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I'm Leaving Mojang

notch.net

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Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#391

Post by Ntrails »

nl wrote: post #381
backlava wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you kill the ender dragon you get a credits screen. Does that not count as winning?

Yeah, maybe I guess.. But it's not really the point of the game is it?

It can be, if you want it to - that's the whole point. Much like there are people who play WoW to accumulate gold, or PvP rankings, or raid success, or epic gear, or a working guild, or to craft all of the recipes, or something else I've not encountered.

The fascinating thing to me is that WoW's success was predicated on keeping people playing by paying content creators to come up with new goals for players to strive for, but minecraft demonstrates that people are more than capable of creating their own goals and successes within a sufficiently open ended game. For me, it was a lava moat. Then a pitched roof. Then a farm. Then a railway that took hours to build (and didn't go anywhere useful in retrospect). Then... etc

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#392

Post by jokoon »

Crito wrote: post #333
jokoon wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He says he just wants to have fun and tinker Then why no try to promote tinkering ? A game company dedicated to game development in a way he deems fit ? > Some people actually are just happy doing what they enjoy. There's always some small thing you wish you could be able to make, some quirky, imaginary idea you want to achieve. When you see what's on the market, you know and wish you could just do better. This kin…

>> He says he just wants to have fun and tinker >Then why no try to promote tinkering ? "Promoting tinkering" is not "tinkering" . That is a distinct passion, which he very well may not have.

when you have a passion, you wish to share it with people who have the same passion.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#393

Post by ilaksh »

mikeash wrote: post #327
reledi wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fact that he hasn't followed up Minecraft with anything noteworthy despite having plenty of time and way more than enough money, and apparently wanting to build something new and successful with 0x10c.

He has followed it with several noteworthy projects.

People confuse popularity with merit. Things become extremely popular because of chance network effects. Humans are herd animals. You get a big hit if you are lucky enough to start a stampede. (Or if you spend a lot of energy carefully engineering a stampede).

Not getting a stampede doesn't mean you didn't make something amazing.

He did build something new and successful with 0x10c. That demo is amazing. Its a 3d shooter with an awesome laser gun and a _full 80s computer emulated inside of it_. And an abstraction for virtual peripherals, a virtual monitor, and a virtual 3d vector display. Its fucking awesome.

Did he make $100 million selling that? No. Does that mean it isn't awesome? No it absolutely does not. For starters, it was never for sale.

Here is a song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBAtAM7vtgc that is an absolutely horrible parody of itself (intentionally, for comedic effect (we hope)) that was in the top five of the charts for its category. It sold quite a lot of downloads, purchases and products. Incredibly popular. Complete crap.

Judging the merit of something on the basis of how excited the herd gets is completely wrong.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#394

Post by MortenK »

rpdillon wrote: post #372
opendais wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are ignoring the condition on that sentence. "Once sales start dying and a minimum time has passed, I will release the game source code as some kind of open source."

Sales will, at some point, start dying. He has, as far as I can tell, relinquished control of the source in a manner that will forbid him from open sourcing the game at that point.

You think it's reasonable that he should continue at the helm of Mojang and retain control of Minecraft IP until what exactly? 10 years pass and the brand (which Minecraft has become) finally fades in popularity?

So he can release it as open source, to make good on what? Some "About" page he wrote fucking 4 years ago when Minecraft was nothing but a PC indie sleeper hit?

Get real.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#395

Post by sytelus »

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…

At higher state of mind you do things for sack of doing or some intrinsic pleasure or even no purpose at all. G.H Hardy puts this best in his book Mathematician's Apology by describing why mathematicians do math. He mentioned, as a mathematician, he never cared about utility of its work. In fact he avoided anything that he thought could be remotely useful after many centuries. Euclid didn't created Elements to be "useful" in a practice sense. Mountaineers don't climb mountains because it benefits humanity. They climb them because they are there. I'd been kind of person in my early life where everything needed purpose and goals. It took me long time to understand and come to terms with this line of thinking. The reason I call it "higher" state of mind because I think you arrive there when you understand something very intrinsic about universe. I've written tons of code purely for sack of writing with no intent of it ever getting used by anyone. Some people try to explain it by saying that they do it "just for fun" but its akin to explaining quantum mechanics to a pre-schooler by watered down analogies.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#396

Post by reledi »

aeturnum wrote: post #382
reledi wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think notch summed up what we're all focusing on here: >If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately. He doesn't want you (or anyone) excited about what he's doing. He doesn't want people to like what he creates - he wants people to like the process of creation. The product is much less interesting to him. Many people here are working towards the sort of su…

> He doesn't want you (or anyone) excited about what he's doing. He doesn't want people to like what he creates

I don't think that's what he's saying at all. He's simply saying the spotlight makes it difficult for him to stay sane (see first and last paragraph) and he doesn't want to be pushed into roles he's not (e.g. CEO, entrepreneur). He wants to be himself without all the issues that come with fame (see the video he linked).

