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Literally worse than EA

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Re: Literally worse than EA

#51

Post by alkonaut »

davidbanham wrote: post #3

Hosting 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…

In what way is it unsolved? For what type of games? In my experience, for any games that allow you to easily run your own server for you and your friends (e.g. Counter Strike), finding servers is no problem.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#52

Post by nl »

davidbanham wrote: post #3

Hosting 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…

I sometimes wonder if Minefold was too early too market. The market is much bigger now, and there are plenty of kids who's parents would pay a coffee per month for a server for their kids and their friends.

I've actually had a semi-serious look at having a go at doing it.. have Docker powered scripted setup etc all working.

But I think Minecraft Realms has (or will) sucked the money out of that market... maybe - it does seem quite highly priced though.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#53

Post by jiggy2011 »

VLM wrote: post #50
jiggy2011 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how an app store model would necessarily help people monetise running servers.

I don't think you've played minecraft and done modding. If your server requires 1.6.4 and railcraft 1.2.3.4.5.6 well then anyone who connects requires MC 1.6.4 (free, no problem) and ALSO requires railcraft 1.2.3.4.5.6 and mods are stereotypically hosted on the scummiest pr0n-iest adfest drive by download sewers of the internet (sorry, but its true) So say you want to host a server called "jiggy's minecraft". Simply…

Wouldn't it be more profitable to simply develop and sell mods rather than running servers since your costs will be lower?

Unless you mean just using the mod as a key to access the server in which case you'd be better off just charging for passwords to the server because otherwise you have to worry about people using pirate copies of your mod to connect.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#54

Post by nl »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #49
grrowl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the common theme is Minecraft's ecosystem. Mojang addresses a problem (EULA-breaking monetization within the ecosystem) by changing the rules to address the problem. What they should do is circumvent the immediate problem by redefining the ecosystem itself. Furnishing developers with a stable, predictable API redefines the ecosystem, and creating an "app store" for mods (et cetera...) could finance it, with o…

I don't see how an app store model would necessarily help people monetise running servers.

I wasn't really thinking of it as targeted at servers only - more improving the Minecraft ecosystem.

But since you mentioned it - Minecraft has a central authorisation system. It would be trivial to sell subscriptions to particular servers through an app store and have Mojang enforce that via the central authorisation.

That are lots and lots of benefits that could come form this, not least locking young kids down to play only on "family friendly" servers (which is pretty much impossible at the moment).

Damn.. I think this is even a better idea than my original one.

Someone on HN must know someone at Mojang? Please tell them to do this!!

Re: Literally worse than EA

#55

Post by VLM »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #25
davidbanham wrote: post #3

Hosting 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…

Shouldn't that be a massive indicator to get out of that business, then? I play Minecraft with my younger siblings and have the Minecraft server loaded onto a personal server that also streams media to our PS3. In another situation, my alma mater offers free shell access to every student, so there were quite a few people who had Minecraft servers going. These smaller, ad hoc servers are better for Minecraft since the…

"have the Minecraft server loaded onto a personal server"

Ditto. My kids love it. Finally my "fileserver" CPU has something to do. Doesn't take much resources until its ridiculously big/modded. Its fun. It doesn't take much static NAT work for their friends to get access too.

The problem is a bathtub curve where anyone can run a server in their basement on an old/free PC for basically no cost and no effort. And there is a use for a huge server with 100s of people on it and massive creativity and hopefully not much griefing and its going to be expensive but worth it. Minecrack will probably always survive? And in between is a medium sized dead zone where nothing can live. In the middle a 10 year old can't pay for it, and it wouldn't be worth paying for anyway.

The marketplace looks like journalism. You're always going to have people commenting for free in blogs, and you're always (maybe) going to have the new york times. In between, the market has simply died and blown away and isn't coming back.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#56

Post by bitJericho »

davidbanham wrote: post #19
espadrine wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The perception amongst the buyers we spoke to was that Minecraft was for 9 to 13 year old kids. The only people they were familiar with interacting with the title were their own children and their friends. Advertising to kids is ethically problematic and often has strict legal restrictions. I'm not aware of any of the large video exchanges operating in the space at all. None of our existing buyers were interested. If…

A lot of older folks I imagine would just setup their own server and port forwarding. There's a million guides out there for that.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#57

Post by VLM »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #53
VLM wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you've played minecraft and done modding. If your server requires 1.6.4 and railcraft 1.2.3.4.5.6 well then anyone who connects requires MC 1.6.4 (free, no problem) and ALSO requires railcraft 1.2.3.4.5.6 and mods are stereotypically hosted on the scummiest pr0n-iest adfest drive by download sewers of the internet (sorry, but its true) So say you want to host a server called "jiggy's minecraft". Simply…

Wouldn't it be more profitable to simply develop and sell mods rather than running servers since your costs will be lower? Unless you mean just using the mod as a key to access the server in which case you'd be better off just charging for passwords to the server because otherwise you have to worry about people using pirate copies of your mod to connect.

Most of the people running servers are doing it as a desire to be the part of the ecosystem who runs servers. They aren't interested in making money off the ecosystem as much as becoming a part of the ecosystem, and as server ops have been since the first days of IRC and the earliest dialup BBSes decades ago, there's more than a little power trip involved. If they wanted money they'd spend time on mturk and easily make more, unless they somehow go pro and make it into the really big leagues. Much like pro sports.

I'm guessing the pirate effect wouldn't be an issue because the "pro mod writers" would be about 10x more excited about the topic than "pro server operators" for obvious reasons so the mod store writers wouldn't do anything too dumb... I hope. One rather trivial and easy to implement solution is MC currently has a centralized auth system for MC users that existing servers talk to (I have a server in my basement, and I am made well aware from my kids when the MC auth servers are down), and extending that a tiny bit to auth both MC and mods isn't much work other than a bit more traffic to the auth server, which they can probably afford by skimming off mod sale prices. So you can tell the server all day that you have a copy of mod name jiggy-2011, but when the server turns around and asks the existing centralized MC server if username jiggy has actually paid for mod name jiggy-2011, then ...

Re: Literally worse than EA

#58

Post by ja27 »

espadrine wrote: post #4
davidbanham wrote: post #3

Hosting 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?

What I can't understand is how there is so much money in YouTube views for the same demographic. Who is buying ads on Tobuscus, Captain Sparklez, etc. for a primarily 8-12 year old male audience? I guess I could just watch some and see, if I could stand it.

Re: Literally worse than EA

#59

Post by ableal »

davidbanham wrote: post #3

Hosting 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…

> 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.

Coming to think of it, I believe Disney has a good solution in their Club Penguin setup. The way it works is that the basic multiplayer game is totally free, has no advertising and is supervised (you earn a 24 hour ban for saying 'shit' ;-). The child registers a penguin avatar, which collects points in games and runs around common spaces.

However, for the penguin to be able to use the points to collect fuzzy pets or buy some clothing items requires a paid subscription, which runs around 5 euro/month. I've authorized spending (via credit card, but out of the piggy bank) for one or three months per year ...

Re: Literally worse than EA

#60

Post by altcognito »

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…

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

One of the first instructions on how to make a mod was -- first, download this decompiler. Wat?

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