graphics, you just need a simple voxel engine. Your game code could be running in python and you wouldn't know any better. There is quite good reasons not to do everything in C++ if game designers are involved. Unity uses C# for scripting; only the inner graphics engine need be native.
  - Mikeb85 12y ago
    Reasons to do it in C++ - mobile and console is already in C++, so you can unify ports. Can make fancier graphics - it's Voxel graphics right now, but the next Minecraft could look like Destiny while retaining all the sand-box nature of Minecraft. You use scripting languages to save dev time - Microsoft can just throw more devs at it. They spent 2.5 billion on it - labour is cheap at that scale...
    - blazespin 12y ago
      "Minecraft could look like Destiny"... ahahahah. Sorry. That shows an utter and complete misunderstanding as to the attraction of Minecraft. If MSFT did that, they'd kill it instantaneously. There is a reason why kids prefer lego batman and lego starwars to real batman and starwars.
      - Mikeb85 12y ago
        I'm not saying it's a good idea, I'm saying it's well within MS' way of doing things. It could be fun...
  - Filligree 12y ago
    The mods, however, can be quite compute-heavy. Minecraft needs to be written in a reasonably performant language to work.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      It still has to be moddable at all; don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
  - exDM69 12y ago
    > Minecraft isn't heavy duty graphics, you just need a simple voxel engine. Your game code could be running in python and you wouldn't know any better. On the contrary, Minecraft is very heavy on the CPU and would benefit from running on native code rather than a managed bytecode based virtual machine environment. It isn't heavy duty graphics, so you don't need a super strong GPU (it's still quite heavy), but Minecraft is very CPU and memory intensive. Graphics can be fast regardless of the programming language if you unload things to the GPU, but Minecraft requires a lot of CPU side work to prepare the voxel graphics (ie. building GPU vertex buffers, etc from the voxel octree in CPU/main memory). There are huge potential performance benefits of rewriting it in native code. I don't think that will happen, though. Here's a recent interesting article about optimizing visibility and minimizing overdraw, in particular for mobile "chunker" (aka. "tile deferred") GPUs. In the end it improves performance but at the cost of even more CPU work. http://tomcc.github.io/2014/08/31/visibility-1.html http://tomcc.github.io/2014/08/31/visibility-1.html
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      A lot of that is also just physics, but again the voxels are really quite easy to work with. Moving to C++ is always a PITA, I hope this isn't an optimization made so early, especially when there are other things to do.
- Rapzid 12y ago
  I think Microsoft wants all the 7 year-olds writing their first Minecraft mods on a platform that they sell tools for. Given Microsoft has been cozying up to mono, I wouldn't put it past them to port the game over to a platform they can leverage to get little kids using a free version of Visual Studio.
wlesieutre 12y ago
> How long before they port it to C#? You mean Minecraft.NET Pro?
fafner 12y ago
Microsoft will absolutely screw this up. We shouldn't forget why Minecraft became popular: It was run by one (and later a few) guys who were close to the community. They cared about input and made stuff to be fun. They avoided all kinds of big business/management decisions to taint that or get in the way. There is no way Microsoft will let it run like that. They bought it because they have plans for it and those plans will likely collide with the interests of the community. Microsoft is big in the gaming console business and struggling in the mobile market. It seems likely that they'll try to use Minecraft to push those markets. Even if they won't do it immediately I suspect that they'll eventually make Minecraft exclusive to Xbox and mobile. Meanwhile they'll drop or decrease support for systems they don't like, like GNU/Linux, Playstations, etc. Maybe this will be part of a rewrite or a new huge upgrade (which I guess we can call "Downloadable Content" or whatever it is called in the XBox universe from now on). And Microsoft will put their game guys in charge of it. And those guys speak a different language than Mojang. They don't care about indie and close community. They care about downloadable content and making new sellable releases every 12-24 month.
- Fuzzwah 12y ago
  Have you actually ever spoken to one of the MS games guys? I have. Granted it was around 5 years ago so things have probably changed, but it was around the time they were launching the XBox arcade dev kit and they seemed very genuinely interested in indie dev and supporting communities. Meat Boy certainly seemed to come about in that kind of positive environment. Not saying that I'm 100% confident that MS won't mess up Minecraft. I've never played it, but have always enjoyed following Notch and his epic trip with Minecraft as I was once a starry eyed indie game dev. I also have a young child who I know will be into it. Everything I've read seems like Minecraft totally failed to learn from id software and valve when it comes to modding. And still Minecraft mods are massive. It blows my mind. It also makes me think that MS would have to try REALLY REALLY hard to mess it up. If Minecraft has been a success with all the hurdles so far, I figure it is basically an unstoppable cultural entity now.
  - fafner 12y ago
    > Everything I've read seems like Minecraft totally failed to learn from id software and valve when it comes to modding. And still Minecraft mods are massive. I have played it but I'm not really a Minecraft person myself. However as far as I know the modding situation isn't that bad because the Minecraft jar can be easily decompiled. The problem is only the lack of a stable API (which seems to be in development though) which means updates can break mods and other mods can break mods. There also doesn't seem to be an official loader or mod list. Thus people are forced to deal with obscure websites and obscure mod makers. Mojang is not putting any artificial hurdles in the way of modding. Something which I highly doubt would have ever been possible if it had been a Microsoft company.

jacquesm 12y ago

They don't have to repeat it. They just bought it. > How long before they port it to C#? I beat you there by a while :)

Mikeb85 12y ago

> How long before they port it to C#? They won't. They'll just take the C++ ports that already exist (Xbox, mobile) and port that to desktops. Or rewrite the whole thing in C++. While C# is MS' baby, it makes no sense to write a 3D game in it (and for everyone who thinks Unity is C# - it isn't - Mono is just used for scripting).

