Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theeggandtherock.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

721–730 of 778 posts

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

#721

Post by lukas099 »

superultra wrote: post #447

I work in intellectual property, though I am not a lawyer. If this person were my client I’d diplomatically tell them that they’re clean out of luck on this one. All the documents that come as a shock to the author are boiler plate NDA and work for hire arrangements, and outside of being a famous author who’s “brand” would bring something of marketing value to the table, at no point really would anyone be able to neg…

I think that if Notch had just tweeted something like "big shoutout to my friend Whatever who wrote the end poem to Minecraft! Check out his other works at www.blah.com" he would have been totally satisfied.

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

#722

Post by lukas099 »

plopperdoo wrote: post #664
dccoolgai wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your piece addresses what you claim to be a basic "unfairness": You (if it's really you) say someone "didn't treat me as a friend". Most of the comments are reflecting on whether it really was or wasn't unfair. So I'd say it's also an interesting worldview that you make a claim about fairness and then dismissed any conversation about fairness (the topic _you brought up_) with a glib statement asserting that anyone wh…

The Hacker News comment fills in a missing piece for me: why did Carl lose his shit on him? That part was just a one sided story so there were gaps for me. Seeing how he speaks to a new community made it all crystal clear. I’ve encountered that type of demeanor quite often, which is burying nonetheless-obvious and heaping contempt under “it was particularly enjoyable” smarm and a fake smile. Even if unintended, wow,…

> I’ve encountered that type of demeanor quite often, which is burying nonetheless-obvious and heaping contempt under “it was particularly enjoyable” smarm and a fake smile.

Or maybe it really was enjoyable for him to read someone else's point of view? If someone disagrees with you, down to the very core beliefs that serve as foundation of your world, I don't think there is much of a better way to try to handle the situation.

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

#723

Post by jrochkind1 »

ghaff wrote: post #696
mananaysiempre wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if all the developers expected to both be paid to write code and still own the rights to the code. Developers are accustomed to giving up all artistic agency and authorship, and those who can’t bring themselves to do so give up on being developers. (I’m partly in the latter category.) Thankfully, that isn’t (yet?) as ubiquitous among writers.

>Thankfully, that isn’t (yet?) as ubiquitous among writers. Well, it's less common for fiction but if you're working for a company and writing content you're almost certainly giving up any rights. If you're ghostwriting without credit, it's not explicitly spelled out but the way it works is they'll slap it on their copyrighted website, possibly under someone else's byline. And they'd reasonably expect you not to publ…

I would be shocked if the exact exchange of copyright were not explicitly spelled out when hiring a ghostwriter, unless the hiring party has no idea what they are doing!

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

#724

Post by educaysean »

beAbU wrote: post #657
sbst32 wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am stunned (pardon my sarcasm) that you're implying he demands something. The whole point of his long story was to say that he did not want to demand anything (even though he clearly had his opportunities). You're reading it wrong if you see "greedy" there. And regarding "stunned this is on HN" - clearly this content is quite interesting/relevant to the HN audience as you can see by the number of comments.

Who spends 12k words to say "I'm not asking for anything"? This is clearly passive aggressive gaslighting behaviour: "I'm really not mad or upset that I only got 20k. Really you guys. I see Notch in his nice house, how he doled out piles of cash to everyone and skipped me and it's fine because I'm happy for them. Really! I thought we were friends and clearly we are not but thats fine because I took some shrooms and n…

The 12k words can be written for many reasons. Publishing something as a final act of closure following a years-long emotional journey is certainly something I could understand and respect.

You claim that the author is being passive aggressive, but this is where I disagree the most. The author made no excuses or attempts to hide the mistakes he made. He also fully owns up to how he long he was obsessed with the monetary success of Minecraft, and how his jealousy had impacted him. You didn't have to infer or deduce these facts from the author - he laid them out clearly in the open and talked about how his anger has been misdirected the entire time.

I agree that your "abbreviated post" is a good concise summary of author's article, yet I object strongly that the details and stories he provided harmed the delivery; it very much amplified it. I think many people think of closure as some Buddhist monk shit where you transcend all human emotions. No, closures are about mustering enough security to air out your dirty laundry and accepting that it's going to look stupid / insane to most people.

