Possible $2B Minecraft exit

[splok]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101975715

I'm a bit skeptical, but pretty amazing if so. However, is it possibly undervalued? $250M revenue in 2012, and $325M in 2013... That's some pretty incredible revenue numbers to be putting up when some other, similarly valued acquisitions, have basically no revenue.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ShadowX]

How can minecraft earn money? Most kids hack it for free these days.

 

[Maxjohan]

How can minecraft earn money? Most kids hack it for free these days.

They have sold more than 16 million games of the PC version. People pay for what they think is valuable.

The founder wrote this on Twitter 18 December, 2012:

Anyway, my price is two billion dollars. Give me two billion dollars, and I'll endorse your crap.

 

[SGBoise]

I would consider 2b an overvalue but then again I don't know shit about buying multibillion companies. However right there is another tech bubble happening. It's a sellers market.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[C.S. Abbink]

2 billion is a good price for Mojang I guess. Minecraft is such a popular game, gets plenty of revenue. They just released their own monthly subscription for servers, sell merchandise and Minecraft on xbox/phone/tablet is still very new.

Not sure if it's smart for any party to buy Mojang though. Notch (maker) is THE guy for the community. Might get a lot of customers walking away from Minecraft when Notch isn't the owner anymore.

 

[splok]

2 billion is a good price for Mojang I guess. Minecraft is such a popular game, gets plenty of revenue. They just released their own monthly subscription for servers, sell merchandise and Minecraft on xbox/phone/tablet is still very new.

Not sure if it's smart for any party to buy Mojang though. Notch (maker) is THE guy for the community. Might get a lot of customers walking away from Minecraft when Notch isn't the owner anymore.

That was probably true in the early days, though I think it's become mainstream enough that the vast majority of people who've purchased it probably don't even have a clue what a "Notch" is. It's probably a good franchise building move for Microsoft though. It's one of the few games that have really crossed over into at least some vague awareness of non-gamers, getting used in education, etc.

 

[Mouse]

my 8 year old knows who Notch is, even made me buy a book about him! both my kids play Minecraft and watch youtubers.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[playa77]

my 8 year old knows who Notch is, even made me buy a book about him! both my kids play Minecraft and watch youtubers.

My sons in 6th grade and everyone, i mean everyone of his his friends and male classmates has a paid minecraft account, and many have an additional account on their tablets. He started his own server with my help last year and is now getting donations for "ranks" to help keep it up. Some of his classmates bought into realms recently, because they want to have an easy way to set up their own server. They all know who Notch is, but probably wouldn't give a F*ck if MS ran the whole thing, as long as Mojang keeps adding stuff the way they have done.

So in my opinion, a 2B acquisition deal wouldn't surprise me. The way things played out with bukkit lately imo further point to a possible sellout.

 

[playa77]

Funny thing is, in the late nineties, there was a book by Douglas Coupland called "Microserfs" where some disgruntled Microsoft(!) employees decided to part with their company to form a startup selling a 3d game/app, just like LEGO, but virtual (basically exactly what minecraft was in the beginning).

I remember giving this book to my business partner (we had an IT company) and talking about it later. The consensus was: No, this is never going to work, where's the haptic experience, etc. We just laughed the idea off...

 

[playa77]

Just to add, that book was a top seller at the time at least a hundred thousand people or more read it, but no one followed through on the idea. So that's another proof that idea<execution... gz Notch

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Yeezy]

Not sure if it's smart for any party to buy Mojang though. Notch (maker) is THE guy for the community. Might get a lot of customers walking away from Minecraft when Notch isn't the owner anymore.

Notch quit as lead director of Minecraft about a year ago, he has practically nothing to do with the game now.
Jeb_ is the developer and overall leader of minecraft currently.

However, this is about buying mojang, which is more than just Minecraft.
Notch recently pulled out of releasing an oculus rift due to Oculus being purchased by Facebook, which could have an effect on his decision..

That being said, turning down 2 Billion is not an easy task.

