Microsoft buys Minecraft for $2.5 billion
Options
Microsoft is expanding its video game empire, buying the wildly popular Minecraft and the tiny production studio that designed it for $2.5 billion.
With Minecraft, Microsoft will be acquiring one of the most popular games ever.
Minecraft has been downloaded more than 100 million times since it launched in 2009.
Minecraft is an online video game that mixes Lego-like building blocks with the endearing low-fi of 8-bit graphics.
It gives players ("miners") a world where they can explore endlessly and build just about anything from scratch. It's alchemy with a virtual pickaxe.
The game runs inside an Internet browser and doesn't require the costly hardware of modern games.
And if it seems low-end, that's because it is. The game was initially developed by a single man: Markus Persson, who now leads the Mojang studio.
Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) said it reached an agreement with Minecraft's Swedish game developer Mojang to buy the company sometime later this year. The deal had been rumored for a week prior to its announcement.
With Minecraft, Microsoft will be acquiring one of the most popular games ever.
Minecraft has been downloaded more than 100 million times since it launched in 2009.
Minecraft is an online video game that mixes Lego-like building blocks with the endearing low-fi of 8-bit graphics.
It gives players ("miners") a world where they can explore endlessly and build just about anything from scratch. It's alchemy with a virtual pickaxe.
The game runs inside an Internet browser and doesn't require the costly hardware of modern games.
And if it seems low-end, that's because it is. The game was initially developed by a single man: Markus Persson, who now leads the Mojang studio.
Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) said it reached an agreement with Minecraft's Swedish game developer Mojang to buy the company sometime later this year. The deal had been rumored for a week prior to its announcement.
Comments
-
This is going to sell X-Boxes like hot cakes now. You know damn well future Minecraft releases will be exclusive.
-
Excellent business decision. They absolutely needed a franchise like this. Mine craft on consoles is pretty much Xbox anyway.
-
? !
"GAME OOOVVVAAAAAH!!!"
Seriously though considering the IP's success on 360 it kinda makes sense but between this, Halo and Gears these muthafuckas are really ready to go to war now.
Minecraft with Kinect Voice Commands coming next Christmas.
-
That ? Notch is about to buy himself a private island now. I totally have to get back into coding.I’m leaving Mojang
September 15th, 2014
I don’t see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it’s fun, and because I love games and I love to program, but I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world. Minecraft certainly became a huge hit, and people are telling me it’s changed games. I never meant for it to do either. It’s certainly flattering, and to gradually get thrust into some kind of public spotlight is interesting.
A relatively long time ago, I decided to step down from Minecraft development. Jens was the perfect person to take over leading it, and I wanted to try to do new things. At first, I failed by trying to make something big again, but since I decided to just stick to small prototypes and interesting challenges, I’ve had so much fun with work. I wasn’t exactly sure how I fit into Mojang where people did actual work, but since people said I was important for the culture, I stayed.
I was at home with a bad cold a couple of weeks ago when the internet exploded with hate against me over some kind of EULA situation that I had nothing to do with. I was confused. I didn’t understand. I tweeted this in frustration. Later on, I watched the This is Phil Fish video on YouTube and started to realize I didn’t have the connection to my fans I thought I had. I’ve become a symbol. I don’t want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don’t understand, that I don’t want to work on, that keeps coming back to me. I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.
As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately.
Considering the public image of me already is a bit skewed, I don’t expect to get away from negative comments by doing this, but at least now I won’t feel a responsibility to read them.
I’m aware this goes against a lot of what I’ve said in public. I have no good response to that. I’m also aware a lot of you were using me as a symbol of some perceived struggle. I’m not. I’m a person, and I’m right there struggling with you.
I love you. All of you. Thank you for turning Minecraft into what it has become, but there are too many of you, and I can’t be responsible for something this big. In one sense, it belongs to Microsoft now. In a much bigger sense, it’s belonged to all of you for a long time, and that will never change.
It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.
Yes your sanity and the harem of endless ? you're about to keep on your new yacht. -
I have yet to play minecraft, is it good?
-
It's actually pretty good once you get going ..got it for my girls daughter and I bought it for x-1 for $5 upgrade and been playing survivor mode
-
What is it even about? I heard people talking about it a while back, and looked it up on Youtube. I watched a couple videos and still don't understand what the big deal is.
-
It's basically like legos. Build something, monsters come, hope it survives. Repeat. I dont see the appeal in it but I understand why so many do.
-
Minecraft could be a dope RPG with some tweaks
-
I don't see the appeal in any of those game. Minecraft or Little Big planet.
-
I mean I see the appeal in them. They aren't my thing, but I can see why people would like them. It's just unbelievable to me that a game like that would be worth 2.5 billion dollars, but if the masses eat it up, I guess it is.
-
Played it at a friends house once, fell asleep while holding the controller.
-
earth two superman wrote: »Excellent business decision. They absolutely needed a franchise like this. Mine craft on consoles is pretty much Xbox anyway.
It's the best selling game on both consoles
3rd best selling game overall
over 50 million players -
overall, I mean of all time
-
Minecraft is fun to me, it's relaxing and chill.
I just finished up a session.. build my house, farm, garden, fenced in area, mined out some caves, stocked up on iron and gold..
it's fun..
not for everyone.. most find it boring..
when I first seen it, I thought it was stupid, did a free trial for the ? of it and was hooked.. -
Sony probably scouring the Internets looking for their own under dog now. The only other thing I can think of is DayZ, though.
