231–240 of 778 posts
I have a strong feeling MS will put out a statement that they own the end poem and it is not public domain. The author talks about how big the game was/became, but it’s actually irrelevant because no one bought the game because of the poem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think it's fair if he gets paid or at-least gets credit for his contributions to the game. He did get paid, $20000. How was Mojang supposed to know he wanted more when he accepted that payment?
I don't think he wanted "more," exactly - he felt excluded. It felt like something out of the character of friendship he wanted.
> I admired the fact that he was, again, giving money to back-office staff who had just arrived in the last year, and had zero creative input into the game
> I couldn’t understand why I was again being treated worse than them. I had helped him create the actual game, I had given him the ending he wanted but could not write
He acts as if he's some creative designer that played a huge role in the creation of the game. To be frank, an intern at Mojang that was with the company for a few months and added 2 blocks to the game would have made a bigger contribution than he made.
This is, in my opinion, the core disconnect the author has with reality, and is driven by the fact that to him his work is the center of the universe and he struggles to understand why that isn't the case for everyone else.
The author genuinely believes they made contributions to the game on the same level as Jeb, and that's why it feels unfair when he sees Mojang employees getting a $300k bonus and him getting nothing. But the reality is he made a very minor contribution to the game and got paid $20k, which is a pretty nice sum for a few days of work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US for copyright to transfer he'd need to be an employee and writing part of his work duties, in which case it is work for hire, or if he is a contractor they'd need a signed contract saying the contractor was performing this as work for hire, or a contract explicitly transferring ownership. They did pay him for it so Mojang had an implied license to use it but he retains ownership. When Mojang sold Minecraft…
Wait, I thought Minecraft bought out Mojang, not bought Minecraft from Mojang? If they really did just buy the game and not the entire company, I think you're right and Microsoft may be in violation. If they bought the company, they would have inherited the license as I understand it. EDIT: IANAL but as long as Minecraft continues being sold by Mojang, not Microsoft, it shouldn't matter whether Microsoft owns the com…
That's a lot of anger, negativity and bitterness, and entitlement (one of the game's creators for writing the ending text?). Reminds me of the kid on the cover of the Nevermind album and other people that are kinda tangentially connected to something massively successful, but not connected enough to benefit materially, and they let that define who they are and ruin their lives. Could have been a neat personal story,…
Yeah, seriously. You didn't create Minecraft you wrote a poem that shows up in the credits. Notch wasn't your friend he found you through a recommendation on Twitter and contracted some content. 20k for something less intelligible than Kubla Khan seems pretty fair to me. Be happy your acid trip is preserved forever in one of the most successful games in history. And get over yourself.
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How can you call asking for nothing entitlement?
Isn't the whole point that the author thinks he deserves more compensation than he got? He's quoting the compensation for various Mojang employees and comparing it to what he got. He seems quite jelaous and/or entitled. 20000€ would in most European countries be a pretty good compensation for about 3 months of work, after taxes. It doesn't seem unreasonable on the face of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your focus on the financials, which was a very small part of the article is misguided. I'm under the assumption that the article is part of the author trying to "piece things together" - as a part 2 of his spiritual journey where he concluded: > I wrote a story for a friend, but in the end, he didn't treat me like a friend, and I'm hurt. By accepting this premise, these are examples of when he expected to be…
But he was an outsider, he wasn't Notch's friend. Notch contacted him for the express purpose of writing the End Poem. Of course, I'm sure they were friend ly in their discussions, there's no point in being actively hostile to the people you're working with. But the idea the relationship extended anything past a game developer and a contracted writer seems to be entirely in the author's mind.
It certainly feels a bit like he was feeling lonely and needed to see this as a friendship. I'm sure there was a deep artistic connection, but that's not quite the same thing as a friendship. It's awkward and frustrating when only one side sees a relationship as a friendship.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he wanted "more," exactly - he felt excluded. It felt like something out of the character of friendship he wanted.
But he did want more, that's the whole point of the first half of this article. > I admired the fact that he was, again, giving money to back-office staff who had just arrived in the last year, and had zero creative input into the game > I couldn’t understand why I was again being treated worse than them. I had helped him create the actual game, I had given him the ending he wanted but could not write He acts as if h…
Just want to say, it's definitely not THE most popular game of all time... Candy crush could be a strong candidate, though they probably never use that term on themselves.
I mean we can squabble about what the definition of "most popular game of all time is", but if you're going with "the game that has sold the most units ever", it literally is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_g... (TFA links to that page toward the end.)
As for others talking about games like Pac Man: yeah, they were probably the most popular games at the time but the number of total players probably pales because the audience has grown considerably over time. I guess there's a strong case for Windows Solitaire though that seems to have somewhat of an age limit as I'd expect there to be a drastic cut-off for younger generations, especially since macOS became mainstream.
That's a lot of anger, negativity and bitterness, and entitlement (one of the game's creators for writing the ending text?). Reminds me of the kid on the cover of the Nevermind album and other people that are kinda tangentially connected to something massively successful, but not connected enough to benefit materially, and they let that define who they are and ruin their lives. Could have been a neat personal story,…
Im honestly chocked that people react so negatively to this piece. Yes, the author expresses many negative and self centered emotions. He is very clear about that. It is part of the story. It is a story about being a flawed person. I sympathize with him. I loved this piece. I hope he truly did let go of all the hangups he described. And it does seem that he actually did sell the the rights of use to microsoft, making…
so I said, OK, I’ll take whatever the first thing you offered was If he said that in an e-mail, doesn't that constitute a written agreement to transfer copyright to Mojang?
For usage rights, probably so. But a transfer has stricter requirements in most countries, and it doesn't mean he agreed to all the other clauses in the contract that he hadn't even seen at the time.
Whether it's legal or not it's extremely dodgy. It's pretty much a demand of unconditional surrender. And we know C418 got better terms than these, since he retains copyright to his music.