Microsoft buys Minecraft

[OldBloke]

I have no idea how this will pan out but the founders (Notch, Carl & Jakob) will be leaving the company.

https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/

[TeaLeaf]

How much money was the company bought for?
Microsoft acquired Mojang for a smooth 2.5 BILLION dollars.

Yeah, I'd sell for that too.

[Tutonic]

Literally all the money.

[smilodon]

I have the immediate worry that Microsoft will dump any idea of retaining the minecraft community spirit, private server support and modding community that is part of this game. Everything that made Minecraft what it is is utterly alien to the Microsoft mindset. The only growth the game can get in it's current form is new players and that would mainly be kids getting old enough to play it. Everyone else already has the game. My guess is that Microsoft are already thinking about fun new ways to get (make) existing owners pay money to continue playing a game they already own

Yet across the gulf of the internet, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this game with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

[Sparko]

Yep queue the in game purchasing

That's the only way I can think that Microsoft will gain anything from this purchase. I also feel a bit sorry for the 3rd party developers that create add ons as I'm sure they won't be able to develop bespoke material once Microsoft get their mitts on it...

[Gone_Away]

I'm sure the developers won't be able to sleep at night..

[Jamin]

..they'll be too busy partying.

[Chaosphere]

Yep queue the in game purchasing

That's the only way I can think that Microsoft will gain anything from this purchase. I also feel a bit sorry for the 3rd party developers that create add ons as I'm sure they won't be able to develop bespoke material once Microsoft get their mitts on it...

Could be advertising, or to simply slap out add-ons on sequels that are Microsoft-console exclusives. Even if a 'Minecraft 2' was... stupid... it would sell a boatload without much effort on Microsoft's part. I'm sure they will try to sell something, just no clue what right now. Hope it doesn't take anything away from the experience as it stands, at least. I like Minecraft as it is now.

[Gandalf]

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2774[/ATTACH]

[smilodon]

I'm guessing they want this for mobile. Microsoft are getting butchered by Android and Apple in the mobile space. If they continue to fail so comprehensively in mobile they will be in serious trouble. At the moment they have absolutely nothing to encourage the next generation of mobile phone and tablet owners to buy their product. Leaving minecraft on Xbox and PC but killing it on any mobile platform other than their own seems the smart move. I assume they hope kids will adopt Windows Mobile just to be able to play Minecraft and sync their progress, maps and everything else between their Surface Tablet, Desktop, Xbox and Nokia Lumia phone.

[Chaosphere]

sync their progress, maps and everything else between their Surface Tablet, Desktop, Xbox and Nokia Lumia phone.

Whatever one's feelings on MS, there is such potential within their 'ecosystem' for things like this to take off and work fantastically. Sony have started to venture into it with things like XPlay on PS3/4 and PS Vita, and now the Sony Phones too... I love the idea of having all my games / apps synced over all devices (tablet, phone, PC, game console, and whatever else!).

MS have said they won't change support for current iterations of minecraft and will continue the release of the Vita version too, so to be fair that is a better than expected start.