Mojang in talks with Microsoft for 2 billion dollar sale

[Dodgey]

They'll probably abandon the PC version completely in a sick attempt to further boost X-box sales.

Not according to their official statement.

Microsoft plans to continue to make “Minecraft†available across all the platforms on which it is available today: PC, iOS, Android, Xbox and PlayStation.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/sept14/09-15news.aspx

Besides that doesn't make any sense unless they were planning on dropping it from both the IOS and PlayStation market as well, which makes even less sense as they would be giving up market share. A very large market share.

I mean honestly, what real harm could Microsoft do to Minecraft without also harming themselves. Who knows, they could even make it better *cough* modding API *cough*

[Nibb31]

Minecraft is way past it's peak potential. Those who would have bought the game already have it and it's old by gaming standards. No way can Microsoft milk another $2.5 billion out of the franchise at this stage, unless they go for a "Minecraft 2", which will probably be a flop.

These megadeals in the computer industry really make me cringe. It's similar to the Facebook -Whatsapp deal from last year. They paid $6.5 billion for a 20-person startup with no viable business model. That is more than the valuation of real companies like Alsthom or Thales, which have an industrial base, patents, assets, customers, high-tech products, and a highly-qualified workforce of thousands of people... It's totally crazy!

[Red Iron Crown]

Has this not been posted yet? The future of Minecraft:

[lajoswinkler]

I've just heard about it from boogie2988.

I'm not sure what to say.

[Nori]

If what happened to skype after the purchase is any indication, I'd say it will ultimately be bad for the game. Very bad.

Ah, and they just might try rewriting it in c#. That'd be awful, but hilarious.

Eh, I felt like Skype was on a downward trend way before MS bought them.

The game's peaked anyway. There's no way there's enough life left in it to recoup that much money.

Lets say that you are correct in that is has peaked. There is still the possibility of Minecraft 2, Minecraft merchandise and any other Minecraft themed products. Minecraft has become a big name and big names game be leveraged for sales.

Anywho, I'm on the fence on whether this would be a good thing or not. Minecraft lives on in large part because of it's plethora of mods, but MS hasn't ever really been mod friendly in the past. So I guess that would be my main concern.

But hey, at least it isn't EA...

[megatiger78]

But hey, at least it isn't EA...

yeah I guess. this is still the Mayan apocalypse showing up 2 years late though

[Starwhip]

Just think of the possibilities Microsoft now has: They can receive money from close to every OS now.

I don't really care as long as they keep the previous updates playable like they are now. Add whatever you want, but don't overwrite the past.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I think it's quite RARE for companies to be ruined by Microsoft.

(Lel puns)

Rare was a video game company in the 1990s and 2000 that where brought by Microsoft in 2001 IIRC, since then they've realised nothing close to the quality of their original titles

Seriously though, I only really use minecraft to build redstone computers, but I can see how Microsoft could ruin everything, no actually, I can see how Microsoft WILL ruin everything. (By not listing to the community, concentrating on money, no PC or PS3/4 realises, Xbox one exclusive, more money. Did I mention money, because Microsoft like money)

[Owen5595]

I don't think we'll see many changes

[Brethern]

Eh, I felt like Skype was on a downward trend way before MS bought them.

Lets say that you are correct in that is has peaked. There is still the possibility of Minecraft 2, Minecraft merchandise and any other Minecraft themed products. Minecraft has become a big name and big names game be leveraged for sales.

Anywho, I'm on the fence on whether this would be a good thing or not. Minecraft lives on in large part because of it's plethora of mods, but MS hasn't ever really been mod friendly in the past. So I guess that would be my main concern.

But hey, at least it isn't EA...

Actually the modding community of MC is a small percentage of the play base.

The main bread and butter of MC is the squeakers the ones unable to grasp that MC has limited replay value and will gladly accept anything mojang did because it was mojang doing it.

As it stands there's a good chance of youtuber's who depend on their videos for money reducing the amount of minecraft videos they make due to Microsoft's policy on monetizing videos of their games, worst case scenario means they give up on MC all together and lose a major percentage of their viewers, die hard minecraft fan boys are extremely loyal to their game and will refuse to watch content no matter the quality of other games.

