Mojang getting greedy?

[alms]

“I don’t think the Minecraft wave is over by a long shot,” says CEO Carl Manneh, “but the market will be saturated eventually. Since Minceraft is a game you pay for once, and then always have access to no matter how many updates and changes we release, we have to look at new ways to make money in the long run.”

“This is both a way to make life easier for the players and for us to guarantee that the hosting solution is of a good quality, and in the long run generate some money through a subscription model. This service won’t be free, and it’s not unthinkable that it will be an important source of revenue going forward,” Manneh says.

http://www.mcvnordic.com/news/read/m...ting-e3/095626

[SanguineAngel]

I don't think so. The value for money on Minecraft is through the roof, especially for early adopters. Mojang's continued support presumably currently runs on a diminishing return. This is not a subscription model for the whole game. Is it not just possibly for their own servers?

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

I like Minceraft.

[ZamFear]

Why does "looking for additional sources of revenue" automatically equate to "greedy?" From the look of it, (based on terrible robo-translation of the article sourced by OP's link) they're just considering starting a subscription based server hosting service. Something like Multiplay, but Minecraft specific.

[alms]

I don't think so. The value for money on Minecraft is through the roof, especially for early adopters. Mojang's continued support presumably currently runs on a diminishing return.

They have founded a whole studio out of a single game. Diminishing returns? it's not like they have shareholders to respond to.

They have plenty of money to pay for continued development, if that keeps the game fresh and interesting, they will keep selling licenses at full price.

This is not a subscription model for the whole game. Is it not just possibly for their own servers?

I doubt they will just be another hoster, there's not much money to be made from that. We're probably talking about tigther integration and community features, so the whole MP part of the game might become sub-based.

And, they are currently working on eliminating the single player part of the game, and make it MP only (i.e. single player will be played on your own local server).

Dunno, when people start thinking about "extracting more value out of existing customers", it's never good news for us players.

@MFG they should make a game of that typo!

[SanguineAngel]

They have founded a whole studio out of a single game. Diminishing returns? it's not like they have shareholders to respond to.

They have plenty of money to pay for continued development, if that keeps the game fresh and interesting, they will keep selling licenses at full price.



I doubt they will just be another hoster, there's not much money to be made from that. We're probably talking about tigther integration and community features, so the whole MP part of the game might become sub-based.

And, they are currently working on eliminating the single player part of the game, and make it MP only (i.e. single player will be played on your own local server).

Dunno, when people start thinking about "extracting more value out of existing customers", it's never good news for us players.

@MFG they should make a game of that typo!

It's undoubtedly true that they will continue to sell games and possibly true that their continued support may prompt some of those sales. However, I'd guess that their rate of sales have peaked and number sales/time will decline. Minecraft sales will likely generate less profit next year than this etc. Seeking another revenue stream in order to justify continued support isn't really a greedy cash grab so much as business.

Regarding this sub model - i have had a quick google on the matter and it does seem as if this is to be restricted to their own official servers. 3rd Party servers will continue to run, providing their own services running their own mods etc. But they won't necessarily benefit from the Buckit API features, whatever those turn out to be. I don't see a problem with that.

Minecraft made a huge amount of money, sure but's it's well earned profit and they have reinvested a lot of that back into Mojang already. It's entirely laudable for Mojang to seek a sustainable revenue stream to support a sustainable service and continue to also also generate profits. Whilst the capital that they have already generated from Minecraft sales is sizeable, it is also finite and if they spend more of that than they continue to generate (i.e. on sales alone) that would be bad business sense. There is no reason for them to do that, not even a moral one. No one can really contest that mojang has already given more than enough to their community. That they continue to at all in this industry is pretty great as it is.

[Revisor]

A one-time payment for a recurrent service is always a bad decision on the provider's side.
Just look at this unbelievable recent story
The frequent fliers who flew too much

The CEO is making financial sense, even though it sounds ominous, especially considering the practices of large game publishers.

[Stellar Duck]

One-time payment for a recurrent service is always a bad decision on the provider's side.
Just look at this unbelievable recent story
The frequent fliers who flew too much

The CEO is making financial sense, even though it sounds ominous, especially considering the practices of large game publishers.

I don't have a lot to add. Just this: I love that the guy in the article is named Vroom. So fitting.

[Nalano]

Dunno, when people start thinking about "extracting more value out of existing customers", it's never good news for us players.

At what point did "I don't like working for free" become an intolerable conceit on the part of the producer?

Seriously, this isn't new, nor unwarranted, nor unprecedented. From hosting packages to expansion packs to subscriptions to sequels to downloadable content, this is pretty much the reason we have continued support for existing products.

[alms]

However, I'd guess that their rate of sales have peaked and number sales/time will decline. Minecraft sales will likely generate less profit next year than this etc. Seeking another revenue stream in order to justify continued support isn't really a greedy cash grab so much as business.

Every game (product) goes through the tail, it's normal. There's moves that can be done to counter that effect to an extent.

If they just launched their own hosting, well great, but it seems really unlikely they will stop there. We don't really know anything too specific ATM so I'm hoping that I'll be proven wrong - at the same time I see clues pointing the other way.

[Tei]

Its not greedy if are "yet another minecraft hosting service" and not some mandatory service that everyone is force to use.

