Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 109 posts

Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame

#2

Post by astar »

From the article: Since the game’s release, in 2009, Minecraft has sold in excess of twenty million copies, earned armfuls of prestigious awards, and secured merchandising deals with LEGO and other toymakers. Last year, Persson earned over a hundred million dollars from the game and its merchandise. Persson—better known to his global army of teen-age followers by his Internet handle, Notch—has a raggedy, un-marketed charm. He is, by his own admission, only a workmanlike coder, not a ruthless businessman. “I’ve never run a company before and I don’t want to feel like a boss,” he said. “I just want to turn up and do my work.”

----

He sounds like a modern day Woz, except he was successful despite not wanting to get involved in business. (by that I mean, Woz was successful, but we don't know how he might have turned out if Steve Jobs didn't push him to cofound Apple)

Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame

#3

Post by cma »

astar wrote: post #2

From the article: Since the game’s release, in 2009, Minecraft has sold in excess of twenty million copies, earned armfuls of prestigious awards, and secured merchandising deals with LEGO and other toymakers. Last year, Persson earned over a hundred million dollars from the game and its merchandise. Persson—better known to his global army of teen-age followers by his Internet handle, Notch—has a raggedy, un-marketed…

Reminds me of Veblen's "The Instinct of Worksmanship"

Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame

#5

Post by lutze »

locofacetwice wrote: post #4

http://kotaku.com/minecraft-creator-we-did-not-pay-anyone-to...

Wow, some real schadenfreude going on there.

I really don't understand some of the bile that follows Persson around.

Are people really that fucking bitter that a guy who by his own admission is a complete klutz (programming and business-wise) can become so successful?

Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame

#6

Post by DanBC »

> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what they told you then something different would happen, where you finally ran the game. That sense of power was intoxicating.”

It's kind of weird to think that no-one gets their start like this anymore.

Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame

#7

Post by lutze »

DanBC wrote: post #6

> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what t…

How could they? You can't do this on your Wii et al. Modern home systems are geared towards a strictly consumerist experience, not a creative one.

This is one of the reasons the Raspberry Pi was created.

Post reply on HN