Microsoft has bought Mojang (From the WP site)
Posted: 15 Sep 2014, 15:05I guess a lot of you have already read the news that Microsoft has bought Mojang for 2.5 billion USD. I have been wating for the announcement since last week now. I've been dreading it so much.
When I started playing Minecraft in Beta 1.4 it was already tremendously popular. I soon started reading Word of Notch, and anything else I could get my hands on about the game and its developers. I stalked Notch and the others on twitter for quite some time before acutally joining twitter myself. I came to respect Notch deeply as a person with values close to my own, I also admired keeping to small scale development designed to keep true to the origins of the game and to keep a close relationship with the community.
I also loved the community. I found it so supportive of the game itself and the developers and also amongst each other. If there was something you wondered there was the community created wiki. If that didn't answer your questions you could find a plethora of sites - most notable Minecraft Forums - where you could post your question and more often than not get quite a few really helpful answers. In-game on servers there was most of the time helpful people around to explain things that you didn't understand. It was like this awesome community school of fun and games and social interaction. Kids learned to read and write to be able to play with others. They learned ins and outs of social interaction. They learned to try to trust and that sometimes being too trusting is a hazard. They started to learn how to do computer programming to be able to modify the game. They started to work in great open source collaborations to make plugin API's and special launchers and huge mod platforms. The more experienced led the less experienced by the hand and taught them about programming and structure and collaboration. The community was later invited to help with development of the core game by being given access to development snapshots. The creativity and involvement and give and take of the game, its community and the developers has been an absolutely awesome experience to have had the privilege to be a part of.
But all this giving from Mojang's side had the side-effect that people started to feel an entitlement. Soon there were so many people that had joined in late in development going around feeling this entitlement without having seen the roots of the game at all, without having knowlege of its history, its essence. They started complaining more than enjoying and being happy. This loud voiced and angry entitlement coupled with the possibility to earn money from someone else's intellectual property became very nasty some months ago. The hate thrown at Notch when one of his staff members in a private conversation with a community member confirmed that earning money from selling in-game perks was against the EULA was a really ugly business. Notch then ventured to try to find a solution together with his staff and the lawyers so that people could still earn money from his intellectual property while still protecting the player experience and not promoting pay-to-win situations on servers. This brought about an amendment to the EULA that gave the servers actual legal possibilities to earn money for their server upkeep. The vocal haters of the community refused to listen and understand the reasoning and just kept throwing hate at Notch. It seemed to kind of settle somewhat. But the Mojangstas had clammed up. They stopped chitchatting with us in the same way. They knew that anything they said to anyone could be taken out of context and blown up to something it wasn't, and a new hate campaign could ensue.
Along came the Bukkit debàcle. And again the hate exploded....
It seems that nothing Mojang did could ever be good enough. The masses seemed to just be an unwieldy bunch of spiteful kids with nothing else to do than hate and demand. "Fix your game Notch", "Blame Dinnerbone!", "Why have you still not fixed this Jeb?", "The game lags on my superold computer with the wrong Java installed and no free discspace or RAM - why don't you fix it?!", "Why aren't there bunnies, sharks, sentient NPC's, lazer swords, UFO's and mermaids?", "Why can't I become a billionaire off of your game when you became a billionaire off of it?".
All this while I've seen the friendly, smiling, quirky, nerdy and authority defying Notch become more and more constrained. He tried to escape the monster he had created by stepping down from development a long time ago. But it just wouldn't leave him be. As soon as something was to the dissatisfaction of the most vocal parts of the community - he had to deal with it. And for each time the open company culture he really wanted had to shut itself in a little more.
For me this is an incredibly sad day. I don't know if I've been able to explain it at all to you with my words. For me Mojang was not "just another mainstream game developer". For me Mojang and Notch were something much, much more. They were the little guy who became sucessful and never let go of their origins and ideals.
To a much lesser extent - of course - I have during my time as a server owner seen the dark side of the community. I've gone from being a person who didn't want to whitelist and who welcomed kids and who would get to know each and every player and value the time they spent on my server and the friendships we made, to a person who has become weary and wary. Except for the few core people that have hung in there through thick and thin for a very long time many players have taught me this: I have learned that trusting people can leave me sad and broken, I've learned that trying to keep everyone happy is impossible, I've learned that most of the time the only one I can really count on is me, I've learned that people who I start to really like can just disappear one day so it's pointless to invest my time and emotions in them. I've learned that there are people who have the same sense of entitlement in relation to the server as to the game developers.
I've kept bashing my head against the wall because I haven't wanted to give up on the Minecraft community and I haven't wanted to give up on Mojang and Notch. But I find myself in a totally different place than I thought I would be. And I believe I understand Notch for wanting to sell Mojang. I don't like it - but I understand it. The vocal haters of the community brought Microsoft upon us. What this means for Minecraft of the Minecraft community only time will tell.
