Mojang getting bought by Microsoft (title edited)


I can see a way of how Google could use Mojang, but i can also understand why they wouldn't be that interested and pull back (I don't think the gaming industry was really much of an interest to them).

What interests me more though is what Notch mentioned in his blog post (assuming he didn't obscure any truths). If he were indeed willing to sell Mojang not for the money but because of the stress and concerns for his sanity, why didn't he just open source Minecraft when he had the chance and esccentially leave the game in the hands of the community instead?

Could it be because by some point he was just too late?
 
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What interests me more though is what Notch mentioned in his blog post (assuming he didn't obscure any truths). If he were indeed willing to sell Mojang not for the money but because of the stress and concerns for his sanity, why didn't he just open source Minecraft when he had the chance and esccentially leave the game in the hands of the community instead?
That's exactly the point a lot of people here don't understand.

I think he probably wasn't altruistic enough. I don't quite believe him when he says it was absolutely not about the money.
 
What interests me more though is what Notch mentioned in his blog post (assuming he didn't obscure any truths). If he were indeed willing to sell Mojang not for the money but because of the stress and concerns for his sanity, why didn't he just open source Minecraft when he had the chance and esccentially leave the game in the hands of the community instead?
That's exactly the point a lot of people here don't understand.


I think he probably wasn't altruistic enough. I don't quite believe him when he says it was absolutely not about the money.
Yep.

Damn, most if not all of us grew up in capitalism and still so many people of our generation are not honest enough to just say "well, it was a bloody lot of money!"? -.-°
 
What interests me more though is what Notch mentioned in his blog post (assuming he didn't obscure any truths). If he were indeed willing to sell Mojang not for the money but because of the stress and concerns for his sanity, why didn't he just open source Minecraft when he had the chance and esccentially leave the game in the hands of the community instead?
That's exactly the point a lot of people here don't understand.

I think he probably wasn't altruistic enough. I don't quite believe him when he says it was absolutely not about the money.
 Yep.

Damn, most if not all of us grew up in capitalism and still so many people of our generation are not honest enough to just say "well, it was a bloody lot of money!"? -.-°
People don't like to be honest with themselves.
Ethics class is always boring so I always start off discussions to pass the time (respectively longer discussions than the teacher wants), and we've talked several times about egoism. Only a small minority would admit that some amount of egoism is normal, necessary for survival and present in every participant of the discussion. Yet we live in a society based on egoism.
 
What interests me more though is what Notch mentioned in his blog post (assuming he didn't obscure any truths). If he were indeed willing to sell Mojang not for the money but because of the stress and concerns for his sanity, why didn't he just open source Minecraft when he had the chance and esccentially leave the game in the hands of the community instead?
That's exactly the point a lot of people here don't understand.


I think he probably wasn't altruistic enough. I don't quite believe him when he says it was absolutely not about the money.
 
Yep.


Damn, most if not all of us grew up in capitalism and still so many people of our generation are not honest enough to just say "well, it was a bloody lot of money!"? -.-°
People don't like to be honest with themselves.

Ethics class is always boring so I always start off discussions to pass the time (respectively longer discussions than the teacher wants), and we've talked several times about egoism. Only a small minority would admit that some amount of egoism is normal, necessary for survival and present in every participant of the discussion. Yet we live in a society based on egoism.
I remember those discussions in Philosophy class, same results. Especcially the most egoistic people always said that egoism is not always present at some extend and of course especcially not in them.

While "Ehrgeiz" (special meaning of "ambition") was a vice and became a virtue, the exact opposite happened with "honesty"...
 
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Why didn't he just open-source stuff and walk away? Because whether he wants to or not, the juggernaut that is minecraft will continue to roll, Mojang must still be around to run servers and patch bugs, and new player will still need to be taken care of. Imagine the effect of the other announcement: "I'm tired of this now. Here's the source, good luck. Now go away".

He must make sure that there is still an infrastructure for support for the game and the players, and he needs to find an entity that can run Mojang in a way that means the other employees (apart from Notch) will still have a job to go to for the forseeable future.

I will not say that Notch is or is not egoistic or altruistic, but think for half a minute and you'll see that for most of his dependents, that alternative would not seem altruistic at all.
 
Hope they keep it free for the current users and increase content, as the latest has stalled for centuries and mods don´t quite work multiplayer.

Either way, I´m fine with it. The end of a very sucesseful indie is always a corporation, no escape here.
 
Why didn't he just open-source stuff and walk away? Because whether he wants to or not,
He said he would open source it when sales are down. Check his previous quotes. 

Does not look like the sales are going down any time soon.  

It would fit Google though.

Would have been slightly better than Microsoft.
Meh, Google is the new Microsoft, in case you haven't noticed. They may be more "cool" but they tend to follow the same practices nowadays. Even they want to make Chrome the new IE by breaking standards. 
 
Valve expressed interest in the past. At least the corporate structure would have been more compatible.
 
Everyone think for one minute:

2 Billion!

If I would get 10% of that I wouldn't care who buys my company.

As long as I will get that much money and can do whatever I like it would be fine for me.

I hope no one will judge a person because of that.

It isn't that peoples were sacrificed or so.

No one dies or gets hurt.
 
Everyone think for one minute:

2 Billion!
Id be very surprised if Valve had 2billion of large excess cash to spend.
He said it wasn't about the money and I'm taking him at his word. I fully agree that it was the correct business move, Microsoft has the most cash while Valve could have only covered maybe half a billion and Microsoft is probably poised to do more with the assets than Valve could have, but based on everything he has talked about in the past and assuming he's entirely honest when he said the money doesn't matter (because it doesn't really, his net worth was in the tens if not hundred millions already, he didn't need to push that to billions) then there are better companies for him to have left Mojang with, companies that more closely match the corporate structure he was working with at Mojang.I'm basically saying either there's more to the agreement that Notch isn't saying, something that goes beyond the money that makes Microsoft actually better than what anyone else can offer, or he needs to stop deluding himself and everyone else and admit that it was totally about the money.
 
Everyone think for one minute:

2 Billion!
Wrong. 2.5 billion.

2,500,000,000

(2,5 Milliarden)

Doesn't change anything, nobody needs so much money, not even 10 percent of it,

so they really could have sold it to someone else for less.
 
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About those 2 billions btw, here's something interesting Notch wrote two years ago (i'm not implying anything, just finding it amusing).

@Moxie: Open-sourceing stuff doesn't necessarily mean throwing the responisbility unto the community. It can also work in a similar way to how Canonical does with Ubuntu, Mojang could be the main maintainer and suport team while the community would be contributing to the development and support from their side.
 
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No, but you would still need a solid backer as owner to the company. And apparently it isn't enough to just say "OK, I drop out of this, look at these people, they're handling it now". Notch did that years ago, and apparently it doesn't help - People still pester Notch about minecrafty stuff. It's obvious that it needs to be on this scale to drive home the point that "I'm not doing this any more". 
 
About those 2 billions btw, here's something interesting Notch wrote two years ago (i'm not implying anything, just finding it amusing).
I think this has already been linked in this thread.

Moxie, I like that way of putting it.  Thanks for explaining it how you think it might be.
 
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