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Literally worse than EA

notch.net

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Re: Literally worse than EA

#31

Post by nl »

Oh wow. Minecraft. I have an 8yo boy, so I spend a lot more time thinking about this than I would like.

I think Mojang has it's priorities slightly wrong here. At the moment much of the interesting stuff in Minecraft is done via mods. But the user experience for that is pretty close to pre-Google search: browse through random forums to find links to dodgy download sites that attempt to push malware or porn to you.

Then when you find a working download, you have to install. Inevitably that means clashes with existing mods, and hours trying different versions of things that some random person on a forum claims work.

FFS, I'm a Java programmer, and I can't work out how to make this shit work most of the time.

In my view Mojang should do the following:

  Build a working, stable official Mod API, which at least attempts to make it possible to determine if different mods will work together

  Implement an in-game app store, and let mod authors sell their mods.
I'd much prefer to spend a dollar on a new mod rather than the horrible, horrible experience it is now.

Rant over..

Re: Literally worse than EA

#32

Post by spain »

Following the link on that page to the "translated" version of the new EULA, their reasoning seems to still be "we don’t want our players to be exploited or to have a frustrating time unless they pay." [0] I find a lot of things wrong with this mentality, mostly in that it assumes that the servers that charge for gameplay have some kind of monopoly over the servers. If you don't want to pay for gameplay, just visit another server. You don't have to put up with them. Heck, if you really wanted to you could host your own. The bottom line is you don't need to pay anyone, they're not exploiting you. If you're getting frustrated because they're charging you then that's your own dumb fault for visiting that server and putting up with it. If you want to pay, go ahead, support the server hosts. All of this is under the false assumption that people are being forced into paying, which simply isn't true.

[0] https://mojang.com/2014/06/lets-talk-server-monetisation/

Re: Literally worse than EA

#33

Post by drewcrawford »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #24

"The EULA for Minecraft says you can’t make money of Minecraft. If you make mods, they have to be free." I don't understand the legal theory behind this. Is this contract law? If a programmer wrote a third-party mod without buying the software (say by reading an API description), would they still be bound to its terms? Also, does restricting modification like this infringe on "first sale" rights?

Well I'm no lawyer, but one legal theory you could argue is the one from MAI vs Peak. This is the one that holds that loading a computer program into ram for running is a copy that requires permission from the copyright holder. Therefore one would argue that by running this program, they ratified the EULA, or else they blatantly committed copyright infringement, which is probably worse than simple breach of contract.

I know there are lawyers who seem to argue otherwise, for example the GPL states "You are not required to accept this license to receive or run a copy of the program". But I don't know if that statement has any legal basis in general, or if it's just the FSF granting permission to run covered software without accepting the GPL. As far as the US goes, I think it's the latter, but it may be different in other jurisdictions.

I'm not a lawyer, please go hire someone if you really need to know.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#34

Post by Lrigikithumer »

nl wrote: post #31

Oh wow. Minecraft. I have an 8yo boy, so I spend a lot more time thinking about this than I would like. I think Mojang has it's priorities slightly wrong here. At the moment much of the interesting stuff in Minecraft is done via mods. But the user experience for that is pretty close to pre-Google search: browse through random forums to find links to dodgy download sites that attempt to push malware or porn to you. Th…

What does a mod API have to do with the monetisation of servers? Not saying you're incorrect but it doesn't really seem relevant to the story posted.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#35

Post by touristtam »

delucain wrote: post #10

Maybe 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 f…

Is the modding community not offering enough for you? Just wondering, as it seems quite unusual for such a big hit to have modding encouraged the way minecraft does. (I know that part of this is due to Mojang being an indie studio). Other big studio with big selling franchise are barely having what would be considered as passable ten years ago (yes I am talking about the omni present call of duty x): no dedicated server and no modding capability.

