I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you • Hacker News Board

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#251

Post by mort96 » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #163

Quoted post unavailable.

So, the distinction being made is between people who work on the artistic product itself (music, programming, graphics, game design, and, yes, the text at the end) and the people who work on things like marketing, business management, customer support, developing the web page and payment solution, etc. And in this view, he is indeed part of the group of people who helped "create the actual game", unlike many of the other employees.

Now I don't think it's right to dismiss the work done by all the supporting staff who didn't work on the actual game but whose work was nevertheless vital for the game and business to succeed. But your comment isn't right either.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#252

Post by wikfwikf » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:47 AM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #202

Well I enjoyed the piece. But it evinces a kind of derangement unique to modern life. Minecraft became so popular, and worth so much money, that the author couldn’t get over it. Another example is that guy who threw away a hard drive with his bitcoin wallet on it, now worth $200 million or something like that. He can’t move on. Last I heard he was trying to finance a plan to exhume an acre of landfill and sort throug…

An even better example is the Australian guy who was Bitcoin-adjacent in the early days, and has now convinced himself, apparently, that he created Bitcoin. He has spent years making both resentful accusations and meaningless grandiose gestures (for example, that he was going to give billions from his secret wallet 0 to pay for STEM education in Africa).

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#253

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:47 AM UTC

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #102

I'm no literary critic and I don't know how many people finish Minecraft and how many get to read the poem but $20K for that seems a pretty good deal (and the exchange of emails and payment sound like some kind of contract). I'm sure others working on other parts of the game, graphics and gameplay (which have become very well known outside the game) put in far more work for less. If Microsoft replace the poem, I'm no…

> If Microsoft replace the poem, I'm not sure anyone would notice

I would give it one, maybe two months before the backlash forced them into a retreat.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#254

Post by dewhelmed » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:48 AM UTC

wikfwikf wrote: post #246

dewhelmed wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, what an unpleasant hate-filled response to a single paragraph taken out of context from the entire post. The fact that his work is still referenced, is still part of the game, and wanted by people on t-shirts/mugs/etc is significantly more contribution than the moronic made-up "0.000000000001%" number you claim. He is a flawed person and he admits it several times in his post. But he also uses his story to highl…

The fact that t-shirts and mugs are available on RedBubble does not prove that anyone wants to buy them. The business model of RedBubble means that merch can be created speculatively for no cost to anyone until it's actually bought.

Fair point.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#255

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:49 AM UTC

asperous wrote: post #55

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #40

I feel for the guy, making a living off of art is difficult. However, with an extensive email chain explaining the story was written as the ending of Minecraft, even going into detail about how it was to be displayed in game, an agreed upon offer (if a bit vague), and then an exchange of funds - with no immediate attempt to return said funds. I'm no lawyer, but that sounds a lot like a legally binding agreement. > So…

If he actually received $20,000 that still seems like a lot? Especially in a world where freelance writing is $0.01-$0.50 (pre-GPT3). And it sounds like at the time it was good money for the artist. I get that he feels like he was given a small amount relative to the great success of Minecraft, but I would hope he also realizes that it was risk free cash.

reminds me recently of voice actors who think they are entitled for a bigger piece of the piece just because the game they worked on for a few hours had financial success. Hubris and pretentiousness at its best.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#256

Post by mcv » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:49 AM UTC

cmeacham98 wrote: post #213

nigamanth wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Minecraft would have still sold as much if the ending screen said "You won" or much simply "The end". But, he did still put in the effort in creating the poem. Every part of the game matters, and I think it's fair if he gets paid or at-least gets credit for his contributions to the game. I understand the author being hurt as he's one of the 5 people that contributed to the game, he just needed the credit or any…

> 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?

He certainly seems to struggle with talking about money. Like he said: he should have let his agent handle it. But he didn't, because he saw this as something other than what it was: a friendship instead of contract work.

It was an awkward relationship because both sides had a completely different view of what the relationship was, and didn't really communicate that with each other. It's great that he was finally able to write this down. It sucks that he struggled, and Mojang could easily have just given him $1 million to sign the contact, but his inability to talk about this, to talk about money, is probably the main reason for this as well as possibly many of his other financial troubles.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#257

Post by cmeacham98 » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:50 AM UTC

Jarwain wrote: post #247

cmeacham98 wrote: post #213

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?

They also agreed to give him and his other work "exposure to the Minecraft community", which didn't end up happening and was explicitly reneged on.

You see, I might be a little biased here, but as we don't have the email in front of us I'm going to have to take a guess.

I'm fairly confident that was was meant by that was exposure in the form of his poem getting put into Minecraft, not exposure in the form of a shout-out or other promotion.

Unless the author releases the email we'll never know the context, but I've been a spectator to these types of negotiations enough that I strongly believe the context would support my interpretation.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#258

Post by mcv » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:50 AM UTC

wikfwikf wrote: post #228

Tossrock wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of them didn't actually read it and instead skimmed a few paragraphs, saw "$20,000", and rushed back to comment.

I read the whole thing. It was somewhat overwritten. Not my favorite ever post-hallucinogen-trip essay. I agree with other commenters that the author is greedy and petty. He accepted €20,000 for his work, a decent amount. Then he decided that he should make way more money because the game was successful. Then he tried to take advantage of the fact that he hadn't signed a contract, even though he had obviously accepte…

I read almost the whole thing but stopped before the End Poem, because I still haven't defeated the Ender Dragon. I admit I'm not really trying, but might still do so at some point.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#259

Post by Kiro » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:51 AM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #242

Kiro wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If this was the post on HN I'm sure people would be more sympathetic because it leaves out all the important details, like the fact that he actually received €20k for it and the pompous idea that he's one of the creators of Minecraft.

Nowhere does he say he thinks he's the creator of Minecraft. You sound spiteful, and I can't tell why. EDIT: The comment used to say " ... the pompous idea that he created Minecraft". It was later edited.

> I was one of the five people who had helped create this strangest of games

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#260

Post by kqr » Thu, Dec 08, 2022, 9:51 AM UTC

hnbad wrote: post #201

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #40

I feel for the guy, making a living off of art is difficult. However, with an extensive email chain explaining the story was written as the ending of Minecraft, even going into detail about how it was to be displayed in game, an agreed upon offer (if a bit vague), and then an exchange of funds - with no immediate attempt to return said funds. I'm no lawyer, but that sounds a lot like a legally binding agreement. > So…

I don't know about Swedish law but in German law works created outside of an employment contract do not automatically assign an exclusive copyright to the buyer, so at best Mojang had a non-exclusive, non-transferrable, limited usage right for the poem for the use in Minecraft and nothing else. As I understand it, this makes his claim that Microsoft may not have the right to use it questionable but it confirms his ma…

IANAL but AFAIK this is the case also in Sweden. (Researched it when I (otherwise an amateur) was asked to do paid photography for someone.)

In fact, though now my memory is hazy and so I speculate more wildly, not even most kinds of employment grants copyright to the employer. Exceptions being software developers and teachers, I think.