Minecraft developer Mojang to be bought out by Microsoft for 2.5 Billion

I don't know how many of you have played the famous indie game but I know all of you have heard of it's smashing success. The block building game has inspired over 50 million people worldwide. Minecraft maker Markus "Notch" Persson is estimated to receive almost 2.5 billion dollars when the deal gets put in ink a few days from now.

What's highly amusing is how he has repeatedly claimed how he would never sell out his product to the mega corporations, going so far to say how he was distrustful of them, Microsoft included. It's unclear what exactly Microsoft plans to do with the popular game, 2 billions is a huge amount of money for a product that is already so well known to the world. When you factor in the community that prided itself in avoiding the greedy hands of corporate overlords it's hard to foresee what the future holds for the block building game.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/mi...utm_content=news_module&utm_campaign=homepage

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...side-microsoft-criticisms-to-pursue-deal.html

Damn I wish I came up with this game! Congrats on the big payday, now to pray that Microsoft doesn't bomb this game.

 

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On this day of September 10th 2011, Minecraft has died.

 

Who knows maybe this won't be so bad. Notch was nothing more than a hypocryte anyway and I don't remember Minecraft having any real updates besides maybe the realm thing in a long time.

This is defiantely going to mean some bad things but at least some good may come out of it like major upgrades and such.....maybe.

Honestly the fact that Notch is even doing this after all he has said about Microsoft makes me glad it won't belong to him anymore. That is assuming this is all true.

 

This, just this.
But on a more serious note if this is true and goes through. That "mega corporation" is going to end up putting a stop to all those indie games that use the minecraft formula without paying royalties and I can't even begin to imagine how they would handle all the modders for minecraft out there. Maybe I'm wrong and this won't turn out bad but time will tell. 2 billion would be a lot and if they are paying that they plan to get their money worth out of it somehow.

 

I don't think they can legally do anything about the copies at least not the existing ones. At this point minecraft likes games are practically a genera all of their own so it will be hard for them to somehow claim ownership of the idea itself. It's like saying you can ban all other FPS because you own COD. They own the game but not the idea and the idea has long since evolved beyond Minecraft.

As for the modding they definitely can't stop that as you see plenty of modding on PC and console games anyway so either Microsoft has never tried to stop modding or they have tried and pretty much failed.

Also while the chances of them bothering to do the following is pretty much Zero here are a few things Microsoft could do to improve Minecraft using thier resources if they wanted to

• Release an official HD texture pack-While some like Minecraft's default look I personally always use the Vox Poppuli HD texture pack. With their recources Microsoft could easily make a tecture pack just as good if not better for minecraft.
• Create the Aether-Once upon a time Minecraft was going to have a polar opposite of the Nether but this idea was scrapped and replaced with the End. There is a Mod that creates the Aether realm but so far the realm does not officially exist. Microsoft could easily add another realm.
• More Red stone tech- Red stone mechanics is where things really start to get complicated but there is so much more that can be done. So many things about Circuits that could be given red stone equivalents.
• More stuff in general- The reason modding is so big in minecraft is because there are so many thigns to potentially add. Microsoft could easily make countless additions to the game.

Again I don't honestly expect them to do all this but maybe... just maybe they'll do at least one of these and if they do then it will be more than Notch has done with Minecraft is quite a long time. At least as far as I've noticed.

 

Oh i fully anticipate them attempting to improve minecraft in a number of ways and might someday be excited for it. I'm worried however how they plan to make their money back buying out minecraft for that much.

 

Well my guess would be a "Minecraft 2" or something like that. Meaning they might "End support" for the current minecraft and release a new one, probably with some cheap improvements added in to justify the re-release.

Given the popularity of Minecraft and how much they just spent getting it that is the easiest way I could think of to make it back fast as you can bet more than half of the minecraft players would upgrade within the first month alone.

 

I think it will be okay. I know Microsoft's track record about their acquisitions burning to ashes (Rare, what the heck happened to you guys?) but there really isn't a whole lot to "take away" from Minecraft. Quite frankly they can really add a lot to it still.

Staying positive anyway. How hard can it be? It's Minecraft, it takes a special kind of stupid to mess this game up. Maybe they'll call it Microcraft
Okay, bad joke.

 

These are the people who botched the Xbone reveal so badly the PS4 is beating them 2 to 1 in sales......I think they are more than qualified to mess this game up.

 

Mhe that was a dark time for them. Imo they will recover from it slowly very slowly. So I'm not educated on the events or anything but what I took from it was the xbone development reveal and release changed hands and directions so many times that it was gonna fail for sure. Now they should hopefully know what they are doing and get it together. As for minecraft I expect to see at the very least so much more micro transactions. I kinda agree with metazoxan About the possibility for minecraft 2.

 

I thought this was funny. This is what Notch is going to do on his big pay day

 

As an unofficial Microsoft fan boy spokesperson. I would advise that you give them the benefit of the doubt. Also remember to plug in your monitoring equip.... I mean Kenect, so that we can use it to gain info.... I mean enhance your experience.

In all seriousness. If you are going to not use PC/MAC I would go with the Xbox. Just because the UI is so much more simple on it (this is true for all gens so far). Also you have to remember that the PS3 had a heavy lead in the beginning over the 360. However that was quickly overtaken about half way through the last gen's lifecycle (I chug it up to things like the 360's better price and better basic features 'party system'). I would say that if Microsoft can compensate for the PS4's easy upload and share/stream capabilities, then they may just come out ahead (but they have to stop doing retarded things like banning people for use of profane words).

Sorry off topic... My point was that the 360 was a major F-up too. Everyone remembers the red ring (which the PS4 has its own version of... go figure). However Microsoft ended up doing a 360 with the 360's rep and being the lead console last gen. That means that IF they mess up Minecraft in some way, they are smart enough to be able to fix it. Just give it some time to see what happens before we freak out.

 

I saw this which made a good reason to why this buyout isn't all bad one way or the other
http://www.screwattack.com/news/oort-online-hopes-become-next-king-build

This buyout means Minecraft is no longer really an Indie game so with one of the largest indie games ever moving on there is now a gap in the world of Indie developers for a new game to will. Will Oort online be it or will something else fill the void? Whether minecraft is killed by Microsoft or not it will be interesting to see what tries to become the next big Indie game.