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I'm Leaving Mojang

notch.net

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Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#31

Post by DanBC »

tbrock wrote: post #20

"If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately." He seems to have an awful attitude for a guy who just made a billion dollars and gets to spend the rest of his life doing exactly what he wants.

He is saying "I made a mistake; I have learnt from that mistake and will try to avoid making the same mistake in future".

That's a fucking great attitude and is -to me at least- much better than "I made minecraft and I'm awesome and the success of Minecraft has nothing to do with luck but is totally all those decisions I made because I'm brilliant" which is the kind of thing we hear from a bunch of other devs.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#32

Post by rtpg »

jacquesm wrote: post #17

> I don’t see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it’s fun, and because I love games and I love to program, but I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world. I think that's the essence of being a real game developer. It's sad that Notch feels this way, I think the majority of old school games guys and girls were just like that. Since it's beco…

>I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world.

>I think that's the essence of being a real game developer.

Really? (to be read with the least amount of snark possible)

I think most game developers have the same sort of mindsets as other people in creative fields, and while the objective is to make great games, most developers seem to have that little twinkle in their eye, the 'what if my game suddenly becomes huge' thought stuck in their head, and ultimately to change the world at least a little.

If you look at people like Jonathan Blow or Phil Fish (who unfortunately needs to hide himself from the world after being constantly attacked), they all seem to have this objective of creating experiences to share with the world.

(There are examples of people who do develop games much like others write their diaries,in a very personal fashion, but I think the majority are out to create hits)

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#33

Post by chiph »

tbrock wrote: post #20

"If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately." He seems to have an awful attitude for a guy who just made a billion dollars and gets to spend the rest of his life doing exactly what he wants.

I can dig him wanting to do a Flappy Bird, but there's also something to be said for taking a concept to initial production, and turning it over to someone else to run & improve. Your work then gets into the hands of (hopefully) millions of people, and the change in focus can provide additional inspiration for future work.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#34

Post by thenomad »

tbrock wrote: post #20

"If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately." He seems to have an awful attitude for a guy who just made a billion dollars and gets to spend the rest of his life doing exactly what he wants.

It's possible to have a lot of money and be legitimately very unhappy, all at the same time.

The pressure of being as much of a public figure as he is, and the person blamed for anything wrong with the most popular computer game in the world, is probably Not Much Fun.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#35

Post by andyhmltn »

adriancooney wrote: post #10

Wow, Notch is a pretty amazing guy. It's clear he just loves to make games. The post reminds me of Dong Nguyen/Flappy Bird situation. Let the man be.

Now you mention it, it's actually really similar isn't it? I've been following him since I originally bought my alpha version of minecraft and he's always seemed to be the way he portray's himself in this article. A nice genuine guy that just loves hacking away at things.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#36

Post by crusso »

bilalhusain wrote: post #8

Heartbreaking to read what we do to people.

It's sad that there are so many griefers and haters out there, but there are worse problems to have than being wildly successful.

I pity what people do to society in general with their self-destructive attitudes. We all suffer as a result when we drive people like Notch out of positions of leadership.

You see the same in politics where the truly good and earnest people are also the ones with a conscience and too much self-respect to submit themselves to the abuse of public office.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#37

Post by tbrock »

DanBC wrote: post #31
tbrock wrote: post #20

"If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately." He seems to have an awful attitude for a guy who just made a billion dollars and gets to spend the rest of his life doing exactly what he wants.

He is saying "I made a mistake; I have learnt from that mistake and will try to avoid making the same mistake in future". That's a fucking great attitude and is -to me at least- much better than "I made minecraft and I'm awesome and the success of Minecraft has nothing to do with luck but is totally all those decisions I made because I'm brilliant" which is the kind of thing we hear from a bunch of other devs.

Good point, agreed. I think abandoning is a little much though. I guess it would have rubbed me differently if he had said I'll make it open source or hand it off to other developers earlier, etc.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#38

Post by rtpg »

wuliwong wrote: post #30
jacquesm wrote: post #17

> I don’t see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it’s fun, and because I love games and I love to program, but I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world. I think that's the essence of being a real game developer. It's sad that Notch feels this way, I think the majority of old school games guys and girls were just like that. Since it's beco…

Is the market spoiled? I no gaming historian but I have been playing games since Atari. There's games along the way that have stuck with me,...pitfall, super mario bros., nhl hockey 93 (i know, super rando list). But I also add to that list Fallout 3. If you correct for better underlying hardware, I feel that games are just as good as ever. I don't have the same fascination with games I had as a child but I can still…

There are loads of great games that come out all the time now, people just forget about bad games of the past.

And the "worst" games that we see now are at best mediocre if they were coming out 2 generations ago. The bar has gotten higher because so many high-quality games have been released

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#39

Post by chernevik »

This is why we can't have nice things.

I don't know much about Minecraft or whatever issue Notch is referring to in his post. But I'm always struck by how quickly people snap to emotional argument and response, without thinking about the other side of the question, without thinking about how their response will be read or felt by others.

The first step in any dialogue is trying to understand why the other side has said or done what they have, and how that might seem reasonable and right to them. Without that, how do we have any hope of learning anything, or moving to any actual agreement? And yet 98% of what I read presumes that any disagreement must be ignorant, stupid or evil.

I understand many of the reasons why people talk this way, and yes, it's hard to avoid it. But we now have more communication amongst ourselves than at any other time in human history. Maybe it's time to start thinking hard about how each of us can communicate better.

Wouldn't it be great if we could get to a community where some idiosyncratic dude could write a monster hit without feeling himself battered for reasons he can't understand?

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#40

Post by [deleted] »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #19
jacquesm wrote: post #17

> I don’t see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it’s fun, and because I love games and I love to program, but I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world. I think that's the essence of being a real game developer. It's sad that Notch feels this way, I think the majority of old school games guys and girls were just like that. Since it's beco…

Preposterous. If it wasn't about the money, could have gone open-source at any time with the same effect/relief. Of course its about the $2B

[deleted]
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