> he wants people to like the process of creation. The product is much less interesting to him.

He likes the process of creation, but he doesn't necessarily want others to like it too.

> Many people here are working towards the sort of success Notch achieved.

That's the big difference. They are working towards this sort of success, Notch was not -- it just sort of happened (see first paragraph).

> Notch did a good job keeping minecraft on track

Yes, ultimately he's responsible for that, but there are others that deserve at least as much credit as Notch for keeping it on track.

> But, even with massive financial success, near universal acclaim, abundant funding and total creative freedom - he decided he would rather build toy games on his own

This isn't surprising. Many of us would only be able to do what we really wanted with the freedom that comes from (financial) success.

> Notch had (nearly) every advantage a creator could have if they wanted to take a small project and scale it up into something else.

And he still has those advantages should he wish to do that.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#397

Post by reledi »

ceol wrote: post #380
CatMtKing wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the definition of talent that one does something noteworthy on a regular basis? I think that Phil Fish video that he linked really hit the nail on the head.

If you wanted to prove someone has talent, you would point to them pushing out noteworthy things on a consistent basis. Sure, someone can be very talented but have only a single thing to their name, but it's just as likely they got lucky.

> If you wanted to prove someone has talent, you would point to them pushing out noteworthy things on a consistent basis.

That's not a very good proof. If anything, that would show that they are productive. "Noteworthy" is very subjective, and it's not a measure of talent, though there can be correlation. If I have a big marketing team, I can make something noteworthy by someone's standards.

> Sure, someone can be very talented but have only a single thing to their name, but it's just as likely they got lucky.

Notch is talented. He got lucky with Minecraft. That doesn't make him any less talented. And now that he's "famous", his odds for being lucky have increased since he now has a bigger audience, more connections, more money - basically more opportunities.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#398

Post by kaoD »

DanBC wrote: post #359
dragonwriter wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A blog post is neither "verbal" A blog post is -- if, as most are, it is composed of words -- verbal. Its not "oral", but those two don't mean the same thing.

Don't be obtuse. The phrase "verbal contract" is specifically oral contract.

Quoting Wikipedia:

"The term verbal contract is sometimes incorrectly used as a synonym for oral contract. However, a verbal contract is one that is agreed to using words, either written or spoken, as opposed to an implied contract."

It's funny how GP is heavily downvoted even though he's right. Downvoters (which I assume you're one of) didn't even check their facts.

Sometimes HN sucks.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#399

Post by watwut »

clarkevans wrote: post #308
dasil003 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he wants sympathy, that's not how I read this at all. I think he wants freedom, and he is not asking for it but simply stating for the record how he is going about this. One of the thing's I admire about Notch's communication is that it always comes off as sincere and matter of fact. I think that is admirable in the face of the reality one faces in becoming internet-famous. The internet has a big proble…

Perhaps it's that Notch invited the entitlement with an explicit promise ? http://web.archive.org/web/20100301103851/http://www.minecra... Included there is a dedication to (eventually) make the work open-source or public domain, and to contribute to it so long as people are paying. Those promises drove MindCraft praise, good will, and adoption. Do you think asking someone to keep these promises, the ones that drove…

Quoting the page you just linked: "Once sales start dying and a minimum time has passed, I will release the game source code as some kind of open source. "

Sales are not dying and minimum time did not passed. It does not even look like the sales will die soon. He was thinking about releasing the game when the game is dead and abandoned by gamers. Even if you take the above as a promise, the initial condition is not met and there is no requirement on him to do anything.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#400

Post by easytiger »

deciplex wrote: post #361
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…

Woz doesn't stir up drama on Twitter every time someone in his industry does something he doesn't like. Notch sorta does (cf. "I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter."). (For the record, I think most of his opinions are great opinions.) I'm open to the idea that people can change their minds, or that the circumstances might be different, or that he felt he couldn't do the job anymore, o…

Yea but Woz isn't contributing technically anymore
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