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I'm Leaving Mojang

notch.net

291–300 of 436 posts

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Basically "I was successful once, it was awful". This seems to be a theme. The guy who had the frontpage the other day, flappy bird, etc. Must be nice to have the cash entitlements to "keep it real." I can't blame him, I think money just becomes arbitrary numbers after a certain point. Minecraft has probably grown to a point where its just only going to get smaller in the future and in a few years be a fun little no…

I don't know that I'd lump Carmack in with the rest of your list. Yes, he is quite financially successful from id, but he never stopped being, first and foremost, a coder who will sometimes just disappear for a few weeks to separate himself from the world and get coding done. I wouldn't list Jobs either for almost the opposite reason in that while he had a huge impact on the tech industry, he was always a "suit" (eve…

Good point, but he always came off as a hard-ass to me who liked to get into arguments and thrive on stress. I kinda see him as his own Jobs-Woz combo. I may be misreading him.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#292
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't get me wrong, I like watching his coding stream as much as the next person Can you please post a link to his streams? I bet it'd be fascinating to watch.

Watching him create a game is unlike any other coding streams I've seen: http://www.twitch.tv/notch , http://www.hitbox.tv/Notch

thanks, guy.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#293
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya dune2 is dos based. Once you get used to it, though, it'll be very enjoyable. You can't rely on the Fremen unless you have 5+castles and send them all at once. Watch out or you'll run out of spice and won't be able to repair your missile launchers.

I tried playing dune2 again, it was still a good game but it was so annoying that you could only select one unit at a time.

Use the keyboard shortcuts. A attack. M move. (Muscle memory)

Also, use the missile launcher. stay away from missle turret range, and fire one square away from missile tower. Enough missiles miss target, land on turret, that with enough missile launchers you can defeat missile turrets, or bleed enemy spice reserves at least.

Protect your missile launchers with a line of heavy tanks just behind, in case the enemy makes a sortie.

(Ohhh, I have to play it again now... See what you've done!)

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#294

Say Facebook had acquired Minecraft I believe Notch might have had a chance at continuing at Mojang. But Microsoft's history with killing talent is legendary (Nokia, Rare, etc) and there was no question of him taking a chance with them.

Yeah, Nokia was sooo thriving.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Minecraft be in better hands if Notch open-sourced it instead of selling it to Microsoft?

Maybe but is it really a fair question? Notch wasn't the only owner. In fact, he owns less than 50% and they have 40+ employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang Open sourcing it would likely screw his co-founders, employees with stock options, etc. compared to the size of this deal. Tbh, I'd be happier if he donated 10% of his earnings from this sale to Open Source projects and feeding people. Rather than, y'know…

He said he'd open source it, but it never happened. I think this pre-dates Mojang, but I'm not certain about the exact timing.

http://web.archive.org/web/20100301103851/http://www.minecra...

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that I'd lump Carmack in with the rest of your list. Yes, he is quite financially successful from id, but he never stopped being, first and foremost, a coder who will sometimes just disappear for a few weeks to separate himself from the world and get coding done. I wouldn't list Jobs either for almost the opposite reason in that while he had a huge impact on the tech industry, he was always a "suit" (eve…

Good point, but he always came off as a hard-ass to me who liked to get into arguments and thrive on stress. I kinda see him as his own Jobs-Woz combo. I may be misreading him.

Yeah there's a lot of nuance there to be certain. Carmack is at least pretty Randian/Objectivist from what I've seen of his public statements, which deviates quite a bit from the traditional hippie left-leaning coder-type (though of course there are great developers all across the political spectrum).

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#297

The other day there was a post about some Doom map viewer Notch had written in Dart. One of the top comments said something along the lines of "This is why we all need to be rich, so we can work on stuff like this." I thought the comment was so sad because honestly, almost no one is going to benefit from a mostly broken Doom map viewer in Dart that's abandoned after a few days. Same with the numerous games he's start…

I find it ironic that the laws that allowed Notch to cash out were expressly created to forward the progress of science and arts. Yet we find ourselves at a place where the dream is not to work and perfect craft, but to Get Rich Quick so we can relax for the rest of our lives. I, too, find it sad.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#298
post #47
post #29

This whole Minecraft thing has been very interesting to follow. I tried the game a few times and it's not really for me but everything around Notch's story is interesting (I bet their going to make a movie about this at some point). Not everyone can be an entrepreneur and I feel that in this case (on a different scale of course), we basically watched a plausible version of how Apple could have gotten started if there…

I think the analogy to Wozniak is great. I remember an article some months ago in which he basically said the same: He wants to tinker and hack. I remember watching some parts of notch's livestreams. I loved the enthusiasm he had. He was a bit like a young boy, trying things, throwing some away, creating games. I'm happy for his decision.

If this analogy is so good, and I'm not doubting it, then is MSFT like adding Jobs to Minecraft? Will we see a small successful company become a dominant global technology/gaming company?

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe but is it really a fair question? Notch wasn't the only owner. In fact, he owns less than 50% and they have 40+ employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang Open sourcing it would likely screw his co-founders, employees with stock options, etc. compared to the size of this deal. Tbh, I'd be happier if he donated 10% of his earnings from this sale to Open Source projects and feeding people. Rather than, y'know…

He said he'd open source it, but it never happened. I think this pre-dates Mojang, but I'm not certain about the exact timing. http://web.archive.org/web/20100301103851/http://www.minecra...

He didn't really.

"Once sales start dying...as some kind of open source".

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#300
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm sure there are many here that dream of having their idea be a huge success [...]" In the broader picture, I am struggling to understand some of the opinions of this story out there, particularly on HN. What I mean is, I suspect that a majority of us dream of this type of success. We dream of connecting our creative force with financial success, especially when that success would free us to work on practically an…

"I really feel for Notch" I don't. He cashed in and, well somehow wants the sympathy of free & open-source wish-keepers. He's in the money; and that was his choice.

I don't think he wants sympathy, that's not how I read this at all. I think he wants freedom, and he is not asking for it but simply stating for the record how he is going about this.

One of the thing's I admire about Notch's communication is that it always comes off as sincere and matter of fact. I think that is admirable in the face of the reality one faces in becoming internet-famous.

The internet has a big problem with mob-mentality entitlement. People jumping up to call Notch a hypocrite for going back on his word, or otherwise critiquing every little move he makes really don't have a leg to stand on. I mean sure everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the actual power that these people deserve to have over Notch is infinitesimal; it's just noise on the internet with no significance. Look at it this way, if suddenly 10 million people started scrutinizing what you were up to, I'm sure they'd have a lot of complaints, but what do you owe to them?

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