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

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101–110 of 245 posts

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

#102

I get the impression that this game was built because he wanted to build something he himself would enjoy, not something he could become rich off. Maybe there's something to that philosophy ;)

Maybe. On the other hand, people do things every day for the love of it that get little traction in the market place. It seems more likely this confluence is just a coincidence.

I wonder if it might be a requirement (or nearly) for run-away successes though, while obviously not sufficient for it.

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

#103
post #8

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

a: he doesn't make $350k every day b: valve pays well north of $50k/year c: valve likely has profit sharing of some variety, which could be quite substantial d: likely valve wouldn't just hire him but would purchase his company, giving him a several million dollar lump sum payment Factor that in with the temptation to use valve's resources in developing your game, it's not such a bad deal. Nevertheless, if one is mak…

I hear its not always that far north of 50k.

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

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What do you mean health care? Look again where he's living.

Public health care doesn't mean that nobody pays for it. Since he's not employed by anyone else, it's part of the ~15% in mandatory fees that he'll end up paying in addition to the ordinary income tax.

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

#105
post #7

Why would you work for a software company if you are making that much?

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.

I think you're missing something here...

The entire reason Minecraft is so successful is because there IS NO HUGE INCREDIBLE STAFF. The game spawned from the thoughts, dreams, and abilities of just a single mind. Add more minds and the game becomes something it was never intended to be.

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

#106
post #40

Good news: Indie developers can still get rich doing what they love. Bad news: You will probably not be one of them. ;-)

Best news: You probably can make a pretty good living, even if you don't get rich.

Free happiness included!

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

#107

I get the impression that this game was built because he wanted to build something he himself would enjoy, not something he could become rich off. Maybe there's something to that philosophy ;)

Maybe. On the other hand, people do things every day for the love of it that get little traction in the market place. It seems more likely this confluence is just a coincidence.

Not just coincidence. I've bought quite a lot of indie games the last few years but Minecraft is one of the few I recommend, no, urge my friends to buy.

It's genuine fun, different and has QWAN.

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

#108

Amazing stuff. Honestly, when I saw this post I thought man I should have been a games programmer (and the desire to learn how to create games started to surface). Then, I went searching on Google and it seems that this guy has found his luck after working hard as a games programmer for around 10 years ( http://www.mojang.com/notch/ ). After reading this, I smiled & felt happy for the programmer and went back working…

Behind nearly every "overnight success" story is a reality of years of practice and persistence.

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

#109

I get the impression that this game was built because he wanted to build something he himself would enjoy, not something he could become rich off. Maybe there's something to that philosophy ;)

He's also really awesome at coding. I had a similar idea several years ago after seeing how horrible all the MMORPG crafting engines were. In fact I may have even posted something to that effect on HN. I would have loved playing it, and even started sketching some designs. But I gave up pretty quickly, distracted by other things, and even if I had stuck with it, it probably wouldn't have ever been much more than a proof of concept to anyone but me.

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

#110
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

..so that's why it renders like a hog ;)

While I agree that this should be downvoted, just be aware that there is some truth to this: Minecraft makes my current generation (well, technically last, but the 13" model barely changed) MacBook Pro run hot enough that I cannot leave it on my lap. The only other thing that makes it do this is encoding video; I'm not really sure why, exactly. There is a decent amount of background processing going on, but it's limited to a 300x300x128 (I think? in Z? 300x300 XY for sure) block area, so...

You wouldn't be able to guess this from the graphics style.

EDIT: Upvotes for both responses. My love of command line is showing; I know next to nothing about graphics and what it takes to make them perform well.

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