Does anyone know where his story, the iHole, can be found? It won a ton of awards, apparently, but it seems to be gone from everything?
I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
481–490 of 778 posts
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was something similar with the soundtrack of Doom Eternal [1]. They were also about to get paid billions by Microsoft and didn't pay the composer. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33532078
That story sounds way worse. Mick Gordon seemed to understand the business side better than the people at Id he was talking to. That's more of a sad story of a guy being treated poorly by an incompetent/malicious company steamrolling over him, throwing him under the bus, refusing to listen to reason, and doubling down every step of the way with no justice in sight. Julian's story is more a story of a misunderstood ar…
> mistaking contract work for friendship
That seems to happen quite often. People forget that it's impossible to be friends with someone who's employing you without some major conflicts of interest on both sides.
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#483Kinda interesting this comes out not too long after Mick Gordon called out iD.
I wonder if this guy saw that and figured he'd try something similar.
The difference is that Mick Gordon worked his ass off for years and that the music is a significant element to the Doom games, where as the ending poem in Minecraft is pretty insignificant.
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#484I 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…
That last quote is damning. The game works well without an ending poem -- or an ending, for that matter. I don't play Minecraft but my kids do, and I don't think they know Minecraft has an ending? I certainly didn't. I always thought Minecraft was this unlimited platform where you build things with no specific purpose, for the pleasure of building, like an infinite Lego set. That said, the rant, while much too long i…
> Some artists are good at business (Picasso)
I know basically nothing about the life of artists in general, but this interests me. Where can I read about this? Would appreciate a link that deals with the business side more than a general biography. Thanks.
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#485The person who really got screwed in all this is poor Charlie, the agent. Here he is managing deals for Julian getting a percentage of those deals and Julian it sounds like is not making much, so Charlie probably isn't making much off Julian either. Julian goes and basically gives away his most successful work to ruthless Mojang and Charlie gets nothing for it at all because Julian keeps Charlie in the dark. Charlie…
Seems like both the agent and the artist got scrod. The epic-length post is like those movies that would've been 10 minutes if the people just talked with each other. In this case, if the artist had just told the agent what they wanted, agent would've gotten to do their job, and artist would've avoided years of turmoil.
If the artist told them 20k wasn’t good enough he probably would have lost the job. This was he gets the job and the what if musing
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
> IANAL I can tell. None of what you wrote, which is mostly wrong, matters. Microsoft bought Mojang not specific property of Mojang.
> Microsoft bought Mojang not specific property of Mojang. [1] says "When licences are acquired as part of an asset transaction, the contracts are taken over. In that case, the selling and buying parties need the cooperation of the licensor. This cooperation can take place before or possibly after the takeover. If the licence is not transferable, there will in principle not be a legally valid transfer unless the IP r…
You don’t understand. Microsoft didn’t buy Mojang’s assets. They bought Mojang itself. Read the very next section of the page you linked.
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope this guy agreed to it in email. It’s over. License didn’t need to transfer since Microsoft bought Mojang, not just specific property of Mojang.
> Nope this guy agreed to it in email. Can you quote the bit of the article which says that? All I can see is that he said "ok, what's your offer?", Carl returned with "€20k", and "in all the confusion someone sent me the money, even though we still didn’t have a contract worked out " - no contract, no license.
“and so I said, OK, I’ll take whatever the first thing you offered was.”
Edit: I’m rate limited, but Microsoft doesn’t need a transfer. They bought the entire company. Just like you buying some shares on the stock exchange, except they bought all of the shares in a private transaction. Had they done an asset purchase instead, your point might be valid.
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. The game would've made $0 less had the ending just said "The End".
You really think that a poem that people have tattooed on themselves, put onto tee shirts and mugs, inspired emotional emails to the author, and so on has inspired exactly zero excess recommendations to friends, zero dinnertime discussions or social media posts that have led to purchases?
Did you read the ending text? It's incredibly long. Are you claiming that people have the entire thing tattooed on themselves? I definitely can't see it fitting on a coffee mug in any readable fashion
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#489The ending is gold, I do not think the writer wrote this to convince us he wants more money 'now' (Perhaps during the entire proccess of seeing MC gain popularity)
The ending speaks to me like religious books due, when read with a certain eye you can see the universe truely is speaking to us through this poem.
Money doesn't exist, atleast not forever and always the way it does today.
Love is forever
Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you
#490This story is so frustrating to read. It reminds me of that other guy that composed audio for a Doom game and failed to get properly paid for it.
The frustrating part is the self-sabotage. Each story starts out with work done as an act of love, exploration, friendship. Typical for artists and in many ways charming.
Then, reality keeps telling them that this is not how it works. Reality tells them that artists need to settle on contracts before handing over output. That any contractual gap is to be resolved soon, and to not let it linger for years. And to not have a weak opening bid like: what do *you* think I should get paid?
All these points are admitted as personal shortcomings, and then still not acted upon despite endless opportunities to do so. Even to the point of not being able to feed your family.
Even when everybody else is snorting coke in some Beverly Hills mansion does crude reality not set in: that he never was a core team member nor was there friendship. It's crushing to read, like telling a kid that Santa isn't real.
Still, I respect the consistency. This is a proper artist in every way.