 

[splok]

my 8 year old knows who Notch is, even made me buy a book about him! both my kids play Minecraft and watch youtubers.

I could be wrong about the Notch's "mainstreamness", but still, Minecraft has made over $600M in revenue... To think that most of those users are interested enough to know about the developers seems pretty hopeful. I mean, if you're on any gaming site, then sure, everyone knows, but to be that successful, you've got to have a reach that goes beyond the typical gaming communities. It would be like discussing a startup CEO or investors here. We might know and discuss prominent people in the startup industry, but the typical user of their products likely doesn't know or care.

Just to add, that book was a top seller at the time at least a hundred thousand people or more read it, but no one followed through on the idea. So that's another proof that idea<execution... gz Notch

That's true, though there's much more to it I think. It's not like Minecraft was especially well executed compared to other products. I mean, if Microsoft (or EA, or whatever giant company) had release Minecraft, it would have likely been "better" executed by any objective measure, but it also would have likely sold terribly. Players wouldn't have accepted that level of execution from a AAA publisher, and if the publisher had tried to do a AAA Minecraft, it just wouldn't be the same. Not to mention that they'd have likely broken the growth phase that worked for Minecraft by not releasing early or building a community, charging $60 for it, etc.

Though on the legos idea, arguably Second Life was a much earlier lego-ish attempt in that you could build whatever kind of world and objects that you wanted. It is over a decade old and has also made hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

[MattCour]

The game is MASSIVE! My 6 yr old was teaching Me how to play it a few weeks ago lol

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Writer]

The game is MASSIVE! My 6 yr old was teaching Me how to play it a few weeks ago lol

Don't learn. It's addictive, you'll never get your life back.

 

[theag]

Pretty crazy for such an ugly game (never played it).

 

[5holiday]

Imagine a board game company with 325m revenue (not profit) for sale for 2b. Perhaps profit is 25% of revenue. ~$81m profit. Would you pay $2b for a ~4% return on the price?

Will the board games still be popular in 5-10 years time?

"It has potential" they say, "you could leverage it and make more board games!"

So maybe they use earnings to make new games to keep the revenue coming long term - making overall profit less.

It might still be worth it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[mememan]

Minecraft is a shit game and a lot of the current problems in gaming (I'm looking at you, Early Access) can be directly attributed to it. Notch had me at a cross between Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper, but even with all the millions upon millions of dollars rolling into the game, it has never amounted to much of anything. Even exploration is lame. There's nothing to find

 

[playa77]

Minecraft is a shit game and a lot of the current problems in gaming (I'm looking at you, Early Access) can be directly attributed to it. Notch had me at a cross between Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper, but even with all the millions upon millions of dollars rolling into the game, it has never amounted to much of anything. Even exploration is lame. There's nothing to find

I think what keeps people playing the game is it's versatility.
Using the plugin api, you can make basically anything you want. On my sons server, they play quake-style pvp, capture the flag, king of the hill, hide and seek, an rpg, various jump 'n run games and more, beside the usual survival and creative modes.

There's so much more: mmos, political style town and nation building games, soccer games, you name it.
Once you get the hang of it, these plugins are quite easy to setup for a server owner.
Also, if you know a little java, it's not very difficult to write your own plugin.

That's what makes minecraft so unique imo. It's now evolved to a point that you can not only build your own world, like with lego, but also build your own games with it.

 

[mememan]

I think what keeps people playing the game is it's versatility.
Using the plugin api, you can make basically anything you want. On my sons server, they play quake-style pvp, capture the flag, king of the hill, hide and seek, an rpg, various jump 'n run games and more, beside the usual survival and creative modes.

There's so much more: mmos, political style town and nation building games, soccer games, you name it.
Once you get the hang of it, these plugins are quite easy to setup for a server owner.
Also, if you know a little java, it's not very difficult to write your own plugin.

That's what makes minecraft so unique imo. It's now evolved to a point that you can not only build your own world, like with lego, but also build your own games with it.

