[Confirmed] Microsoft buys Mojang for $2.5 billion

[davidjl123]

Discuss.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has been in advanced talks with Mojang AB, creator of Minecraft, to acquire the company for $2.5 billion dollars since before September 9, 2014.

It has agreed on September 15, 2014 to buy Mojang, with further confirmation from Owen Hill, Mojang employee.

Markus Persson (Notch) has announced that once the deal is finalized, he would leave Mojang and go back to "doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments". Carl and Jakob are also leaving.

What do you think about this billion-dollar deal? Is it good or bad for the community/company? Are you neutral? Post your thoughts!

EDIT 2: Thanks to whoever fixed the title name (billion)

 

[Lee_scar]

No. just ugh. Goodbye mac support?
All in all microsoft is gonna fucking blow it. ” for years to come” folks, the ride, it will never end. Could explain the radical eula changes.

 

[std1997]

pretty much explains my feelings.

But I think Microsoft is going to fuck a lot of things up. There's just too many things that are easy to fuck up for microsoft NOT to. I'm just hoping somehow they'll suddenly be blessed with enough brains not to mess everything up.

 

[Notme]

Yea its going to be... interesting.

I wonder how 1.9 will look now.

 

[RyanDodd]

Goodbye mac support?

If this happens, my anger will be beyond words.

 

[Willchill]

I guess that means modded servers (Bukkit) won't make an official return.

Also, only $2.5m? I would've expected a LOT more than that.
Edit: David, fix your OP.

 

[Robo]

THIS will be interesting. More things are going to be added, and they'll be useless.

 

[Notme]

I guess that means modded servers (Bukkit) won't make an official return.

Also, only $2.5m? I would've expected a LOT more than that.
Edit: David, fix your OP.

That would mean rip multiplayer.

Bukkit still gets updated.

 

[Psycho]

I doubt that Microsoft will be doing anything drastic with Minecraft this year since the deal between them will close by late 2014. They'll probably let Minecraft sit for a bit afterwards and see what the community thinks. Also, I wonder if they knew a lot about the Bukkit fiasco before they decided to jump into Minecraft? Hopefully Dinnerbone will push a 1.8 Bukkit release before the end of this year. Then again, $2.5billion is huge especially since it's the largest acquisition from Microsoft's newest CEO, Satay Nadella. He really has to prove that Minecraft was a good buy and that it'll improve sales for both Microsoft and Minecraft.

Honestly, I think this is good news, especially for Mojang, which, I think, consists of ~50 people. Maybe there will be faster and better updates if Microsoft lends a hand with their developers from the other studios that they own.

 

[DarkHender]

Not excited.

 

[SoulSoda]

It was a shocking announcement. I'm old, i've been playing the game for 4 years and i've got quite a emotional attachment to it. Its always been there for me to pick up and hide in when the outside world wasn't so great. Suddenly hearing such a big change in something that's been a big part of your life is a bit of a low blow. It's like your best friend for the past 4 years suddenly decided to move away someplace new and didn't tell you in advance.

I can't say its all bad though. Its hard for me to outline what specifically notch jeb and the founders actually did that no one else at the time could for minecraft, except for one thing. They truly got it right when they fully supported open modding(Never mind that lawyer eula nonsense). Communities grew around the concept of just freely creating, designing, and playing their own content. It was a dreamy playground for bored gamers and computer enthusiasts.

As long as the "spirit" of open world and open communities exist, I'll still play. I cannot deny that it is worrying, because microsoft has ruined good gaming developers before,, and they may try to pull some stints for profits sake. But most likely they'll just let it run itself. Mojang might even be held responsible and get some more resources so they can actually push updates ontime... like that API they've been harping about...

 

[BrickWolf]

Pre-order Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare now in order to get a free gun in Minecraft and a "potion of noscope" recipe

 

[_4_]

Minecraft is fucking done the moment Microsoft starts to get invovled.. and good job Notch way to sell out to a company you despise.. Though for 2.5B itd be hard not to

 

[JtTorso]

Considering the fact that Microsoft essentially killed RareWare, and their poor handling of the Xbox One at E3, it's no wonder people are legitimately afraid Microsoft is gonna kill Minecraft.

 

[Pikmon2]

I think it'll turn out great. Just like it did with Rare.

