WSJ: ''Mojang to be bought by Microsoft'

Molemitts said:
You mean a Lego Minecraft video game? lol. That sounds a bit redundant. Although, I remember hearing there is gonna be a Minecraft movie, by the guys who worked on The Lego Movie, (don't quote me on that) a Lego Game could be based off of that.
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Well, I suggested LEGO Minecraft as a joke too and look how that turned out..
 
BlackBuzzard said:
Rare 2.0 waiting to happen.
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This has been said a couple if times but's much different. Rare may have gone downhill but they were a studio with a track record and they've made some solid games for MS. Let's be clear here, MS would be buying an IP moreso than a studio. They're after one game. Mojang will likely never ship another game again, and certainly any successful game they make will be 1/100 as successful as Minecraft.

The question in this comparison is whether buying one HUGE hit game with long staying power will make more money for MS in the long run than a large talented studio like Rare. In this case, it just might.
 
Sotha_Sil said:
They likely don't care about Mojang itself, it's Minecraft they are after. I've never played the game myself, but I imagine they can make tons of money by selling little add-on packs and merchandising. Then an inevitable sequel.
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I think part of why Minecraft is successful, is the free updates/content no DLC and the low price, take that away and i think the brand will die very fast.
 
This seems like a fake rumor to me for many reasons.

1) Notch/Mojang have repeatedly declared to not give in to offers like this
2) Notch was incredibly upset about FB buying Oculus for the same amount. The situation might be a bit different but it makes him seem like a bit too much of a hypocrite, and he is still indirectly in control of Mojang even though he isn't officially with the company anymore.
3) That amount of money is ridiculous. It's not batshit insane enough to actually convince Notch/Mojang of selling out, and it is too high for an IP with such an uncertain future. There is no way of realistically knowing if this is the new Mario of the gaming world or if kids will eventually grow tired of it, especially since it is not an easy franchise to capitalize on by milking the IP with new releases (like Angry Birds, for example). It has proven it is no fad, but that still doesn't guarantee future success. The risk of buying in at this moment is extreme.
4) Every sane person knows that Mojang is highly unlikely to catch lightning in a bottle twice unless they prove they are talented enough to actually release at least ONE other successful game (Spoiler alert: Scrolls won't be it).
5) Minecraft is already on every PS platform, if they really wanted to make this deal Microsoft would've done it when Minecraft was still 360 exclusive.

But regardless of whether this is real or not: Holy shit Minecraft is HUGE. Everytime I think about it my brain just can't comprehend how this fun little indie-game ever got to be the next biggest thing to GTA V this generation. It's insane. Utterly. Insane.
 
I doubt notch would sell Mojang since he is already making bank and he doesnt do anything anymore. If he sold im sure their would be a clause that he would have to stay on for a year or two which would make him have to actually work and do promoting. I think he likes being his own boss and doing what he wants, once he sells out he really has nothing anymore (other than money). I doubt he could go on his own, start a new studio and recreate the success he had with minecraft.
 
chubigans said:
"MS announces Minecraft 2 by Black Tusk Studios, previous game on hiatus."
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kekeke

BKLorenzo said:
$2 billions are 5 millions xbone at 399$. Just saying
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Imagine how many games this could have funded (and I mean fund development, not fund exclusivity)


outunderthestars said:
Not for MS. They spent over a billion dollars on the Kin:

ms-kin-1.jpg


And killed it 48 days after launch.
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I've never even seen this thing or heard of it:p


OT: this thread is moving so fast

Seems weird to me that notch would sell out, he's a frigging billionaire he can't spend the money he has in his lifetime.

At 2 billion dollars this reeks of another KING or zynga style bubble fueled by speculation and greed.
There is no guarantee or even any reason to suspect that any future game by mojang will be as popular as minecraft. Minecraft fills a niche that wasn't filled before, it is a cheap and creative version of legos which makes it a popular gift for children, , it has a thriving community due to mod support.
It was also a total fluke for notch, he had no idea that there would be such a demand for this game.

Why would he or his studio know about any other untapped market to fill with their sequel.

They can't even put them to work on kinect games what are they going to do with them? (rip rare:p)
 
moai said:
minecraft is like crack for my 10 year old nephew, you could add a hat to the creeper called it minecraft 2 and he will be there day one. personally i dont understand, but im old.
it's scary.
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What kid wouldn't want to play what is basically Lego: Reality? That IS crack for any kid with an imagination.
 
protomouse said:
Who says it doesn't? They have a lot more going against them, but I don't think these kinds of things are part of it. The 360 was successful, the Xbox One not so much compared to the competition thus far. It has more to do with how they've launched the console than anything else.
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From a purely business perspective, do we have numbers that show that the 360 was successful? It seems like the invested billions, took a 1.1 billion dollar charge as part of the red ring issue, and still ended up in last place.
 
