What is key for the future of Mojang is what game they make next. They can't really make a COD clone as that market is saturated already. Maybe a strategy game or RPG, anything that would sell well. I really do think they need a second profitable game, or even IP to sustain the company, and I don't think, imo, Scrolls or 0x10c, will cut it.
I stand corrected.Originally Posted by Mistabashi
I do see they have just hired four extra staff members though.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, it was a bit confusing in the OP's link so I did some googling.
http://www.geekosystem.com/bukkit-team-joins-mojang/
"The main Bukkit team,Warren Loo,Erik Broes,Nathan Adams, andNathan Gilbert will now begin working on “improving both the server and the client to offer better official support for larger servers and server modifications,” according to the Mojang blog post announcing the new partnership. In the meantime, Bukkit will be updated for the upcoming 1.2 release of Minecraft, the idea being that by the time 1.3 rolls around, the vanilla implementation of Bukkit functionality should be sufficient."
Yeah, the Bukkit team have been working with Mojang for a while now. It doesn't have anything to do with subscriptions though - they're just working on bringing the sorts of improvements Bukkit had into Minecraft (as well as working on a mod API).
Yeah, Blizzard and Valve are such morons for supporting Starcraft and Counter-Strike as they did, they must be paupers at this point, the laughing stock of the gaming industry. Clearly they should be taking hints from Electronic "no sustained income, no sustained service" Arts.
Wait, what? You mean to tell me that Blizzard and Valve are two of the most respected names in the industry and that EA sees red more often than it sees black? But that's unpossible! That would mean that being a money-grubbing cunt isn't all its cracked up to be!
Well I guess that for the 'treat customers well and thereby earn their loyalty' approach to work you have to have a wildly popular game on your hands with enormous profit margins such that you can absorb the limited ongoing costs whilst working on your next game... haha, good luck there Notch!
Last edited by Rii; 10-05-2012 at 09:28 PM.
I'd put money on Scrolls ultimately being a 'failure' in that most people won't like it and it won't have the extensive palyerbase that Minecraft has... probably because it looks absolutely ridiculous and appears to have a tiny target market at best. 0x10c on the other hand could definitely be a runaway success if it was done right. Space games are making a bit of a come-back lately, and a freeform game where your build your own ship and explore and fight and stuff like that could be really freakin' awesome. I keep imagining it sort of like a modern Noctis except with more stuff, which would be awesome!
Or he could focus too much on the on-board computer and release a mess. Or he could do what he did with Minecraft and entirely forget that "survival" mode should actually have some element of danger.
Do you mean Valve who have the sustained income generated from Steam? And Blizzard who have sustained income generated from World of Warcraft? And, of course, EA who have sustained income from a steady supply, as Nalano says, of franchises that they can comfortably milk every year, as well as the DLC & expansions that they all pump out to some degree.
So yeah, Valve and Blizzard can afford to budget on-going support for their products because they can be confident of generating the income to support that and they know that the good will they generate will ultimately likely increase the customer base for those other revenue streams. Besides, heck, just like Mojang I am willing to bet that the devs there are passionate about their games and want to support them. But they still have to justify that expense financially.
Not to mention that both Starcraft and Counter-Strike are a continuous source of income, with all the tournaments around em...
You are aware that Starcraft was released six years before World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike about six years before Steam started making any money, yes?
That doesn't even make sense. Those are profits that should be reinvested, sez you. Using profits from The Sims to run the BF3 servers is socialism. TWO GAME ENTER. ONE GAME LEAVE.And, of course, EA who have sustained income from a steady supply, as Nalano says, of franchises that they can comfortably milk every year, as well as the DLC & expansions that they all pump out to some degree.
Last edited by Rii; 11-05-2012 at 10:23 AM.
Im just glad Notch didnt retire from work life, forever. He could have, you know.
- Tom De Roeck.
monochrom & verse publications
"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."
No, instead he decided to hire the population of Switzerland and now needs "sustained income". Someone made an analogy earlier (or possibly in another thread) with Introversion's fortunes, and yeah it's similar. Except that Notch rose ten times as high and got ten times as stupid. Oh, and the part where the community actually funded the development of the game that propelled him to stardom and which he now wants to bleed for sub fees. That part is different too.
Last edited by Rii; 11-05-2012 at 10:38 AM.
...
You're a bit one track minded.
- Tom De Roeck.
monochrom & verse publications
"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."
