My main problem with this is i've bought minecraft already, why must i pay again if i already have a legitimate license?
You have to pay again in order for the software developer to make those funds back. There would be a lot less incentive to port software or develop future versions if they had to be made free.
> Minecraft is a sandbox building indie video game...It was released on May 17, 2009, with a Beta on December 20, 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft
Years, actually.
but well, that's goes to show why they don't have to offer free DS version along with it :)
I know software requires manual translation. But, the above behavior is what I expect.
A program port is more than just moving data.
If you bought a house, would you expect to be able to use that house on both your desktop AND your laptop, because it's the same damn house? Uh, no, because physical matter doesn't work that way. In case you haven't heard, though, copying data _does_ work that way, and many people DO expect that if they buy music they SHOULD be able to use it on more than one device. And similarly for games (when it's a single chunk of code), which is actually how Minecraft actually works.
Note, I'm not arguing that MPE should be free with purchase of Minecraft, or that it shouldn't. I'm just pointing out the deadly obvious: that physical-goods arguments are basically useless for digital goods.
I just fed a troll, didn't I?
You can't copy Minecraft from your PC to your Android phone like an MP3 (well you can, but it won't work). My analogy was trying to get to the point that a smaller house would be able to reuse assets (scaled drawings, design, etc.) but it still requires someone (similar to a new developer) to create it and port the existing design to the less complicated design.
If you bought a house, do you expect to get an identical house free in another country? (a country is like a computer platform, right?)
You're free to convert it on your own.
If it shows up for my phone, I might shell out $7 for it anyway.
Hence you should get this for free if you bought it in Alpha—this image[1] explains it nicely.
The language he uses in a blog post is not relevant. What’s relevant is whether a court would think that “future versions” from the license also includes different games using in some respects the same mechanic, that share some resources but not code. That’s very, very unlikely.
Your first sentence is justified, the second is speculation masked as a factual statement.
(This also reeks of entitlement. Even if Mojang made a mistake when writing their license, asking for all ports to be free is behavior I’m unable to comprehend.)
How many people really thought along these lines when buying MC alpha? I'm pretty darn sure that when people read "all future versions for free", it meant "Alpha, and everything up to and including RTM for free", and not "Everything MC related, forever".
Heck, I think Notch threw in expansion packs for alpha purchasers. They should consider themselves lucky that he did.
Thats the difference between aplha and beta purchases. People, like me, who purchased the beta version get all version up until release and bug fixes after release. People who bought the alpha version get that plus any expansions and add ons.
Pocket Edition is, as far as I'm concerned, not part of the Minecraft version timeline, not an addon and not an expansion, therefore should be exempt from the for free clause.
Then again, since I purchased the beta version, I don't get the extra free stuff, so I'm not exactly invested in arguing that MPE should be free, so...
I don't feel particularly entitled to it but it certainly seems like a version of minecraft.
If anything Minecraft is a port of creative mode Minecraft (which is completely free). But not even a straightforward port.
Additionally, the PC game is only a few weeks away from getting one of the largest updates in its history. It is unreasonable to state that you aren't getting your money's worth.
That image reeks of stupidity. The mobile version (SEE, I said it) is a different game on a different platform. Like most words in any natural language 'version' is ambiguous. The original promise meant that you would get every update to the game for free, not that you would somehow be entitled to every derivative game released later on.
Certainly, some additional work goes into each separate version and you shouldn't just get that for free. But to pay full price for both versions seems wrong too. Might there be a base cost, with an additional cost for each system? That's as simple as giving Tam a discount for the mobile version after entering a legitimate license.
That’s not all that problematic on their side (though still a lot of work), maybe they could find some sort of (semi-)automatic way to get a discount on the desktop version of Minecraft with a receipt or a code the Android app displays. (I would guess that at the volumes Minecraft sells something like this has to generate a lot of support requests, though.)
The much, much more common case (existing buyers of Minecraft for the desktop buy the mobile edition) is also much harder. I don’t think the Android Market has a built-in mechanism for entering codes to get discounts or something like that. (Maybe it has, I don’t know. I have never heard of something like that, though.) They would have to create a way for buyers to, I don’t know, maybe enter a code the Android app displays on their website to get a discount. That would again be work but at least it’s possible.
But how is Mojang going to get $2, $3 or something like that to the customers? Is there a way to easily do that? I don’t think so and even if the fees would be horrendous.
All of this is work and would also probably be a customer support nightmare.
It’s easier to just have one price point, especially if it is so low anyway. Hardly anyone will buy the mobile edition and not the desktop edition, how would it be worth it to create an additional price point for this tiny minority? It just doesn’t make any business sense.