This whole situation just makes me feel a bit sorry for Zachary Barth for having come up with most of MineCraft in the form of Infiniminer without (to my knowledge) having gained enough money to buy his own country. Not that I begrudge Notch his success, but shoulders of giants and all that.
Edit: unless Microsoft is after those sweet, sweet Scrolls dollars, of course.
Once you start hiring people your whole attitude changes. Youre not just fucking about with your life anymore.. youre fucking about with other peoples lives and the lives of their families. You cant just sell out and fuck everyone over. Companies like Blitz that go bust, dont pay people what they were owed, let 175 staff go, then started up under another name almost straight away. Those are the guys you dont want to be. I am sure more than the top guys at Mojang became very financially rich due to this deal and thats something that should be admired not seen as a bad thing.
Whether or not Minecraft itself is fucked because its owned by Microsoft is debatable. Im sure Microsoft didnt just buy it because theyre struggling desperately to stay relevant and some of their kids play it a lot. But even if they did it really isnt in their favour to pay a shitload of money for it and then completely fuck it up. That wouldnt make any sense. Time will be the judge on that, I guess.
Long story short. Id have done the same thing. The money is enough to very much take care of all the staff. The game is in relatively safe hands. Mojangs legacy is as a huge success story instead of a one hit wonder. Everyone wins. Can you seriously say youd have done it differently?
more coverage and discussion of Garry's Mod developer Garry Newman's Blog enty @ Gamasutra as well:
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Edit: unless Microsoft is after those sweet, sweet Scrolls dollars, of course.
The world is full of first offs that we never hear about.
supposedly garnering some media attention:
http://garry.tv/2014/09/15/selling-out/
more coverage and discussion of Garry's Mod developer Garry Newman's Blog enty @ Gamasutra as well:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/225821/Rust_creator_Notch_isnt_a_sellout_hes_a_smart_studio_head.php