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Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

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Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#141

Post by ohyes »

math0ne wrote: post #94

As an avid minecrafter since the early days I can't help but see this as a good thing. The mod community is what has made mc what it is, but it gets no support from the developers. Minecraft has been so wildly profitable but the company is set up in a way which Mojang the developers get a tiny portion of the profits to re-invest in development. Notch essentially diverts all the money into his own pocket while leaving…

Why is 'rewrite in c/c++ the first thing anyone does when they acquire a wildly successful project.

Notch should give Mojang to me, the first thing I'll do is rewrite mine-craft in a combination or Haskell and Erlang.

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#142

Post by javert »

tstactplsignore wrote: post #105
javert wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet Bill Gates has a hard time finding enough qualified people to wisely manage the money he is giving away. For example, if he has someone in charge of spending money on medical research, don't you think there is a point (a few billion) where they just don't know what else to spend money on? I mean, there are only so many medical researchers in the whole world. Of course you can always just throw money away/at peo…

No, this isn't really true. The NIH's budget is 30 billion a year, and that funding is already incredibly competitive. Private universities, other government sources such as NSF, NASA, and DoE, and private institutions then in addition spend an amount that dwarfs that number. On top of all of that, the last 6 years have seen cuts, layoffs, and an enormous amount of work go unfunded in the life sciences. Only about 16…

Thank you for an informative comment. That is mind-blowing. At first I was skeptical, but I was able to confirm the $30 billion number [1].

That is about twice as much as NASA [2].

[1] http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget.2C...

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#143

Post by varkson »

ohyes wrote: post #141
math0ne wrote: post #94

As an avid minecrafter since the early days I can't help but see this as a good thing. The mod community is what has made mc what it is, but it gets no support from the developers. Minecraft has been so wildly profitable but the company is set up in a way which Mojang the developers get a tiny portion of the profits to re-invest in development. Notch essentially diverts all the money into his own pocket while leaving…

Why is 'rewrite in c/c++ the first thing anyone does when they acquire a wildly successful project. Notch should give Mojang to me, the first thing I'll do is rewrite mine-craft in a combination or Haskell and Erlang.

lol it's almost like you think they are real programming langauges

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#144

Post by arjunnarayan »

Houshalter wrote: post #109
georgemcbay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any "FU money", but it seems very likely to me that once you have that sort of money, there are only a couple of reasons to run it up any further: 1) You have "Big Plans" that need funding (eg. Elon Musk) 2) Running up the numbers as a life gamification to "beat" your peers, or just because you can't stop chasing yourself, like one of those freak beast weightlifters that looks like a space monster but is…

How much would taxes take out of it though? An offer of 2 billion dollars is not equivalent to getting 2 billion in your bank account.

For US citizens/residents with billions, taxes are pretty much a constant 25%, since

1. almost everything is capital gains (which comes to 23.6%). Note that this was 15% under GWBush, so it was even better back then.

2. You can avoid state taxes by relocating to WA/TX (If I recall correctly, this was Bezos' motivation for starting Amazon in Washington). A lot of billionaires live in 0% state capital gains tax states, except the ones that need to live in CA/NY for the tech/financial sector respectively. If you live in one of those, then think of the total taxes as more like 33% total (federal + state)

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#145

Post by phaed »

makomk wrote: post #127
jwn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for making me realize I'm not the only crotchety old bastard who bitches and moans about this! My kids are old enough to play Minecraft but too young to understand how to install mods. Speaking of that, I've looked into the mod making scene and it's rather disgusting. Mojang really dropped the ball by not having an official way to write mods/plugins. Instead we get a horrible client side mod environment (Mi…

Bukkit's dead now anyway. The entire development team decided to call it quits due to legal uncertainty and general exhaustion, then Mojang announced that they weren't allowed to do that because Bukkit was actually owned by Mojang and had a special deal which meant there were no legal issues, contradicting what they'd told people who asked privately. Then one of the main developers got pissed about the fact that he'd…

Everyone left that matters is on #sponge @ irc.esper.net recruiting and planning Bukkit's successor called Sponge, it aims to be something like Bukkit+Forge.

