Literally worse than EA
notch.net
Literally worse than EA
1–10 of 141 posts
Re: Literally worse than EA
#2Seems like reasonable player-friendly rules, I think minecraft has a ton of servers and sub-communities though so it will probably be quite hard to police. The idea of individual server ops creating mini-businesses seems a little odd. They could probably do more to streamline the multiplayer experience for players and server-ops.
Re: Literally worse than EA
#3Hosting game servers is hard, expensive work. Hosting Minecraft servers is even tougher since the hardware requirements are pretty steep and the main userbase doesn't have much money to kick into the pot.
Minefold was a YC company that tried to make a go of monetising Minecraft hosting in the Right Way. They were smart guys and built a great platform, but they're not around any more. I believe it's because it was just too hard to get Minecraft users to pay anything for their servers.
We looked into ways to incorporate advertising into Minecraft in a player-friendly way. Mojang weren't interested in helping, but it wasn't the technical barrier that stopped us. It was inability to find buyers for the ad slots given the perceived demographic of the game.
Online multiplayer doesn't happen well without servers to mediate the experience. Those servers cost money. This remains a massive unsolved problem in the gaming industry.
Re: Literally worse than EA
#4Hosting game servers is hard, expensive work. Hosting Minecraft servers is even tougher since the hardware requirements are pretty steep and the main userbase doesn't have much money to kick into the pot. Minefold was a YC company that tried to make a go of monetising Minecraft hosting in the Right Way. They were smart guys and built a great platform, but they're not around any more. I believe it's because it was jus…
> inability to find buyers for the ad slots given the perceived demographic
I would love for you to expand on that. Is there an age range that no buyers in the ad business are interested in? What aspect of the demographic was toxic to them? How do they measure how effective a demographic is?
Re: Literally worse than EA
#5Yes Minecraft is awesome, however the selling of addons is just one more revenue stream to keep a server alive and the user base engaged. There has to be perceived value in having the addon to make the user experience better.
I think this sums up the sentiment from a server's point of view: http://sterlingplays.com/
Re: Literally worse than EA
#6Yes Minecraft is awesome, however the selling of addons is just one more revenue stream to keep a server alive and the user base engaged. There has to be perceived value in having the addon to make the user experience better. I think this sums up the sentiment from a server's point of view: http://sterlingplays.com/
Good article, just goes to show that best sentiments from the maker doesn't necessarily add up to best solution for the end users - hope these people will end up in dialogue, seems worthwhile since their goalpost (getting people to enjoy, and keep enjoying, Minecraft) is pretty much the same.
Re: Literally worse than EA
#7Hosting game servers is hard, expensive work. Hosting Minecraft servers is even tougher since the hardware requirements are pretty steep and the main userbase doesn't have much money to kick into the pot. Minefold was a YC company that tried to make a go of monetising Minecraft hosting in the Right Way. They were smart guys and built a great platform, but they're not around any more. I believe it's because it was jus…
> inability to find buyers for the ad slots given the perceived demographic I would love for you to expand on that. Is there an age range that no buyers in the ad business are interested in? What aspect of the demographic was toxic to them? How do they measure how effective a demographic is?
I'd imagine that you're selecting for gamers (often young people with little money) playing a nearly-free game (further selecting for "little money") that they usually keep playing for a long time (so even if they had money, they're not looking to spend it).
Re: Literally worse than EA
#8Hosting game servers is hard, expensive work. Hosting Minecraft servers is even tougher since the hardware requirements are pretty steep and the main userbase doesn't have much money to kick into the pot. Minefold was a YC company that tried to make a go of monetising Minecraft hosting in the Right Way. They were smart guys and built a great platform, but they're not around any more. I believe it's because it was jus…
> inability to find buyers for the ad slots given the perceived demographic I would love for you to expand on that. Is there an age range that no buyers in the ad business are interested in? What aspect of the demographic was toxic to them? How do they measure how effective a demographic is?
We're talking ten year old children, in my experience. I'm slightly amazed at how much they love playing Minecraft.
With home WiFi they can run their own servers in their touch devices, and run around in each others play areas.
P.S. I greatly appreciate Markus Persson's integrity, and consider this game one of my best purchases ever.
Re: Literally worse than EA
#9What about functionality added by mods which are not directly made for Minecraft?
Spout used that loophole (where Spout was a voxel mod API and SpoutCraft was a Minecraft implementation of it) to allow selling mods.
Re: Literally worse than EA
#10Maybe this is a little off-topic, and I don't want to sound like an ungrateful player of minecraft. I actually really love the game and have put more hours into it than just about any other game but a few key titles like the Diablo, Elder Scrolls, and Fallout series. But, can someone explain to me how a game that has grossed roughly half a billion dollars (based on estimates I've read for all platforms) is still so feature bare compared to other games in its financial ballpark? I am honestly curious, because it doesn't sound like Notch is cruising the Caribbean in a 175' yacht or anything.