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

#725

Post by andrewf »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #399
dcow wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can both be a small indie studio and also have sold multiple millions of copies of their game. Indie simply means you don't have a publisher. And Mojan didn't.

Then Activision-Blizzard is indie. You have to at least put a floor on that thing or you fall completely afoul of the common meaning. My rule of thumb would be less than $1 million spent before the first public release ? (Which I assume makes Minecraft indie ?) Now another question is whether you can even call indie those games being advertised and distributed by Steam (or any other platform) where developers are ove…

The Empire Strikes Back was the biggest-budget indie movie ever. Lucas didn't want to be beholden to the studios so he didn't take their money.

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

#726

Post by yreg »

sbst32 wrote: post #642
wikfwikf wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know this?

Because he explicitly says so and it never was his intention. If you're trying to say that he agreed to it never understanding what he's agreeing to - then that would probably be a non-binding agreement in any legal proceedings.

He also says that he wrote them something along the lines "whatever, let's do the first deal you have offered me" and then intentionally never read the contract. Who knows what they have discussed and agreed to "as friends".

The entire situation is very messy. Mojang fucked up by failing to get the contract signed and failing to even notice it. OTOH the writer seems like a contractor from hell who you wouldn't ever want to deal with, and that's based on his side of the story.

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

#727

Post by dwild »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #183
pgsandstrom wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im honestly chocked that people react so negatively to this piece. Yes, the author expresses many negative and self centered emotions. He is very clear about that. It is part of the story. It is a story about being a flawed person. I sympathize with him. I loved this piece. I hope he truly did let go of all the hangups he described. And it does seem that he actually did sell the the rights of use to microsoft, making…

My biggest problem with the post is the massive ego the author seems to have about the impact and importance of their writing. To be frank, the author made little to no meaningful contributions to Minecraft's success. The author is so self-centered they belittle the contributions of other Mojang employees and seem to genuinely believe their contribution is on the same level as people like Jeb and C418. They literally…

> The author is so self-centered they belittle the contributions of other Mojang employees

C418 made the music... plenty love it, I don't. Doesn't means it has no value, it has none to me, just like the End Poem has none to you, but yet still some people got a tattoo of it.

You are the only one belittling anyone though, you are belittling what Julian did, saying he deserve less recognition than C418, while Julian just said they got recognition while he didn't (without saying if he deserved it more than them).

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

#728

Post by dwild »

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…

> He behaved shittily by not honoring an informal contract.

Did he not honor the informal contract? What did he not honor?

If anything, Carl didn't honor the informal contract, he was the one saying Minecraft would promote his work, and no a name in a tiny credit is not doing that... but I'm feeling generous as let's be honest that's a bullshit clause that corporation always try to use that line without meaning much so it's to be expected.

Julian said he was never giving all its rights away. That was part of the informal contract. That's the thing that made him not sign it.

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

#729

Post by chemmail »

rosywoozlechan wrote: post #41

That's a lot of anger, negativity and bitterness, and entitlement (one of the game's creators for writing the ending text?). Reminds me of the kid on the cover of the Nevermind album and other people that are kinda tangentially connected to something massively successful, but not connected enough to benefit materially, and they let that define who they are and ruin their lives. Could have been a neat personal story,…

I think you would also be angry for not getting a small piece of that $2.5Bil pie.

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

#730

Post by 1970-01-01 »

JulianPGough wrote: post #646

Hi all. I'm Julian, the guy who wrote the ending to Minecraft, and that Substack piece. I've read a fair few of your comments. (Not all; blimey, 600? You've crowdsourced a book!) Very interesting and enjoyable experience. Almost all the ones I've read are parsing the legalities; engaging with the law around copyright, rights agreements, etc. Arguing about legal specifics. Almost none of them engage with the artistic…

Have you heard of the Hedonic adaptation? Your story fits it very well.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_adaptation

Rejecting their offer wasn't the one true path for you to feel happiness and love. It was actually one of many outcomes that you are able to adapt to for feeling happy and loved.

Post reply on HN