-
The Lonious Monk wrote: »What is it even about? I heard people talking about it a while back, and looked it up on Youtube. I watched a couple videos and still don't understand what the big deal is.
there's two game modes; survival and creative..
survival = surviving the minecraft world.. no world is the exact same, they all generate different landscapes, caves, mineshafts, dungeons etc..
but the overall idea is the same; mine and craft.. there's 4 biomes: jungle, desert, plains and snow..
there's monsters but they're called mobs: skeletons, which shoot u w bows, zombies, spiders, Enderman, zombie pigmen, ghasts, blazes, silverfish, creepers... there's more but that's most of them
the goal, is to survive.. u start out w nothing and work ur way to getting building materials; dirt, wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond, coal etc.. u have to start out small, wood tools only, then u can get stone, make stone tools to get iron, make iron tools to get old diamond...
there's also animals; pigs, chicken, cow, sheep.. each cab provide food, feathers, leather or wool.. which u can craft into armor, carpet, bows, or cook food to survive etc
wood and coal are the only items u can get w your bare hands..
ur limit is ur imagination.. there's no limit to what you can build.. ppl have build whole worlds, working computers, working games such as flappy bird, centipede, Tetris etc..
Creative mode is for those who are going to create actual adventure maps for others to play on. Every craftable item, including spawning animals, mobs, village ppl etc are at ur disposal.. u create any thing u want, put it into game/map form for others to play ur adventure... u can make a game within the game.. And w all these crazy mods, it makes creative a lot more crazy.
it's a simple as ? but dope game -
Oh and everybody, please don't forget the rules of this discussion.
Sony invests in Indy studio = wack
MS invests in Indy studio = best thing in the world -
Anybody investing in indie businesses is a good thing.
The thing is Microsoft is actually going to be making some money off the Playstation brand software sales pie now. Minecraft is still going to be on all platforms. Phil made a smart business move. Don Matrick wouldn't have done that. On top of that it is a new revenue stream of over $300 million and growing annually coming in to them. I think they'll make back that 2.5 billion in less than 5 years Minecraft still has room to grow in the next few years.
This is a big coup regardless Sony doesn't really have anything in comparison in terms of big investment right now. The good news is this investment could get Sony and Nintendo to wake the ? up and invest smarter from here on out. Even though I like what they're doing. It's about having more mass appeal.
To me personally this is bigger than Gears cause it caters to a wider audience. It's not some rinky dinky (by industry standards) 40 million dollar a year company. You're talking about an audience from age 4 to 64 years old word wide. Microsoft finally got themselves a "Nintendo" like IP. -
I need to create something these mindless drones will attach to
-
My mind wont let me revert back to a nintendo like game and be entertained.
-
earth two superman wrote: »It's basically like legos. Build something, monsters come, hope it survives. Repeat. I dont see the appeal in it but I understand why so many do.
Idk about the Xbox version but the PC version has bosses and stuff as well now
there's bosses for the console versions too..
PC = mod heaven, tho.. so they're able to do a ? load more... -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »What is it even about? I heard people talking about it a while back, and looked it up on Youtube. I watched a couple videos and still don't understand what the big deal is.
there's two game modes; survival and creative..
survival = surviving the minecraft world.. no world is the exact same, they all generate different landscapes, caves, mineshafts, dungeons etc..
but the overall idea is the same; mine and craft.. there's 4 biomes: jungle, desert, plains and snow..
there's monsters but they're called mobs: skeletons, which shoot u w bows, zombies, spiders, Enderman, zombie pigmen, ghasts, blazes, silverfish, creepers... there's more but that's most of them
the goal, is to survive.. u start out w nothing and work ur way to getting building materials; dirt, wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond, coal etc.. u have to start out small, wood tools only, then u can get stone, make stone tools to get iron, make iron tools to get old diamond...
there's also animals; pigs, chicken, cow, sheep.. each cab provide food, feathers, leather or wool.. which u can craft into armor, carpet, bows, or cook food to survive etc
wood and coal are the only items u can get w your bare hands..
ur limit is ur imagination.. there's no limit to what you can build.. ppl have build whole worlds, working computers, working games such as flappy bird, centipede, Tetris etc..
Creative mode is for those who are going to create actual adventure maps for others to play on. Every craftable item, including spawning animals, mobs, village ppl etc are at ur disposal.. u create any thing u want, put it into game/map form for others to play ur adventure... u can make a game within the game.. And w all these crazy mods, it makes creative a lot more crazy.
it's a simple as ? but dope game
I play on a hacked server and they be having like 1000 on at one time in the same game, you gotta travel 500 blocks before u can even start building and even then its hard because people have claimed up all the land.
They have a game on it called skyBlock that ? is fun as ? . Basically you start off on a small block in the sky with nothing but a ice cube, a tree in the middle of your land and u gotta expand the land in the sky. By completing challenges u get more building materials and it gets harder the more u complete ? is challenging but fun as hell once u finally start making progress. A lot of people eventually build ladders down to the ground or try to invade other peoples blocks once they expand far enough to see em -
I havent tried it yet but they have hunger games too, I accidentally went into the hunger games portal and got killed as soon as it dropped me out the sky, I left that ? with a quickness
-
With MS taking ownership and the Azure Cloud being what it is I hope they added dedicated servers and some sort of match making for X-1 i get keeping it on all consoles for making money but you gotta separate the home console from the rest