Respect would be in the toilet for Notch if this occurred. After his weird tweets about Oculus, and the freedom he supposedly always wanted for Mojang, tying them to the most 'studio destructive' of the console makers would be unmatchable hypocrisy.
 
King_Moc said:
They hit lightning in a bottle once and suddenly they're 'worth' 2 billion? Yeah, there's no way this ends well for Microsoft.
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Is this the peak of mega-corporations overvaluing small companies?

We should measure all these ludicrous investments in "Destiny's" (equivalent to $500 million USD). I personally don't think Mojang is worth 4 Destiny's. It's actually entirely likely that over there lifetime they haven't drawn in too much more (or even near) than a single Destiny of revenue over their lifespan as a company if Wikipedia numbers are any kind of accurate.

2.069 billion SEK in revenue ≈ .584 Destiny's.

It's a hard to believe rumour just from a numbers standpoint. And the Mojang brand clearly isn't worth that much, see Scrolls.
 
Pie and Beans said:
Respect would be in the toilet for Notch if this occurred. After his weird tweets about Oculus, and the freedom he supposedly always wanted for Mojang, tying them to the most 'studio destructive' of the console makers would be unmatchable hypocrisy.
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This is the thing that makes this rumour sound so odd.
 
RadarScope1 said:
This has been said a couple if times but's much different. Rare may have gone downhill but they were a studio with a track record and they've made some solid games for MS. Let's be clear here, MS would be buying an IP moreso than a studio. They're after one game. Mojang will likely never ship another game again, and certainly any successful game they make will be 1/100 as successful as Minecraft.

The question in this comparison is whether buying one HUGE hit game with long staying power will make more money for MS in the long run than a large talented studio like Rare. In this case, it just might.
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Bingo.

Is Minecraft worth a $2B franchise? That's 2B after they buy them, not the 10s of millions they've sold so far.

Is it worth nearly half of Marvel/Star Wars?

I'm leaning heavily towards no...
 
Pie and Beans said:
Respect would be in the toilet for Notch if this occurred. After his weird tweets about Oculus, and the freedom he supposedly always wanted for Mojang, tying them to the most 'studio destructive' of the console makers would be unmatchable hypocrisy.
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People say stuff like this as if they know what it's like to be offered $2 billion. You and I can't even understand what that feels like.
 
theSlacker said:
Are you being purposely dense? GTAV was just referenced because of how much it cost to make and used as a reference to just how much money 2 billion is to games development.
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That's cool bro. But guess what? MS isn't interested in buying 14 new studios. Remember when they bought one studio.. RARE.. and everyone and their sister cries that they ruined it?

Lol... I'm very amused that people think Minecraft has hit the wall, and that a part 2 wouldn't be huge. Very amused.
 
Amir0x said:
Me too.

My thought would be

"Hey, I love making unique games!"
"Here's 2 billion dollars for your company and your last unique game franchise!"
"Wow, amazing! I will now open a new game studio and start developing a new unique game series! I will offer positions to some of my old pals at Mojang if they like!"
"Ok..."
"Now I am two billion dollars richer AND I am still making unique games! Hurray!"
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There is almost certainly a non-compete clause specifically to avoid this kind of scenario.

I know Minecraft is a huge franchise, but I just don't see how this becomes profitable. Besides, wasn't that the brainchild of Notch essentially? What other games does Mojang have down the pipeline, a card-based tactical RPG and a sidescroller?
 
Also, even though minecraft is insanely popular, I doubt it has actually made $2bn in revenue - never mind profit (although on PC almost all of it is profit). Don't know how much money the merchandise makes (did see a super cute plush spider in GAME today)
 
Pie and Beans said:
Respect would be in the toilet for Notch if this occurred. After his weird tweets about Oculus, and the freedom he supposedly always wanted for Mojang, tying them to the most 'studio destructive' of the console makers would be unmatchable hypocrisy.
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I would have no problem continuing to respect the man.
for a small annual fee
 
Totally random thought without any evidence to go by, but Minecraft VR for Morpheus would be a highly probable Morpheus/PS4 seller which would also incidentally seriously dampen Xbone sales. Microsoft could be playing defense and keeping Minecraft off of Morpheus. And they'd also be able to have Minecraft for their own VR solution if they're secretly working on one. Basically a huge counterpunch to a blow that would have nearly knocked Xbone out. Think about it. How huge a threat would Minecraft VR be to Xbone if it was console exclusive to PS4/Morpheus?
 
Loch Doun said:
The updates and support for Minecraft PS3 & PS4 will surely stop.
Also Microsoft would probably get a chunk of any sales on a Sony platform, like when Rare made Nintendo games under Microsoft.
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4J are responsible for console minecraft updates, not Mojang.
 
