Microsoft buys Minecraft for 2.5B | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft buys Minecraft for 2.5B

microsoft.com

169 pointsropiku56 comments

Even if Mojang might as well be Notch's child, if I were him I'd be laughing all the way to the bank at that acquisition price.

And I really hope he's making a lot of his employees rich in the process.

> Microsoft’s investments in cloud and mobile technologies will enable “Minecraft” players to benefit from richer and faster worlds, more powerful development tools, and more opportunities to connect across the “Minecraft” community.

Sounds like they intend to use it as a killer app for microsoft phones.

Sounds like they're either going to port it to C# or add Java development to Visual Studio? Though I doubt the latter is the case... Given the history of Java and Microsoft...

You never know with Microsoft these days. They've recently started releasing source code so anything's possible. I do think they'll port it though.

What it sounds like is that they're going to start properly endorsing the modding community, something Mojang failed to realize is absolutely critical to minecraft.

Or just use the C++ version. Only the PC version is written in Java.

From first hand experience, there is quite a bit of active Java development at Microsoft. And no, it's not done in Visual Studio.

Yes, the Eclipse TFS plugin is pretty nice

Interesting, I never really gave it much thought. I always wanted a Java plugin for Visual Studio personally. Oh well. I guess IntelliJ is good enough. I guess it makes sense, if I remember correctly some of their download managers use Java themselves, or used to.

I can just see it running in a Metro tile.

As an owner of Windows Phone I cant see how this would work out for them.

Most of Windows Phones are rather smallish and Windows Surface is totally wrong product with their OS and limitations.

| Minecraft fans are loyal, with nearly 90 percent of paid customers on the PC having signed in within the past 12 months.

This is unbelievable to me. Anyone have stats for other games to compare with? Or does the constantly-developing nature of the game set it apart?

It is a very specific game that caters to an almost abandoned niche : Minecraft is a sandbox. Unlike most other games where you either have a story driven experience, or a match focused one, Minecraft gives you a sandbox and let you build things in it. You can pretty much have an infinite game length that way. It is no wonder that it has a lot of success with kids.

Or as me and my uncle describe it: it's like legos.

haha, that's not a bad comparison ! Lego with an infinite number of blocks. Well, not infinite, only limited by your your resource grinding ability, at least if you play in adventure mode (probably the weakest part of the game btw).

While Mojang may have taken a relatively hands off approach to modded servers of questionable legality (Spigot, Bukkit, MinecraftForge), I have a feeling Microsoft may not be so benign.

I'm not one to usually throw FUD, but in this case I feel it's most likely warranted.

I predict an unhappy ending to the unofficial mod community, with it being replaced by an official plugin API. It's been promised for years, perhaps it will actually come this time...

I disagree. I bet MS will improve mod support. Minecraft mods are a huge pain right now.

> Microsoft plans to continue to make “Minecraft” available across all the platforms on which it is available today: PC, iOS, Android, Xbox and PlayStation.

While they say it will be available across all of the platforms available today, noticeably absent in the enumerated list are OSX and Linux.

I dont see any reason why Microsoft would like to share Minecraft with Apple unless they will test the game, new revenue models and will be able to deliver product that after release to IOS will bring more pros than cons.

PC != Windows

I have a hunch that we'll see a rewrite to C# and no more Linux support.

I'd love to be proven wrong though.

If they do, it'll be Minecraft 2 or something.

I doubt they'll rewrite the original. They'll probably create a Minecraft 2 thats written in C# so they can sell it for $59.99.

Why?

Currently it's Java. WP doesn't support java.

And it's not a big jump from having to make C# version anycase to moving the main development to that port.

Currently the mobile and console versions are in C++.

Pretty sure the every version outside of PC is not Java, so there is already an existing minecraft codebase that could potentially be ported to WP (Xbox version seems mostly likely for porting since it will already be using directx for rendering).

You can have C# and multi-platform support : http://www.monogame.net/

And Microsoft is still holding on what will come next after XNA for game development in a managed context on Windows and beyond AFAIK.