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#146

Post by Pyrodogg »

makomk wrote: post #127
jwn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for making me realize I'm not the only crotchety old bastard who bitches and moans about this! My kids are old enough to play Minecraft but too young to understand how to install mods. Speaking of that, I've looked into the mod making scene and it's rather disgusting. Mojang really dropped the ball by not having an official way to write mods/plugins. Instead we get a horrible client side mod environment (Mi…

Bukkit's dead now anyway. The entire development team decided to call it quits due to legal uncertainty and general exhaustion, then Mojang announced that they weren't allowed to do that because Bukkit was actually owned by Mojang and had a special deal which meant there were no legal issues, contradicting what they'd told people who asked privately. Then one of the main developers got pissed about the fact that he'd…

Craftbukkit was never licensable under the LGPL. From the projects inception, it contained proprietary, closed-source Mojang code used without a license. It's LGPL license was invalid from the start.

  From the get go we were plagued with issues and obstacles we needed to overcome, one of which we were sadly unable to tackle despite our best efforts: the legal barrier of licensing and permission. When starting the Bukkit project and even getting involved with hMod before that, we all knew that our work - no matter how well-intentioned - fell into a dangerous legal grey area.  - EvilSeph[1]
This calls into question the legal standing of all derivative works of Craftbukkit.

The contributors still have copyright over the things they wrote, but they also weren't writing them in a vacuum. They were creating derivatives of Craftbukkit under the assumption it was valid LGPL.

The LGPL wasn't violated because it came out that Mojang controls the Bukkit project. It was voided before these contributions came into question. It's not clear what license, if any, the contributions by Wesley, et. al. fall under.

I am very interested in the legal issues of this whole situation and am constantly looking for the best resources I can find. If you're curious, I suggest reading some posts by /u/VideoGameAttorney on reddit[2]

[1] https://forums.bukkit.org/threads/bukkit-its-time-to-say.305... [2] http://www.reddit.com/user/VideoGameAttorney

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#147

Post by varkson »

JanSolo wrote: post #32
mindstab wrote: post #19

I don't get it. Mojang already made "all the money" from selling minecraft and are largely maintaining it now. I haven't heard if they even have any new games on the way? The space one was cancelled. What exactly is MS possibly getting that could be worth $2B?

Agreed. I can only assume that MS are going to insist on a sequel with all of the 'NextGen' trappings we've come to expect from them. Minecraft2: MasterChief Edition. With Kinect! And day1 DLC! And product placement... (Use the new MTN DEW powerup to double your building speed! Feed your animals DORITOS to improve their stats!) Good for Markus and the Mojang guys though... they built a multi-billion-dollar empire out…

Stop this MS h8 shit m8 if anything, MS will bring some stability to that company. Right now it's just a bunch of children making shittonnes of money for an indie games accident. They didn't work for it, they got lucky. Notch just prefers to be a little bitch on Twitter over everything while spending his 10mil a year on holidays.

Anyone who can bring accountability to Mojang will be a good thing.

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#148

Post by nandhp »

varkson wrote: post #98
Guvante wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think there is a material difference between Microsoft changing Windows to a closed platform and Apple creating a closed platform from scratch? In the case of the latter it is well known and can be planned around. In the case of the former you have fully invested and then suddenly the game changes.

It won't happen though. The minute that Apple closed off the Mac, with the Mac App Store being the only software source, the minute that idea might have a little credence.

The Mac App Store is not (yet) the only software source, though that restriction is available as an opt-in setting in System Preferences.

Applications from outside the App Store run just fine, as long as they're signed with a developer certificate. The certificate presumably costs $99/year, but you don't need Apple to approve your application.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5290

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#149

Post by guelo »

Chinjut wrote: post #95
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Notch's perspective is that Minecraft as an IP is worth more than that. He can probably ride it out for the next couple decades with sequels or other monetization techniques. Why take the big payment today when you can have the bigger payment on-going? Especially if you want to continue to make it your life's work. Look at some gaming stars from the past. John Romero didn't "make us his bitch" with his post iD…

It seems to me that the one-trick pony nature of the gaming business is more reason to take a big payout upfront. $2bn is fuck you money for the rest of your life. Who knows if the Minecraft IP will even be worth anything a few years from now?

Not when you have a hit as big as Minecraft. Kids growing up with Minecraft today will still be playing it nostalgically 30-40 years from now.

Re: Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang

#150

Post by hueving »

otakucode wrote: post #120
Houshalter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would taxes take out of it though? An offer of 2 billion dollars is not equivalent to getting 2 billion in your bank account.

When you are dealing in billions, you don't pay taxes.

Wow, you are so brave for bringing forward such a revolutionary and controversial statement. I hope you will bless us with your intelligence at every opportunity you get.
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