Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

develop-online.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 245 posts

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#31

Post by city41 »

kevingadd wrote: post #24
rdj wrote: post #3

Not surprised. What could a job at either Valve or Bungie give him that he doesn't get now?

Ask the Portal team? Or the guys who made Team Fortress? Or the guys who made Counter-Strike? To be more precise: Working at a larger studio like Valve means you trade some creative control and (in notch's case) some short-term income for reliable long-term income and access to things you could never get in the short term as an individual, like access to devkits for consoles, access to well-trained, highly skilled QA…

The Portal team was scooped up from Digipen. If their game was netting them over $200k/day, something tells me they wouldn't have been so eager to join Valve.

Hey I f'ing love Valve, my all time favorite game company. No one is trying to suggest working for Valve is a bad thing. But a little perspective is needed here.

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#32

Post by efsavage »

kevingadd wrote: post #21
twymer wrote: post #8

Valve: "We heard you were making $350k/day, how would you like a job making $50k/year?"

1) Health care, taxes, payment processing fees, development tools... There are a lot of expenses covered by an employer, especially when you're a game developer. 2) It's not $350k/day versus $50k/year, unless he can somehow sustain his current income indefinitely (he can't). 3) The value of games publishers and platform developers being willing to talk to you (and having access to development kits, etc) is hard to pu…

"unless he can somehow sustain his current income indefinitely"

If he sustains it for 2 weeks he's pretty much set for life.

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#33

Post by city41 »

klbarry wrote: post #4

It's kinda sad that the Dwarf Fortress creator only earns about 2k a day. It shows what some business savvy will do for you. Then ago, the DF creator is passionatr about his vision, so who knows.

I'd be in seventh heaven if I was making $2k/day on my own games.

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#34

Post by awakeasleep »

icefox wrote: post #17
aresant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think Hollywood director type job offer. Use somebody else's money to build your dream product with a huge incredible staff. Get gauranteed, huge up front salary to do so. Take away a sizeable piece of the action on the success.

And being forced to justify every small thing and have to use outlook.

When you're eminent in your field those sorts of things may become negotiable.

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#36

Post by patio11 »

klbarry wrote: post #4

It's kinda sad that the Dwarf Fortress creator only earns about 2k a day. It shows what some business savvy will do for you. Then ago, the DF creator is passionatr about his vision, so who knows.

Dwarf Fortress is at approximately $2k ~ 3k per month, not per day. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#37

Post by mdwrigh2 »

Groxx wrote: post #35

> turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie Thank God . Not that they haven't been successful, but I really want this to stay entirely in Notch's control, as that's precisely why it's succeeding.

This may be a good thing ultimately, but if there was a gaming company I'd consider working for, it'd likely be Valve. They seem very community focused, and I imagine they'd give this guy the freedom to run the game how he likes, considering its his 'baby'. Plus, they'd give him some risk-free (to him) resources to build a second game if he needed it, and they probably have way more experience handling multiplayer side stuff that he could benefit from. But this is pure speculation. As it is, him keeping it is probably a good thing for the community.

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#38

Post by Groxx »

mdwrigh2 wrote: post #37
Groxx wrote: post #35

> turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie Thank God . Not that they haven't been successful, but I really want this to stay entirely in Notch's control, as that's precisely why it's succeeding.

This may be a good thing ultimately, but if there was a gaming company I'd consider working for, it'd likely be Valve. They seem very community focused, and I imagine they'd give this guy the freedom to run the game how he likes, considering its his 'baby'. Plus, they'd give him some risk-free (to him) resources to build a second game if he needed it, and they probably have way more experience handling multiplayer si…

Entirely agree. But "good for the community" = "good for me" :)

And, given his success, he's likely near-guaranteed a job at high-profile companies for life if he ever wants one. No reason to jump now.

Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie

#39

Post by nihilocrat »

aresant wrote: post #6

The most refreshing part of this story is that it's not about the Apple / Google / etc App stores. Shows that exceptional indie products can get huge traction on a traditional platform, sort of like Braid on XBOX / PC / etc. That said, also excites me for the future when MSFT's & Apple's standard OS come with a servicable app store baked in.

On a similar note, Minecraft is written in...

get this

...

Java

Which seems to be the dorkiest and most uncool language on the planet if you were to ask HN.

Post reply on HN