Yeah, sorry. Just tired and tired of being baited. Get stabby when that happens, s'how usually get banned. I go now.
Now then, I am on shaky ground here but from what I can tell the following is the case:
Starcraft was supported by expansion packs and a pro-gaming scene which picked up the game rapidly and used blizzard’s own Battle.net. I expect that this success is partly what not only enabled but also prompted Blizzard’s own lengthy support of that title.
Counter-strike proper (1.6) was released alongside Steam, so Valve clearly anticipated a revenue stream from steam to be able to support their development and support. In fairness, I am not sure if 1.6 is when they first started selling it, rather than it just being a mod. But either way, as far as I know, 1.6 is the final "release" version.
Regardless, it is common sense that both companies expected to continue making enough money to fund their continued support & continue to make a profit.
Yes, indeed those profits are being re-invested. Into a variety of things such as new games, DLC development, public relations: all the these things are invested in with the aim to make more money. It doesn't matter whether money from the sims supports BF3 development. What matters is that money is coming in from as long as it comes from somewhere to balance costs and increase profits.
What you are saying is that notch should take his one off profits, and instead of re-investing them into further profit generating projects such as setting up his company, creating new games & supporting other developers (where I am sure he expects to see a healthy return on his investment, even as I have absolutely no doubt his intentions are honourably to help those smaller companies) and providing this new multiplayer server service, you think he should take those profits and just continue updating minecraft FOC for diminishing returns. That way, he just continues to spend money whilst his less comes in, and his profit margin goes down not up.
He might well have been able to do that if he stayed in him bedroom as a one man team. But he chose instead to set up his company. That means his costs go up - he has people to pay and projects to fund. He can't afford to stagnate.
Edit: I'm not trying to bait you, Rii. I am sorry if you feel that way. I have consciously not been overly snarky or sarcastic. I would like to think that I have simply responded to your points with my own reasoning. I simply disagree with your point of view, and am discussing it with you, possibly with the intent of changing your mind.
Last edited by SanguineAngel; 11-05-2012 at 11:16 AM.
Sorry didn't see this earlier. There's actually still some ambiguity I agree but the impression I get from the quotes from Bukkit dotted around the web was that they were specifically talking about official Minecraft servers.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-minecraft-api
But I admit I am basically adding this impression to the link in the OP and hopefully coming out with 2 + 2 = 4 but I could be mistaken
Isn't the gaming industry better off when companies like Mojang emerge? Like a new generation of middle-tier game studios (since the last generation of such companies was crushed under their own weight). Isn't it good that companies like that can emerge again and produce mid-budget niche games? A few years ago it looked as though the industry was moving toward The Big Guys and the tiny guys. No more Midway-style 'medium' games. HUGE BUDGET (innovation-squashing risks) or tiny budget (more difficult to meet ambitious goals). Mojang was set up by game developers who focus on community rather than pinball machine makers. It's a good thing.
The outrage is downright baffling to me.
What it means by "official Minecraft server" is the actual server software that you run in order to create a Minecraft server (minecraft_server.jar). It has nothing to do with Mojang running servers themselves.
Bukkit is a modified version of the default server software that adds a lot of functionality for server admins, as well as an API that allows modders to make "plug-ins" (eg you can run mods in multi-player). This has been around for ages and most well established servers use it because the vanilla Minecraft server lacks a lot of functionality.
The article you linked is just announcing that Mojang hired the team who developed Bukkit to work on improving the vanilla Minecraft server software in a similar way (although actually they're basically starting from scratch using what they learned from developing Bukkit).
Yeah, clearly I am showing my ignorance here. I was just looking at the OP's link, and the information I could find elsewhere to come to the assumption that they were still talking minecraft in the OP, IE adding functionality to the vanilla Minecraft servers and then possibly (they only said possibility in the OP anyway) charging a sub to use it.
Although I would like to thank you because your explanation was far far clearer to me than any of the articles I was looking at as to how that worked - not having made use of Minecraft servers myself, beyond logging into the RPS now and then.
Come on, you know better than that, EA can always do one better by not paying for Battlefield 3 servers at all anymore: http://www.1up.com/news/battlefield-3-official-servers-gone
Oh, also apparently Minecraft on the Xbox360 broke all XBLA records, turned profitable within an hour and gained 400.000 sales within the first 24 hours. But however shall Notch and his company manage to eat this month?
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/10/minecraft-xbla-was-profitable-within-an-hour/
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