Tech valuations continue to get curiouser and curiouser

Minecraft is actually extremely profitable, though. It's rumored that Notch already has a personal income in the realm of $100M/year derived from real revenue, not funding. This is very, very different from, say, Snapchat.

From what I can tell they still depend almost entirely on Minecraft, which, if I've followed gaming correctly, has as many registered players as WoW but pay no recurring subscription fee. Rough calculations seem to indicate MS are going to have to double year on year profitability for ~4-5 years to break even.

There is also merchandise as a revenue stream.

The interesting aspect of the purchase is the mindshare. I have kids in elementary and middle school and as far as I can tell, all their friends play it. When my kids went as Steve and a pig (from minecraft) for Halloween last year, they were drawing shouts nonstop from all the kids. Most parents had no idea.

How you turn that mindshare into money is math I don't understand.

Maybe, but this one makes 100x more financial sense than Instagram or WhatsApp's valuations.

Instagram was a steal (and Google fucked up).

WhatsApp was pricey, but that was driven by defensive strategy rather then pure financials.

Already posted there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8318506

They are different links (this one coming from the acquirer Microsoft). It's interesting to see how the two sides spin the acquisition.

Yes, but that will fragment the thread.

> Yes, but that will fragment the thread.

Offhand: doesn't that sound like something from an 80ies barbarian movie?

OLD WITCH: "You have fragmented the thread! You will all die!"

SORCERER: "There is but one hope - you must travel through the broken lands to seek the ARC, and take it to the valley of the tall tree where the threads can be reunited!"

BEASTMASTER: "UUUURRRRRGGGHHHHH"

What is best in life?

To derail your threads, to see their context driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their moderators!

How much is this after Swedish taxes?

Probably enough to buy one bottle of vodka at Swedish prices

Sweden has capital gains taxes of about 30% and he's reportedly the "majority" shareholder, so ~$900m after taxes even if he only owns 51%.

good news for http://minetest.org/

I don't know, one look at the site tells me that this will not be a Minecraft killer.

I don't doubt something will succeed the current version of Minecraft but Microsoft has all the cards, it's up to them to lose it.

Free software's purpose is not to kill someone, but to give users the freedom to use, share, understand and improve software. Something Microsoft can not offer.

They could, but they won't, because $$.

Official site is http://minetest.net

For those that don't know, Minetest is a free software Minecraft-like game written in C++ and Lua.

Interested and looking for a server to play on? Try the LibrePlanet server: http://games.libreplanet.org/minetest/

Congratulation Notch !

Good luck.

FML

Well, I vowed never to give a cent to Microsoft again, so there goes any Minecraft upgrade I've considered. Not that they will be aching, but nonetheless...

(edit: thanks for the downvotes, I'll stand by it, though)

Opinion like this is valuable commentary (IMO!) - people's attitude towards Microsoft mean that the Minecraft community just changed, split.

http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=skype

Skype seems to have gone from a rising trend to a falling one (now at 65% of the 2011 "interest") following the MS acquisition. Yes, that's partially with WebRTC, Hangouts and other outside influences but MS's actions (further centralising control) put many people off who wouldn't be simply put off by the name.

How much of a role do you really think that plays in Skype? Honestly, Skype is so widespread that I'd bet the average Skype user (a) doesn't realize it's owned by Microsoft and (b) hasn't really cared about the changes Microsoft made post-acquisition. I could be wrong, but from my perspective it seems that the average Skype user really doesn't think about these things.

Talking about Skype... I was a long time MSN user and ditched it and they forced every MSN user to migrate to Skype. No, I don't miss it at all. What I've done was taking my friends with me to use XMPP.

I never heard of this game, but a quick search shows it's an 80s looking video game with very basic graphics (maybe there's another game with the same name?). Anyway, I can't understand what could possibly justify that price.

Try Google'in it for half a second and come up with 10 million hits. Of course its not the game they're buying; its those millions of enthusiasts' attention and buying power.

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