So yeah this is a good time to download as many mods as you can find and keep a few back up copies of minecraft that can run it, just in case things hit the fan.

[bsalis]

Minecraft is way past it's peak potential. Those who would have bought the game already have it and it's old by gaming standards.

IMO the game has become the digital equivalent of Lego. Neither Lego or Minecraft have peaked. The appeal is timeless.

[FishInferno]

IMO the game has become the digital equivalent of Lego. Neither Lego or Minecraft have peaked. The appeal is timeless.

This. all of this.

[ProjectXMark1]

I would very much agree that Microsoft, unlike EA, has business sense; look at Halo, they haven't messed that up.

[cesarcurado]

It has been long since I played minecraft, but why do people think Microsoft will ruin it?

Give them a chance. They may be big but that doesn't make them bad.

Microsoft actually listens a lot to the consumers, look at the Xbox One and Windows 8 (and upcoming "9").

[Kryten]

If Microsoft listened to their customers, they wouldn't have made the mistakes with windows 8 or xbone in the first place. They listened to sales/pre-order figures.

[cesarcurado]

If Microsoft listened to their customers, they wouldn't have made the mistakes with windows 8 or xbone in the first place. They listened to sales/pre-order figures.

That still doesn't prove they didn't listen to the costumers.

People complained and they changed.

Now if they don't change people complain. If they do, people complain. I don't get it.

And of course they are going to seek profit, that's just what companies do in capitalism.

[Brethern]

I would very much agree that Microsoft, unlike EA, has business sense; look at Halo, they haven't messed that up.

That's up for debate. Halo 2 and 3 were a great multiplayer experience that people played for years. In fact people would still be playing halo 2 online if the servers weren't taken down.

Reach and Halo 4 are a different story the online population isn't what it once was in the other games.

Thought that being said the master chief collection is going to change allot of peoples opinions.

[Special Agent Sigvan]

That's up for debate. Halo 2 and 3 were a great multiplayer experience that people played for years. In fact people would still be playing halo 2 online if the servers weren't taken down.

Reach and Halo 4 are a different story the online population isn't what it once was in the other games.

Reach is still alive, and to be honest people ARE playing Halo 2 using weird hackery.

But I don't think Microsoft ruined the series, Halo is a hard thing to ruin.

[megatiger78]

guys the future of minecraft is on film:

[Tacotown99]

halo reach is when multiplayer went dead for me I hate the damned class sytemes that games have now. I play halo 2 PC still and have much more fun then I do and probably ever will on halo 4 muti but the have yet to ruin campain

[Deadpangod3]

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

...the end times have come.

o7

R.I.P.

Minecraft.

[Dodgey]

But why? Microsoft isn't stupid, they know not to screw with minecraft because they will lose the community. Why is it such as bad thing.

[pxi]

IMO it's not specifically that it's Microsoft, it's that $bigevilcorp bought out $littleguy.

It'd be the same if it were Google or Facebook, or just about any other corporation.

But I do suggest looking into the history of Microsoft. They've had their fair share of stupid moments. If you go far enough back, you'll reach a point where people would find exploits in Microsoft products, notify MS, and instead of patching the problem, the response was basically, 'well it's not supposed to do that, but you're not supposed to use it that way either, so no patch'.

They also used to harp on about NT having a military C1 security rating. I looked into it. Basically it said that the OS was secure as long as the computer was in a locked room, not connected to a network, and password protected. Which is, admittedly, secure - just not very useful.

And then Steve Balmer.

[Dodgey]

"Little guy". Honestly Mojang wasn't exactly the typical little guy and Microsoft isn't a big evil corporation. If it was EA we were talking about then I would agree with you. Besides if I remember correctly Marcus approached Microsoft not the other way around. I'll confirm when I'm on something a bit bigger than my phone.

[pxi]

"Little guy". Honestly Mojang wasn't exactly the typical little guy and Microsoft isn't a big evil corporation. If it was EA we were talking about then I would agree with you. Besides if I remember correctly Marcus approached Microsoft not the other way around. I'll confirm when I'm on something a bit bigger than my phone.

I strongly suggest you learn more about how Microsoft have run their business in the past.