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I'm Leaving Mojang

notch.net

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Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#271

Post by xiaoma »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #157
gbog wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are many here that dream of having their idea be a huge success but aren't really interested in becoming the next Bill Gates or Zuckerberg. I think it's more than you think. I think Notch expressed clearly that he did not expect nor want his project to become a big hit. He may have been flattered for a while but he now sees it clearly: success is shit, big success is a shitstorm. The exact opposite of the ent…

Of course, it being a big hit is what gives him enough money that he now can live comfortably while working on whatever the hell he wants without worrying about making money. I'm not critisizing him, I'm glad he has that opportunity, and I'm glad he's recognized what opportunity he wants (which is apparently NOT the opportunity to try and make even more money). But it's a bit more complicated than "success is shit",…

He's Swedish. He didn't need to strike it rich to escape worries about a roof over his head and health care.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#272

Post by mikeash »

bsaul wrote: post #264
mikeash wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the impression that Notch may not actually be all that talented. I mean, he's probably more so than the average Joe, but not super exceptionally talented. It seems like he got lucky, and was good enough to leverage his success into more success and was good enough of a businessman to profit handsomely from the whole thing, but that's about it. I understand that he hasn't done anything on Minecraft in quite a wh…

You may confuse talent with algorithmic or scientific skills. Which, in the case of videogame is just one small part of the whole. People like notch and other indie developpers are looking for things beyond immediate technical prowess or easy instant fun. They are after something you may call poetry, and how to explore new opportunities created by technology. In this regard and judging by the large interest of childr…

I don't confuse talent. I understand that making a video game fun is completely different from raw programming talent or whatever.

But merely looking at what Notch has done, it looks to me like he got lucky rather than having some vast talent for making fun games.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#273

Post by nightcracker »

opendais wrote: post #263
TruthSHIFT wrote: post #253

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…

Why would open sourcing it screw his co-founders? You can open source the code, interact with the community and improve Minecraft, while still selling the game. You don't have to open source the artwork and assets.

Piracy is not an argument in this, because pirating Minecraft for single player has always been and will always be piss easy, and multiplayer will still be impossible.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#274

Post by reledi »

rjurney wrote: post #255
aeturnum wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's like Bruce Wayne deciding to spend the rest of his life playing with legos. I like this image. Bruce Wayne's character in batman is always thinking big. He tries to push things in the direction he thinks is right. The idea that someone would have all the power and decide to play with toys makes me worry about the rest of us. I would like to see people like Notch (creative, thoughtful people) having a say in wha…

He's 35 and totally burnt out. Give him time, hopefully he'll do something ambitious.

How is what he's doing not ambitious? I really don't understand the majority of comments in this thread.

He's taking the exploration path, instead of iterating on something which has already proved successful.

I can't wait to see what Notch does next.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#275

Post by TeMPOraL »

nkurz wrote: post #267
TeMPOraL wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that's the essence of being a real game developer. I think that's the eseence of being a real X, X = insert whatever you claim to be in. In my mind I divide companies (and professionals) by whether their occupation is an instrumental or terminal goal. As an example, advancing rocketry and electrifying transport to advance humanity is a terminal goal for Elon Musk. I.e he cares about that and works on Tesla…

It's a good insight, but the repeated typo "paper-toilet" (incorrect, but interesting image) instead of "toilet-paper" (correct) made it difficult for me to understand on the first read. It's both here and in the post that links to this.

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm past the edit window, so I can't fix that :(.

It must have come out from the fact that in my native tongue toilet paper is "papier toaletowy"; the same two things but in different order. Therefore my mind didn't spot it on re-reading. I'll be more careful in the future.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#276

Post by bilalhusain »

gadders wrote: post #185
_delirium wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who deal with it best I think are sort of the aloof types. They may not even read their own Twitter feed, delegating it to a social-media staffer. Notch has the problem that he uses it as a personal account and is on it regularly, so he reads comments @directed at him, tries to reply to them, etc. He also has a public email address that he reads, and it sounds like people send weird/angry emails to that, t…

I think he's clearly a nice guy and cares deeply about what he has created and the people that use it. However, I think a saying I heard today summed it up quite well: "A few boos can drown out a lot of cheers." With a sense of perspective as to what he has achieved, the people that complain must be a very small minority.

Also, I feel that people are reluctant to say "thank you". They'll join if the crowd is cheering, but are hesitant to say it out loud by themselves.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#277

Post by reledi »

mikeash wrote: post #217
scottjad wrote: post #86

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 get the impression that Notch may not actually be all that talented. I mean, he's probably more so than the average Joe, but not super exceptionally talented. It seems like he got lucky, and was good enough to leverage his success into more success and was good enough of a businessman to profit handsomely from the whole thing, but that's about it. I understand that he hasn't done anything on Minecraft in quite a wh…

What exactly makes you think he's not talented? Because I on the other hand think he's extremely talented. That's the opinion I have based on occasionally watching his streams and reading his writings, not even considering the huge success that Minecraft is.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#278

Post by tejon »

Arjuna wrote: post #244
krelian wrote: 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'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…

Skip forward a few tracks:

Quiet in conscience, calm in their right; confident their ways are best. [1]

> I would say that a lot of us dream of being able to lead entirely self-directed lives that financial freedom can afford. Therefore, why is it bemoaned when we see the very success that we dream of unfold for someone else?

A lot of us do share that dream, but many feel most alive when they're part of a group movement. There's a little of each in everyone, but it's easy to understand how those who lean strongly to one side or the other might not be able to see through the eyes of folks across the gap. I think that, for the most part, any backlash against Notch isn't fueled by jealousy from those who aspire to the position he's reached; rather, it's from a sense of betrayal and abandonment from people whose core values are loyalty and unity.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHH17-cMOu0

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#279

Post by jiggy2011 »

DanBC wrote: post #43
tbrock wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He did hand it off to other developers. He was still gettin hate for stuff those other people were doing. I kind of wish that mental health support was better and that he'd had some kind of mentoring to help him deal with it. Perhaps that's a startup idea: support with all the hate and bullshit that comes your way when you're a public figure. More expensive service would include rapid rebuttal service to quash lies a…

You mean a PR firm?

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#280

Post by scottjad »

nightski wrote: post #210
scottjad wrote: post #86

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…

Minecraft was grown out of the way Notch works. What you are suggesting is impossible. No one, not even Steve Jobs sits down and says "My life mission is to benefit humanity". This is because we really do not know which efforts will have the largest impact on humanity. You could waste a lifetime trying to make a better battery - but it might never happen. Or you could hack around on a game and watch it explode and im…

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the way he works or toy projects or experimenting or not knowing beforehand what will be successful. I'm just a bit concerned that if he actually takes the attitude of (paraphrased) "if something I do is appealing to many people I'll abandon that and find something nobody cares about," he'll end up shortchanging himself and others. And in fairness to Notch, he probably does mean something more nuanced, transitory, and reasonable.
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