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

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

#131

Post by studer »

henrikschroder wrote: post #123
studer wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1) The grandparent argument that being employed would be great because of health care benefits assumes that the creator of Minecraft lives in the US. If he had bothered to read the first sentence of the actual article, he would have discovered that this is not the case. In this place, we read the articles before commenting. 2) What 15% fees? Health care in Sweden is financed through regional income tax.

No, health care in Sweden is not solely financed through regional income tax. Large parts of the social security system are financed through payroll taxes and corresponding mandatory contributions from self-employed people (the latter is called "egenavgift" -- feel free to Google it).

But looking again, he's in fact born before 1983, which means that he has to pay pension contributions as well, bumping the total contribution up to nearly 30%. In addition to income tax, that is.

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

#132

Post by teamonkey »

bl4k wrote: post #112

I 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…

He's selling it at $10 while it's in a preview state. The full RRP will be $20.

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

#133

Post by sabat »

nihilocrat wrote: post #39
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.

Meh, Java is just fine, and if you really like it, I'm happy for you. (I find it an interesting but somewhat cumbersome language. Still, if it's the right tool for the job ...)

Maybe this guy's amazing success will serve to change some minds here, tho.

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

#134

Post by enneff »

Groxx wrote: post #93
tvon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it wouldn't be better and more successful if it was a Valve product?

More successful (assuming a sales-metric): quite likely, given a guaranteed advertising budget. But less of it (%-wise) would go back to Notch. Better: depends on your metric. Fewer customers = less feedback = more likely to get your idea implemented. More customers = more employees = more code backing the game (overall better), and likely more bugfixes and better-performing graphics. More control in the hands of one…

"being part of Valve will put more pressure on sales than there currently is"

Valve seems like one of the companies least pressured by sales. They could push out HL2: Episode 3 tomorrow and it would sell a million copies, even if it were dreck (but they wouldn't, of course). They've always had a huge bankroll (even at the beginning), and have taken the time to refine each and every one of their products before release. It's no surprise, then, that every single thing they've release has been a huge success and considered among the best games ever written.

With that said, I don't necessarily believe Minecraft is "Valve material," but I would definitely be curious to see how it would turn out with Valve's energy, artistry, and pure talent behind it.

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

#135

Post by jomohke »

steveklabnik wrote: post #110
varjag wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..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 limi…

It's pretty difficult to do language performance comparisons based on a single game. Dwarf fortress, another great indie game involving mining and crafting, is written in C++, has no 3D (it's simply a 2D grid), and uses up a lot of CPU.

That doesn't mean that C++ is slow. It means we have no idea how much these custom indie game engines have been performance tuned, and how much logic is being performed in the background (DF is a hugely deep game). They are both written by a single programmer, not a team of game engine developers.

Edit: I don't doubt that performance tuned C++ is faster than Java. But for a small development team, who aren't building a graphically taxing game, performance optimisation is well down the list of priorities. They are usually better off spending the time expanding their game.

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

#136

Post by bond »

teamonkey wrote: post #132
bl4k wrote: post #112

I 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…

He's selling it at $10 while it's in a preview state. The full RRP will be $20.

It's 9.95€ and 20€, around $13 and $26...

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

#137

Post by sshumaker »

zacharycohn wrote: post #43
efsavage wrote: post #32

Earlier 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

Considering he's made about 4mm, and Valve turned down a multi-billion dollar offer not too long ago, I think you might be a bit off-base. :)

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

#138

Post by sshumaker »

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.

I'm not sure 'huge traction' is really accurate. While this is definitely serious cash for an individual, most successful big-budget games earn orders of magnitude more. And with AAA budgets approaching 100mm, you couldn't sustain even a small team on these profits.

Notch - please don't blow your money on trying to rent a fancy office and hire a lot of people. You'll be surprised at how quickly that money goes.

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

#139

Post by mahmud »

Groxx wrote: post #102
houseabsolute wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If software done under these requirements, the world will see more compilers and far fewer ERP systems.

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

#140

Post by runjake »

rbranson wrote: post #113
runjake wrote: post #72

Earlier 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?

Actually it's based on a somewhat stripped down and ARM-ized version of Mac OS X with additional frameworks (UI*) that aren't present on what's currently known as Mac OS X.
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