I am more concerned about minecraft being still running on the JVM and being such a slow cow running on a half decent modern hardware when C++ is still the main language for written game engine. You would have thought that in 4 years, a new iteration of the game optimized for rendering and speed would have been made available.

/off-topic

Back on topic, I think Notch is taking this too much at heart and should just ask Mojang to put a huge notice exonerating themselves from private server charging their customers.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#36

Post by touristtam »

nl wrote: post #31

Oh wow. Minecraft. I have an 8yo boy, so I spend a lot more time thinking about this than I would like. I think Mojang has it's priorities slightly wrong here. At the moment much of the interesting stuff in Minecraft is done via mods. But the user experience for that is pretty close to pre-Google search: browse through random forums to find links to dodgy download sites that attempt to push malware or porn to you. Th…

Try the resident-rise mod pack (or the yogcast one, based on it) on ATLauncher ( official website for the launcher: http://www.atlauncher.com/)

Re: Literally worse than EA

#37

Post by tokenizerrr »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #24

"The EULA for Minecraft says you can’t make money of Minecraft. If you make mods, they have to be free." I don't understand the legal theory behind this. Is this contract law? If a programmer wrote a third-party mod without buying the software (say by reading an API description), would they still be bound to its terms? Also, does restricting modification like this infringe on "first sale" rights?

Minecraft does not have an API currently. If you are making mods you are decompiling the original Minecraft java source code, modifying it, and releasing a modified version of their original works.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#38

Post by networked »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #22
networked wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the players come to those server networks looking for the custom gameplay experiences they provide and every network stands to lose a lot of money from the EULA change what prevents them from hiring developers to replace Minecraft with a custom client? I mean this as a genuine question.

You are falling in to the very trap that this entire article is about. Nobody is losing money from this EULA change. The EULA already forbade this and always did. The EULA is only more liberal than it was before. If they were willing to flout it before than there is no reason they shouldn't be willing to continue to flout it now.

In the post that awjr links to above the author claims that a Mojang employee has interpreted the previous EULA for them as allowing this ("I personally discussed our rank system with a member of your business team at Minecon last year and he confirmed we were in compliance with the EULA. The only rule was to not sell Mojang IP [...]"), although it does not make it clear as to how official their discussion was.

With my question I didn't mean to imply that I have an opinion on this matter either way. I'm mostly wondering if the big server networks could try to cut out Mojang based on their shared (I assume) interpretation of how to the EULA has changed over time, whether it be right or wrong.

Edit: clarified last sentence.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#39

Post by baldfat »

Lrigikithumer wrote: post #34
nl wrote: post #31

Oh wow. Minecraft. I have an 8yo boy, so I spend a lot more time thinking about this than I would like. I think Mojang has it's priorities slightly wrong here. At the moment much of the interesting stuff in Minecraft is done via mods. But the user experience for that is pretty close to pre-Google search: browse through random forums to find links to dodgy download sites that attempt to push malware or porn to you. Th…

What does a mod API have to do with the monetisation of servers? Not saying you're incorrect but it doesn't really seem relevant to the story posted.

the server is modded and you don't have to install a mod client side.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#40

Post by avz »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking if there's such a thing as an enforceable noncommercial license?

Well there are well-known noncommercial clauses about redistribution of software. But this license is about restricting third-party modifications, like plugins, which don't contain copyrighted code, but do link to it and target its API. So yes I'm asking if that's enforceable, and what type of law allows for that (contract or copyright?). Or did you mean noncommercial use, as in evaluation licenses? (edit: several ed…

I think the recent Oracle vs Google case is relevant here as it involves the question of whether APIs are copyrightable. The case is about a subset of Java APIs included in Android. Note that the Android implementation exposed by those APIs is new and did not involve copying code from Java standard libraries (modulo rangeCheck()).

The district court ruled that so long as implementation is different you are free to provide the same API. A federal circuit court reversed this ruling this year. The case is now back in the district court for consideration of whether the use of the API falls under the fair-use clause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_v._Google

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