George Claw M.D. said:
Totally random thought without any evidence to go by, but Minecraft VR for Morpheus would be a highly probable Morpheus/PS4 seller which would also incidentally seriously dampen Xbone sales. Microsoft could be playing defense and keeping Minecraft off of Morpheus. And they'd also be able to have Minecraft for their own VR solution if they're secretly working on one. Basically a huge counterpunch to a blow that would have nearly knocked Xbone out. Think about it. How huge a threat would Minecraft VR be to Xbone if it was console exclusive to PS4/Morpheus?
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Little kids can't use vR/3d. Minecraft is huge with kids. In our house we have one GTA customer, but three Minecraft fans.

You're thinking too small if you are looking at this as PlayStation vs Xbox.
 
wcoreysmith said:
What is their plan to recoup their costs? Sell everyone Minecraft again? Because Mojang ain't going to be putting out any other games of note. Basically, get the rights to the Minecraft name and milk that to death. Minecraft 2, and even more merchandise.
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Minecraft 2 and Minecraft: The Movie would probably easily make up the cost.
 
timetokill said:
Eh, it'll be multiple years, or include a multi-year non-compete clause, or both.

I'm not saying he can't bide his time. I'd jump on this deal in a heartbeat if I were him.
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Most of the deals tend to be for a year or two. That's plenty of time for him to secretly develop a concept while he waits to be released. He don't gotta tell Microsoft's he's working on a concept from the comfort of his newly purchased palatial mansion! ;)

protomouse said:
Your last few posts seem to have drifted into "Microsoft's only play is to fuck with everyone else" territory. I think you ended up concluding the real scenario though: it's not a bad business strategy.
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They're not mutually exclusive. Microsoft's strategy IS to fuck Sony at any cost. To me, it makes a lot of sense why they continue to receive so much ire from gaming. That much is clear at this point. They view taking games out of Sony or Nintendo's console is the way to victory, versus cultivating their own first party studios and making their own hits.

But it's ALSO a good business strategy. If I were Microsoft, I could definitely see the intelligence behind it. Points people make frequently have a lot more nuance than people like giving them credit for. There's multifaceted aspects to people's viewpoints ;)


protomouse said:
In a time where games are incredibly expensive to make (and where the name on the box often matters more than what the game contains), buying or securing exclusivity deals for already successful IP is not a bad business strategy. Some people may carry "scorn" over such practices, but I doubt they are anything but the isolated minority that cares enough about how these deals go down. The average person probably isn't going to know or care. In the end it's just business conducts, so I can't find a reason for me to either boo or cheer them on. It goes without saying, of course, that these companies aren't in it to win the hearts of the isolated minority, but the wallets of the masses.

Even if Microsoft spent these supposed 2 billion on creating their own Minecraft, it still wouldn't become the next Minecraft.
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Everything's an isolated minority right up until they keep looking at the market and continue to see the result of scorned gamers.

Some things are overblown, and again I think this is smart business and if I were them I'd pursue it. But at this point it is a little hard to be endeared to them as a gamer. I'm against, for example, Sony's exclusive DLC deal with Destiny. I'm against timed exclusivity periods. And I'm against shit like this, which servers simply to diminish gamers access to a franchise they have traditionally had access to everywhere (save Nintendo's console, but I'm sure that'd eventually come once the stars aligned if this deal was not made).

I'm an equal opportunity critic. The issue simply is Microsoft does this shit much more than their competitors, and it understandably angers many of the fans. Many consumers cannot purchase multiple consoles, these are expensive items. It's one thing to do it for a new franchise which you're investing in and which has no history elsewhere. For me, it's another when you start inhibiting access for series that are on legions of platforms and people have grown to expect that sort of access.

Again, nuanced viewpoint. You can see me criticizing Sony's Destiny year DLC exclusivity for another example of my perspective on this.

All of this is independent from whether I evaluate something is a good business deal or not. I can acknowledge I think this is a good business deal while simultaneously thinking it's a net negative for gamers.

King Tubby said:
There is almost certainly a non-compete clause specifically to avoid this kind of scenario.
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There's no way Notch would sign something that would prevent him from permanently making any more games. It'd be more like a traditional clause, something like he can't make anything for a year or two after the deal is signed.

That's the only possible thing that would shock me - if Notch signed some deal that took him out of game development forever. From everything I've read and heard from Notch, that's not the type of guy he is. Notch enjoys making games.
 
Microsoft stays buying shit for an easy way out when they should be building up their own first party studios for the future.

Minecraft is a fad and the developer itself is worthless. 2 billion fucking dollars. Imagine all the things that could be accomplished with that money.
 
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