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

theeggandtherock.substack.com

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

#351

Post by cmeacham98 »

3np wrote: post #325
cmeacham98 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible this is true, but then the author needs to stop acting like they are totally blameless and everything is just where the universe took him. All of the author's problems here are self-inflicted.

How could you possibly read that into it? The only blame I see assigned in the text is self-blame. Select snips: > I just misunderstood what was going on. > Now, Carl didn’t do anything wrong here. Carl is not the baddie either. He was a CEO, and major shareholder, behaving the way a CEO and major shareholder is supposed to behave. The misunderstanding was all mine. > But that anger was of course misplaced. If I had…

While the author says this in a few places, the picture he tries to paint is one of a grand misunderstanding. Both sides of the communication just weren't understanding each other.

But the reality is that _all_ of the misunderstanding comes from him. There is no "mutual misunderstanding", Mojang understood the conversation perfectly well.

The author asked for an offer, Mojang offered $20k, and the author accepted. It's not reasonable to expect Mojang to "understand" the author is going to hold some grudge about believing they deserve more than the offer they accepted without negotiation.

The correct response from the author would be something along the lines of "I am entirely at fault, all of the misunderstanding was on my side, Mojang/Notch/Carl did nothing wrong".

Instead the author reminds us at every turn about how Notch gave bonuses to all the Mojang employees but not him, how they're such a great guy for not getting lawyers involved, and how they're turning their work into a "priceless gift" (despite being paid $20000 for it).

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

#352

Post by Ekaros »

pfoof wrote: post #241

Although 20k€ is still better deal than Sapkowski selling rights to Witcher to CDProjekt for 40k PLN (10k€)

10k€ is not bad amount of money for work that probably wouldn't not have ended up as anything big outside books. Just try to think how many other fantasy works there are that never got outside books or small derivative works.

Surely he made decent chunk from increased sales of books and now the TV series.

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

#353

Post by bovermyer »

Reading this, I was reminded of how I used to think when I was in art school and the world seemed limitless.

At some point in the last twenty years, I became thoroughly grounded in the capitalist, entrepreneurial mindset. My world view became locked on the lens of monetary compensation, property ownership, and proper assignment of assets.

Unlike many of the commenters here, I have no interest in the legal or monetary ramifications of this post. Instead, this gives me pause. I need to reexamine some of the assumptions I've built up over the past two decades. It would, I think, do me good to reconsider how I think about things.

I need to think.

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

#354

Post by wsc981 »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #271
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…

>Did the twenty-five staff put in 5x or 6x the work? It seems likely Ah, if only we were paid proportionate to how hard we worked. Stay-at-home moms and janitors would be billionaires.

It's comedy, but honestly, being a stay-at-home mom really isn't the hardest job on the planet. And looking back at most of history, it was probably a luxury.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-gbacsUKpc

P.S.: I am a father that works remote from home. My girlfriend is a stay-at-home mom. Our daughter spends most time at school. Honestly, my girlfriend has a pretty relaxed life. I take care of the money and we got a small house, so cleaning the house really takes little time (I even help in weekends vacuum cleaning and evenings doing dishes). In daytime she has many hours to spend as she sees fit. And in evenings often as well.

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

#355

Post by ifdefdebug »

Just came here to say that I gifted a small amount of money to thank him for this excellent morning read!

Of course the gift is not the money, an almost meaningless amount for me. The gift is the time and attention it took me to actually click that link, sign into paypal and send the money, instead of just clicking away for the next story.

Thank you Julian, you already made my day.

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

#356

Post by mcv »

vkazanov wrote: post #227
operator-name wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit sad because I think many here are missing the lesson to be learnt - artists want to be treated as artists (with emotion rather than rationality). When you treat them as cold hearted rational contractors, this kind of mess occurs. I'm reminded of a similar event with the Doom soundtrack https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full-statement-regarding-d...

Knowing some superartistic and talented people, I generally agree. But Mick's case is very different. Mojang did pay, the guy did write, it's just that the guy wanted more than there was there in the informal agreement. Mick Gordon did sign, idSoftware did not follow the contract, failed to pay on multiple occasions and did not even try to come back to reason in the longer term. Then there's the whole OST story, whic…

I just read that story of Mick Gordon, and man, if even half of that is true, Id massively screwed up. Marty and Id owe Mick a ton of money. It's painful to see Mick constantly return to submit to the abuse because he knows they have more expensive lawyers than he does. Marty shouldn't get to work in this industry ever again after such blatant malicious incompetence.

At least that's my reading of it after first hearing about this issue at all. Maybe there's another side to the story.

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

#357

Post by nextlevelwizard »

I guess art is subjective, but the Minecraft's End crawl is pretty cringe-y.

I always thought that it was just some thing some programmer threw together at the last minute since it sucked so hard and I've always wondered why Mojang hasn't updated it.

EDIT: oh wow, I actually kept reading and this guy is one greedy mf.

How do you think making a poem is even remotely equal to "making the game". Then all this bitching about how people who actually literally working at Mojang getting money that he - some stranger who again only wrote one poem and nothing else - didn't get. Why didn't he join Mojang as a writer or something if he believed in the project and wanted to work on their games - because he didn't believe or want to work there.

Dude is just angry he didn't get rich on a chance encounter.

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

#358

Post by mcv »

boosteri wrote: post #84

There's and ending to Minecraft? There goes my perception (acquired over the years of reading bits and bobs about it) of it being an endless world building game.

Well, there is an end. It's called The End. There's a dragon there that you can defeat, and if you do, you get to see this poem. After that, you can continue playing. And I believe there's some content you can only experience after you've finished the end.

I hope that makes it clear.

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

#359

Post by mcv »

zimpenfish wrote: post #270
Quillbert182 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an "ending" in terms of there is an event that gets the credits to play, but you can continue to play afterwords, and there is a not insignificant amount of content unlocked by triggering the event. You can also easily play forever without achieving this ending.

> You can also easily play forever without achieving this ending. I played from 2013 to 2020 before I visited the End and killed the dragon. Then I realised how OP elytra are and now it's an early game goal to grab a pair.

I still haven't killed the dragon. My son can kill it in under 20 minutes and loves showing me the elytra, but I've never gotten myself one. I just get stuck exploring, digging tunnels, building houses and castles and collecting animals.

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

#360

Post by mysterydip »

sprkwd wrote: post #341
ChrisRR wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the Bayonetta voice actress has really brought this kind of behaviour to light recently. People who have minor contributions to large franchises and then think that their part was way more influential than it was.

What happened with the Bayonetta voice actress?

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1582438310718238720... sums it up pretty well
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