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Minecraft isn't heavy duty graphics, you just need a simple voxel engine. Your game code could be running in python and you wouldn't know any better. There is quite good reasons not to do everything in C++ if game designers are involved. Unity uses C# for scripting; only the inner graphics engine need be native.
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  Reasons to do it in C++ - mobile and console is already in C++, so you can unify ports. Can make fancier graphics - it's Voxel graphics right now, but the next Minecraft could look like Destiny while retaining all the sand-box nature of Minecraft. You use scripting languages to save dev time - Microsoft can just throw more devs at it. They spent 2.5 billion on it - labour is cheap at that scale...
  - blazespin 12y ago
    "Minecraft could look like Destiny"... ahahahah. Sorry. That shows an utter and complete misunderstanding as to the attraction of Minecraft. If MSFT did that, they'd kill it instantaneously. There is a reason why kids prefer lego batman and lego starwars to real batman and starwars.
    - Mikeb85 12y ago
      I'm not saying it's a good idea, I'm saying it's well within MS' way of doing things. It could be fun...
- Filligree 12y ago
  The mods, however, can be quite compute-heavy. Minecraft needs to be written in a reasonably performant language to work.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    It still has to be moddable at all; don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
- exDM69 12y ago
  > Minecraft isn't heavy duty graphics, you just need a simple voxel engine. Your game code could be running in python and you wouldn't know any better. On the contrary, Minecraft is very heavy on the CPU and would benefit from running on native code rather than a managed bytecode based virtual machine environment. It isn't heavy duty graphics, so you don't need a super strong GPU (it's still quite heavy), but Minecraft is very CPU and memory intensive. Graphics can be fast regardless of the programming language if you unload things to the GPU, but Minecraft requires a lot of CPU side work to prepare the voxel graphics (ie. building GPU vertex buffers, etc from the voxel octree in CPU/main memory). There are huge potential performance benefits of rewriting it in native code. I don't think that will happen, though. Here's a recent interesting article about optimizing visibility and minimizing overdraw, in particular for mobile "chunker" (aka. "tile deferred") GPUs. In the end it improves performance but at the cost of even more CPU work. http://tomcc.github.io/2014/08/31/visibility-1.html http://tomcc.github.io/2014/08/31/visibility-1.html
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    A lot of that is also just physics, but again the voxels are really quite easy to work with. Moving to C++ is always a PITA, I hope this isn't an optimization made so early, especially when there are other things to do.
Rapzid 12y ago
I think Microsoft wants all the 7 year-olds writing their first Minecraft mods on a platform that they sell tools for. Given Microsoft has been cozying up to mono, I wouldn't put it past them to port the game over to a platform they can leverage to get little kids using a free version of Visual Studio.

wlesieutre 12y ago

> How long before they port it to C#? You mean Minecraft.NET Pro?

fafner 12y ago

Microsoft will absolutely screw this up. We shouldn't forget why Minecraft became popular: It was run by one (and later a few) guys who were close to the community. They cared about input and made stuff to be fun. They avoided all kinds of big business/management decisions to taint that or get in the way. There is no way Microsoft will let it run like that. They bought it because they have plans for it and those plans will likely collide with the interests of the community. Microsoft is big in the gaming console business and struggling in the mobile market. It seems likely that they'll try to use Minecraft to push those markets. Even if they won't do it immediately I suspect that they'll eventually make Minecraft exclusive to Xbox and mobile. Meanwhile they'll drop or decrease support for systems they don't like, like GNU/Linux, Playstations, etc. Maybe this will be part of a rewrite or a new huge upgrade (which I guess we can call "Downloadable Content" or whatever it is called in the XBox universe from now on). And Microsoft will put their game guys in charge of it. And those guys speak a different language than Mojang. They don't care about indie and close community. They care about downloadable content and making new sellable releases every 12-24 month.

Fuzzwah 12y ago
Have you actually ever spoken to one of the MS games guys? I have. Granted it was around 5 years ago so things have probably changed, but it was around the time they were launching the XBox arcade dev kit and they seemed very genuinely interested in indie dev and supporting communities. Meat Boy certainly seemed to come about in that kind of positive environment. Not saying that I'm 100% confident that MS won't mess up Minecraft. I've never played it, but have always enjoyed following Notch and his epic trip with Minecraft as I was once a starry eyed indie game dev. I also have a young child who I know will be into it. Everything I've read seems like Minecraft totally failed to learn from id software and valve when it comes to modding. And still Minecraft mods are massive. It blows my mind. It also makes me think that MS would have to try REALLY REALLY hard to mess it up. If Minecraft has been a success with all the hurdles so far, I figure it is basically an unstoppable cultural entity now.
- fafner 12y ago
  > Everything I've read seems like Minecraft totally failed to learn from id software and valve when it comes to modding. And still Minecraft mods are massive. I have played it but I'm not really a Minecraft person myself. However as far as I know the modding situation isn't that bad because the Minecraft jar can be easily decompiled. The problem is only the lack of a stable API (which seems to be in development though) which means updates can break mods and other mods can break mods. There also doesn't seem to be an official loader or mod list. Thus people are forced to deal with obscure websites and obscure mod makers. Mojang is not putting any artificial hurdles in the way of modding. Something which I highly doubt would have ever been possible if it had been a Microsoft company.