Microsoft is expanding its video game empire, buying the wildly popular Minecraft and the tiny production studio that designed it for $2.5 billion. It’s easy to be cynical, and it’s hard to imagine Microsoft will run Mojang without trying to use Minecraft as a weapon against competitors Sony, Apple and others. However, given the stance of the ever present rabid Fanboy, many are already crying R.I.P. Minecraft.
Fanboys’s lunacy towards their preferred brands makes them want to destroy every other competitor just so they can say Sony/Microsoft won this so-called war. The internet is an avenue for both great encouragement and for lots of destructive attitudes. We have a choice to filter out those negative responses. If you obtain great success from the internet, chances are? You will also be getting backlash from those who are envious. Its not a one way street.
The REAL truth is: there is no war, there is market and competition. Sony doesn’t want to destroy Microsoft and even if they did there’s no way they, or anyone, could do it. The same goes to Microsoft. Exclusives exists because both consoles are pretty much the same (performance-wise) and the only differential are the games they have to offer. Kazuo Hirai couldn’t care less about how many XBOXONE’s were sold out there, if their console is doing well that’s all there is to it. The same goes to Satya Nadella at Microsoft. Of course that they’ll make sure their product has the upper hand, but that doesn’t mean that they have as a personal goal to put the other company out of business. That’s fanboy talk.
It’s not like Microsoft can stop what Minecraft has already become. They can ‘ruin it’ from now on, but they won’t be able to stop what’s already out there. Minecraft is much more than a game. It seems that Microsoft is trying to buy into the what Minecraft has become, which is a cultural phenomenon. It’s the third largest IP ever, selling 54 million copies and counting. It has crazy amounts of merchandise that fly off the shelves because it’s pretty much cornering the demographic of young gamers, along with a movie on the way. There is no other game you can compare Minecraft to really in how it’s penetrated the mainstream audience. And that’s without a real mobile version and a ‘watered down’ console version.
There are always more sales in the world, the fact that it’s at 54 million shows more than just your average gamer is playing this thing to begin with. The eventual true sequel could be crap and it would still sell like crazy just on the name and anticipation alone. This game is something completely different than we’ve ever seen in gaming before. As an older gamer, I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. The game is bigger than anything you can think of.
I’m happy for Markus ‘Notch’ Persson & Co and the stupidly big payday they’re getting. Because that’s the dream, right? You make something, it becomes huge, you get paid, and then you’re financially secure and can just work on ISHT you love for the rest of your life.
I love creating. I’m sure that the creative process of making a game is truly rewarding, and that the stress from building a company and a support system behind the success is a whole different side of it. Outside looking in, I’m sure it can be stifling for the creative process. Maybe he wanted the freedom to just do his own thing again and not think about success or failure. And after making a few hundred milly-billy off of it, he can say it is not about the money. He has it already. But if he were you walk away from, cash out what you can. There is nothing wrong with that.
Everyone I know would have done what he did – make no mistake about it.
-Dagobot
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