When I started playing Minecraft in Beta 1.4 it was already tremendously popular. I soon started reading Word of Notch, and anything else I could get my hands on about the game and its developers. I stalked Notch and the others on twitter for quite some time before acutally joining twitter myself. I came to respect Notch deeply as a person with values close to my own, I also admired keeping to small scale development designed to keep true to the origins of the game and to keep a close relationship with the community.
I also loved the community. I found it so supportive of the game itself and the developers and also amongst each other. If there was something you wondered there was the community created wiki. If that didn't answer your questions you could find a plethora of sites - most notable Minecraft Forums - where you could post your question and more often than not get quite a few really helpful answers. In-game on servers there was most of the time helpful people around to explain things that you didn't understand. It was like this awesome community school of fun and games and social interaction. Kids learned to read and write to be able to play with others. They learned ins and outs of social interaction. They learned to try to trust and that sometimes being too trusting is a hazard. They started to learn how to do computer programming to be able to modify the game. They started to work in great open source collaborations to make plugin API's and special launchers and huge mod platforms. The more experienced led the less experienced by the hand and taught them about programming and structure and collaboration. The community was later invited to help with development of the core game by being given access to development snapshots. The creativity and involvement and give and take of the game, its community and the developers has been an absolutely awesome experience to have had the privilege to be a part of.
But all this giving from Mojang's side had the side-effect that people started to feel an entitlement. Soon there were so many people that had joined in late in development going around feeling this entitlement without having seen the roots of the game at all, without having knowlege of its history, its essence. They started complaining more than enjoying and being happy. This loud voiced and angry entitlement coupled with the possibility to earn money from someone else's intellectual property became very nasty some months ago. The hate thrown at Notch when one of his staff members in a private conversation with a community member confirmed that earning money from selling in-game perks was against the EULA was a really ugly business. Notch then ventured to try to find a solution together with his staff and the lawyers so that people could still earn money from his intellectual property while still protecting the player experience and not promoting pay-to-win situations on servers. This brought about an amendment to the EULA that gave the servers actual legal possibilities to earn money for their server upkeep. The vocal haters of the community refused to listen and understand the reasoning and just kept throwing hate at Notch. It seemed to kind of settle somewhat. But the Mojangstas had clammed up. They stopped chitchatting with us in the same way. They knew that anything they said to anyone could be taken out of context and blown up to something it wasn't, and a new hate campaign could ensue.
Along came the Bukkit debàcle. And again the hate exploded....
It seems that nothing Mojang did could ever be good enough. The masses seemed to just be an unwieldy bunch of spiteful kids with nothing else to do than hate and demand. "Fix your game Notch", "Blame Dinnerbone!", "Why have you still not fixed this Jeb?", "The game lags on my superold computer with the wrong Java installed and no free discspace or RAM - why don't you fix it?!", "Why aren't there bunnies, sharks, sentient NPC's, lazer swords, UFO's and mermaids?", "Why can't I become a billionaire off of your game when you became a billionaire off of it?".
All this while I've seen the friendly, smiling, quirky, nerdy and authority defying Notch become more and more constrained. He tried to escape the monster he had created by stepping down from development a long time ago. But it just wouldn't leave him be. As soon as something was to the dissatisfaction of the most vocal parts of the community - he had to deal with it. And for each time the open company culture he really wanted had to shut itself in a little more.
For me this is an incredibly sad day. I don't know if I've been able to explain it at all to you with my words. For me Mojang was not "just another mainstream game developer". For me Mojang and Notch were something much, much more. They were the little guy who became sucessful and never let go of their origins and ideals.
To a much lesser extent - of course - I have during my time as a server owner seen the dark side of the community. I've gone from being a person who didn't want to whitelist and who welcomed kids and who would get to know each and every player and value the time they spent on my server and the friendships we made, to a person who has become weary and wary. Except for the few core people that have hung in there through thick and thin for a very long time many players have taught me this: I have learned that trusting people can leave me sad and broken, I've learned that trying to keep everyone happy is impossible, I've learned that most of the time the only one I can really count on is me, I've learned that people who I start to really like can just disappear one day so it's pointless to invest my time and emotions in them. I've learned that there are people who have the same sense of entitlement in relation to the server as to the game developers.
I've kept bashing my head against the wall because I haven't wanted to give up on the Minecraft community and I haven't wanted to give up on Mojang and Notch. But I find myself in a totally different place than I thought I would be. And I believe I understand Notch for wanting to sell Mojang. I don't like it - but I understand it. The vocal haters of the community brought Microsoft upon us. What this means for Minecraft of the Minecraft community only time will tell.