 

[Sploorky]

I'd personally wait till microsoft fucks up, then complain about them. Microsoft may not have a good track record, but claiming anything they touch gets destroyed, and furthermore basing assumptions on how much they will get involved in minecraft, is going a bit over the top.

Considering they've already confirmed they will still support minecraft on rival company platforms, I wouldn't worry too much right now.

 

[Zeus42000]

If this happens, my anger will be beyond words.

Same here ryan. I read Notch's reasoning, and his reasoning to sell it was well founded. His reasoning was that he just couldn't head a company (Mojang) that had such a global impact without losing his sanity. That's the reason he made the side projects. Good news for us though, most of the Mojang staff WILL continue to work at Mojang by Microsoft (Not an official name, but it sounds cool.) As for Mac Support, that shouldn't be removed as I run PowerPoint, Excel, and Word on my MacBook just fine and it might lead to an outcry saying "Buy Mojang from Microsoft Apple!" or it could say "Buy Microsoft Apple!" Both are highly unlikely, but we never know. I hope Microsoft doesn't ruin Minecraft, but only time will tell.

 

[Awwwyea]

Microsoft may not have a good track record, but claiming anything they touch gets destroyed, and furthermore basing assumptions on how much they will get involved in minecraft, is going a bit over the top.

Yes, that seat is reserved for EA.

So long as they have good ideas that will actually liven the game up, I'm down. However, there's probably going to be a lack of heart thrown into the mix, either by MS developers or pushing due dates or whatever. We'll just have to see.

 

[gettinthere]

Multiplayer is an integral part of the community (as is any). I would imagine this would create a demand for redoing the damned internal workings and hooks for the API. Halo 1 had servers, both "vanilla" and modded. But in Minecraft, the modding community is quickly losing authors left and right today. "rm rf .minecraft, MS free 20 years, why start now" It's quite silly that they fired off and decided to go to the bar and get as much pints as they can and not wait for this to blow over. There's going to be a lot of unattended mods floating about and left at 1.7.

Notch, Carl (CEO), and Jakob (Notch's best friend and co-founder?) have already left. I imagine the current team might lead a new Team in Microsoft Studios with more people coming in. This purchase is a purchase of a franchise. Nintendo's 2014 net revenue (not income, which was a loss this year) was 5.63 billion USD. Microsoft must've punched a hefty price of 2.5 billion USD for wanting a franchise.

I can't imagine distributed content being seized, that would probably hurt PR again. Minecraft on a distribution service? Who knows? All intellectual property is now owned by Microsoft. Minecraft getting turned into a husk for gameplay? Unlikely, there's still lead devs and I can imagine some new Microsoft interns want to keep the Minecraft feeling, because, you know, children.

Modding community going AWOL? (they do have a right to)
Playerbase freaking out?

I'm sure they don't want 2.5 billion to go down the sewer drain. It probably might hit the fan instead and spew money everywhere.

 

[Horrible]

lol
___

Let me expand: This will mean *nothing* for exiting Minecraft mods, servers, users, or anything like that. at least not for the next few years. Any speculation on where this will lead will create more fear and panic than the actual result of this.

Microsoft likely wants Mojang simply for the IP - for merchandise, for potential pre-loading on future windows programs, for spin-offs, for crossovers, for everything else directly related to Minecraft. The game itself will still be mostly developed by the same group, with the same schedule, and the same MO. Microsoft isn't known for buying and destroying companies, and now would be an odd time for them to start.

If anything, this is a *good* change. This could potentially give the devs a fixed schedule to meet, steps to achieve, and fixes to release. This could make minecraft a much better game overall.

 

[Edgar Harford]

Meh

 

[TheWalruz]

Heavy from tf2 says: HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?

 

[Fiestaguy]

RIP Newbie guides.

 

[BanSwift]

[quote="Willchill, post: 322265, member:]

[S|$2.5b[/S][/quote]

 

[les_morts_vivants]

Alright here is some of my thoughts about this for one it's going to start adding more toxicity to a already toxic Community ample proof we can look at various twitter post this is the best thing since Sliced bread or all this is practically Armageddon and while I don't really know nor does anyone know what's going to happen I'm more willing to bet that this going to screw up such as how they did with Past companies such as rare Digital anvil and etc.