If you can choose any service to host minecraft: GOOD, NO GREEDY.
If Notch force you to use his magical hosting service: GREEDY.

[Rii]

"People gave us money (for an unfinished game) and we used it to hire too many people so now we need more money to pay them and we will get it from those whose money we used to hire them in the first place."

TL;DR version: "Amongst all the strippers we forgot to hire an accountant."

What a rort.

[alms]

Seriously, this isn't new, nor unwarranted, nor unprecedented. From hosting packages to expansion packs to subscriptions to sequels to downloadable content, this is pretty much the reason we have continued support for existing products.

Minecraft has been sold on the promise every update would be free and included, so its continued support has been already paid for. Of course that can't go on forever, so if they feel they've done enough: let's just disregard those long stretches of time during which notch only made trivial and minor adjustments, and let's call it a day.

They can do Minecraft 2 or whatever, if I like it I'll buy - it's as simple as that.

What I wouldn't want to see is an update conceived in a way that if you want to have a decent MP experience you will be essentially forced into becoming a subscriber. It's early to say that, but I'm beginning to think that "we're not indie anymore" was not said with the best of intentions.

[SanguineAngel]

I've not seen anything to imply that this model might be forced on users by cutting 3rd party server support at all so I would be interested if you can point me in that direction as it would shed a very different light on http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-minecraft-api

As to the tail, sure it's normal. So is a lack of post release support. Minecraft reached the stage where any publisher would have kicked it out the door well before 1.0 The amount of continuous support the game has received from the dev has been unprecedented. You want that support to continue, or they want to continue giving it? That money has to be generated. As you say, "

There's moves that can be done to counter that effect to an extent." and this is one of them.

If they forced their customers into paying a subscription, that would be one thing. As far as I have read, that is not the case. In fact the sub has been raised only as a possibility. And certainly not as mandatory. It is a new service to enable Mojang to continue to fund support and earn a profit.

Seriously, this isn't new, nor unwarranted, nor unprecedented. From hosting packages to expansion packs to subscriptions to sequels to downloadable content, this is pretty much the reason we have continued support for existing products.

I don't think I've ever agreed with you more Nalano

[vinraith]

I understand where they're coming from, but I have to sort of chuckle at the notion of charging again for Minecraft. Are there really that many people that aren't done with the game? I certainly got my $15 worth and then some, but there's not much to it after a certain point, I can't imagine paying anything for it again unless they came up with an expansion that actually built a substantial survival game on top of it.

[Kadayi]

Never got into minecraft tbh. However it's understandable that they need to look for ways to generate fresh revenue, otherwise that money pot they've made will eventually disappear.

That air ticket article is fascinating stuff.

[Rii]

Never got into minecraft tbh. However it's understandable that they need to look for ways to generate fresh revenue, otherwise that money pot they've made will eventually disappear.

Gee, what was the profit margin on Minecraft again, like nine trillion percent? It was certainly orders of magnitude greater than traditional publishers enjoy, even for runaway successes like The Sims. The only reason they could have for cash flow issues is that they've gone on a wildly irresponsible spending and hiring spree largely using money earned whilst the game was in pre-release state and earmarked for its continued development, not for hiring an entire development team to work on something else entirely.

You're all mugs.

[Xercies]

The thing is they could let that tail drop off make a few updates to Minecraft and be done with it and people will be happy(sure some might grumble but they will be in the minority) People will feel they had a good deal and they could be onto the next game from them. Why do they need to have this subscription service again?

[Nalano]

Minecraft has been sold on the promise every update would be free and included, so its continued support has been already paid for.

And this didn't ring big red warning klaxons in your head?

It's an infinite contract bought with finite money. It's on its very head patently untenable. It could have failed in many ways, and while it may not have failed in the way you wanted - sequels, etc - its failure was inevitable. Nothing about this guy implies that he has any background in business, so the fact that you're ragging on him for being bad at it seems harsh.

[deano2099]

It's undoubtedly true that they will continue to sell games and possibly true that their continued support may prompt some of those sales. However, I'd guess that their rate of sales have peaked and number sales/time will decline. Minecraft sales will likely generate less profit next year than this etc.

Well the issue seems to be that it sold well beyond anyone's widest expectations, so the promised post-release support is seemingly expected to be beyond anyone's wildest expectations. That's unrealistic, but there is something more subtle going on here:

As to the tail, sure it's normal. So is a lack of post release support. Minecraft reached the stage where any publisher would have kicked it out the door well before 1.0

Did it? There's plenty of indie games that live in beta for years with new stuff slowly added all the time. You keep adding stuff because every time you do a major update, the fans get excited, you get press coverage, word of mouth and as a result you get more sales. Minecraft peaked relatively early, and in a big way, and that does seem to have been a bit detrimental to the development. As they say, it's reached saturation point, there's no longer a point in updates as they won't drive sales. For a PC indie game to reach that saturation point is virtually unheard of (short of being bundled all over the place) so it's an odd situation. Had Minecraft just continued to sell moderately well, it's possible the support would have continued for a while longer.

Flip side being there'd be less money/resources to put into that support, so progress would be slower.
It's an odd one for sure but I don't think it's as straight-forward as anyone thinks