Microsoft Reportedly Buying Minecraft Maker Mojang

Quoting: lavei cannot believe they paid 2 billion for a little studio and a game that has passed its zenith long ago.

Well, Minecraft still sells a lot. It just got ported to XBox One and PS4, there's no reason the sales will drop anytime soon.

There are already loads of voxel building games anyway, many of them surpass Minecraft in terms of gameplay and graphics, so i'm not that worried about this tbh.

I hate this world. It evolves in the wrong direction 80% of the time.

Windows buys Mojang because minecraft is a big hit on very young gamer. They want children playing their first good game to see Microsoft printed.

Just as some of us grew up with Mario on Nintendo, they would like for the next generations to grow up with them.

We could all accuse him of selling out, but in reality, Microsoft buying Mojang for $2 billion will do them more harm than good. Their only franchises/brand/whatever is Minecraft, and although huge, Microsoft would never be able to produce a decent sequel to it - it would be more akin to the new SimCity and will go along with awful decisions like making it an Xbox exclusive.

Selling them Minecraft is like selling them a Picasso painting - it's very nice, but they will get absolutely humiliated if they try and make their own. Mojang is worthless without Notch and some of the original Minecraft creators, it's just a brand which owns the IP to a successful game (which is also getting past its expiration date now).

As for Notch, with that kind of money (even after tax, giving some to shareholders, etc) he could make his own new studio which will make more money than a Microsoft-owned Mojang ever would.

In his situation, I would do the same - distance myself from Minecraft so I wouldn't have to carry the burden of being "that Minecraft guy" for the rest of my life and give it to a company I hate because they won't be able to make their money back off it, then go and do something else.

For a big corporation like Microsoft, this is pretty standard practice anyway. These big companies need to keep buying smaller ones to keep their share prices up and once the cycle starts, it doesn't stop - Google probably buys 20-30 per year. And Microsoft is fighting a losing battle anyway with both consoles and phones, hopefully OSs soon enough if they manage to annoy enough people (Gaben being quite a prominent and annoyed figure already).

Dang, the source got updated!
Business-wise, it might be an enticing move to take the money and , but I guess Persson isn't so onboard with continuing at Mojang if it's acquired by MS so he'll probably run/do other ventures.
I try not to hate MS that much but they have yet to prove themselves and gain my trust/support. It's what you tend to view evil companies like Apple. Good thing one of Google's unofficial values/rules is "Don't be evil" so they won't become SKYNET that quickly =P

History time! Way back in the olden days I was a Mac user, and an exciting new game was to champion Mac gaming, releasing its Mac version ahead of a Windows version giving us one clear-cut victory. Then Microsoft bought Bungie and said Halo would be a dual launch between Mac and Windows. A few months go by and suddenly it's to be the launch title of their new Xbox console, home computers have to wait. It took two years before it released for Mac, a few months less for Windows.

I have no idea what Microsoft is paying for. I have no idea if Mojang is working on a new game. I do know that in terms of platform support, you do not want Microsoft to own anything at all.

Then again, were I Notch I'd pocket a billion to live well all my days and spend the other to fund all future projects and keep innovating in a new company, I'd bet he himself is frankly more famous than Mojang the company.

As much as I hate this news... I can't really blame notch and mojang for accepting the offer.

Ouch, it does seem to be shaping up to be true. I don't blame him one bit though. I see two things coming from this. He will take his 2B and live the good life for the rest of his life, or take 1B, live the good life for the rest of his life and invest the rest in a new venture. My $$ would be on the later.

Would be awesome if he took the second road and started an EXTREMELY linux friendly publisher and started backing studios who make games for linux. Maybe LA (Linux Arts) as a good jab at EA :P

"I think Minecraft pretty much sold what it will sell, except maybe one last big burst from the new consoles. "

A WiiU edition would definitly sell well. Mine is collecting cob webs.