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.
Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
111–120 of 245 posts
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#112I wonder what the potential market size is for this game, and if he will reach a large part of that while the game is in alpha and on special.
Something tells me he is selling it for too cheap, especially with all the buzz it is getting. The license is also a lifetime license, so he has ongoing server costs for the next 5+ years that need to be covered with what he is bringing in atm (minus the huge tax bill he will be hit with).
He is selling what is a recurring service at a flat one-off rate, a subscription at $20 year may have sold just as well.
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#113The 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.
iOS basically is Apple's standard OS at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if Mac OS X was renamed to "iOS Development Environment" at the next WWDC. It seems pretty clear that at some point iOS (and a desktop version of its touch paradigm) will be the future on Mac desktops.
You realize that iOS is just a stripped down OS X right?
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#114The 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.
[deleted]
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#115Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
"unless he can somehow sustain his current income indefinitely" If he sustains it for 2 weeks he's pretty much set for life.
He's already sustained at least $250k/d for two weeks. These numbers are 100k bigger than the last ones I saw a few weeks ago. Pretty sure he could BUY Valve at this point. :p
I'm positive he can't ;-)
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think he'll be ok. Right now he is only selling to the early adopter crowd who doesn't mind the crappy graphics. Once he spends some money on graphic designers, he'll be able to get mainstream appeal. Once he has mainstream appeal, he can release it for the stores to sell. Which will boost his sales. But yeah...either way he has already made a ton of money off this game....at least a couple million. Which should gi…
I don't really see how you can "graphically improve" a game that is built around square voxel-like elements and pixel graphics. He definitely nears market saturation quickly.
just by way of illustration, see the difference in graphics between civ1 and civ2, which were both basically square tilemaps with a limited number of different terrain squares.
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#118I wonder what the potential market size is for this game, and if he will reach a large part of that while the game is in alpha and on special. Something tells me he is selling it for too cheap, especially with all the buzz it is getting. The license is also a lifetime license, so he has ongoing server costs for the next 5+ years that need to be covered with what he is bringing in atm (minus the huge tax bill he will…
Server costs are minimal; about what hosting any other website with similar traffic would be. He is not hosting the game servers for it, just an authentication server.
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#119Valve: "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 understand that it definitely isn't the case, was really just making a joke about the fact that someone who strikes it rich turns down a normal job right after.
Re: Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
iOS basically is Apple's standard OS at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if Mac OS X was renamed to "iOS Development Environment" at the next WWDC. It seems pretty clear that at some point iOS (and a desktop version of its touch paradigm) will be the future on Mac desktops.
You realize that iOS is just a stripped down OS X right?
...which is exactly why the "iOS Development Environment" metaphor works! Think of it the other way round: OS X is just iOS with a lot more exposed to the user.