Yeah I remember Notch and co was going to build an API/easy modding in. Did they ever do it? Looks like all they've done is add some more colored blocks and other crap, while the community builds the game above and beyond what already wealthy devs or, rather, "dev" Notch does since I think he got the lion's share of profits.

My problem with Minecraft is that it started this empty promise "early release" alpha/beta craze. Games come out completely broken/featureless and remain in development hell for months/years even after collecting money hand over fist. It probably has a lot to do with these hipster "exploration" games too, like Gone Home

My biggest gripe is I remember looking forward to some of the promised features in Minecraft, but they never came out. I remember buying the game for a few people, probably put in $100 altogether, but then the updates were like slaps in the face and the game ultimately became boring. Notch was/is the ultimate troll; just look at "the end" for proof.

If he didn't want to fool with the game further, one thing he could have done was hire and pay some of the better modders out there to actually make his game for him. I remember Mojang continually breaking things in the cooler mods since they was no communication with them.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[playa77]

Yeah I remember Notch and co was going to build an API/easy modding in. Did they ever do it? Looks like all they've done is add some more colored blocks and other crap, while the community builds the game above and beyond what already wealthy devs or, rather, "dev" Notch does since I think he got the lion's share of profits.

My problem with Minecraft is that it started this empty promise "early release" alpha/beta craze. Games come out completely broken/featureless and remain in development hell for months/years even after collecting money hand over fist. It probably has a lot to do with these hipster "exploration" games too, like Gone Home

My biggest gripe is I remember looking forward to some of the promised features in Minecraft, but they never came out. I remember buying the game for a few people, probably put in $100 altogether, but then the updates were like slaps in the face and the game ultimately became boring. Notch was/is the ultimate troll; just look at "the end" for proof.

If he didn't want to fool with the game further, one thing he could have done was hire and pay some of the better modders out there to actually make his game for him. I remember Mojang continually breaking things in the cooler mods since they was no communication with them.

Yeah, i was just describing why i think it's a great game.
Other than that, i completely agree with you.

That api (bukkit) was developed by the community more or less completely. When it came to light recently that mojang has owned the bukkit project for about 2 years basically without contributing anything, a lot of people were pissed, and rightfully so.

What they should have realized though, at this point, is that minecraft has long ceased to be an indie game, although mojang likes to continue to perpetrate this image.
It's just a huge cash cow for all involved, and money, rather than the needs of the community dictate what mojang will do.

Could it have been done differently? Well, maybe, who knows. I don't know if i would have acted differently if i called the shots.

I'm not an avid gamer anymore, but the people who buy into that whole "early release" bull -- a fool and his money are easily parted.
There is always online reviews and common sense ;-)

 

[SGBoise]

there was a book by Douglas Coupland called "Microserfs" where some disgruntled Microsoft(!)

Do you remember the name of the LEGO game you are referring to? I want to do something similar.

 

[playa77]

Do you remember the name of the LEGO game you are referring to? I want to do something similar.

Sorry, my mistake. Forgot to mention that it was a novel/fiction.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ShadowX]

Pretty crazy for such an ugly game (never played it).

Lol yeah ugly that's what I thought at first, just ugly pixelated crap. Then I played it and found it addicting, pretty addicting game when you have friends on there and stuff to do. Just played it at school though lol

 

[mgore714]

Happy for that guy. Nice to see entrepreneurs get rewarded.

 

[Weavie]

There is a lot of potential in this game.

Everyone I speak to who has kids, those kids will be addicted to Minecraft. There is an entire generation of 'Minecraft' kids. At the minute they are young and broke, so they have to get their parents to buy it for them. Still the company is rolling in millions.

But these kids are growing up and in 5-10 years will be going out and getting jobs. The company needs to make sure they can grow the game up along with the kids so they are still hooked then. Then they need to make sure they can suck up the disposable income of this generation. There is billions to be made.

The company needs to sort out their plugin architecture so that there is an official and robust way to develop and install plugins. There is a huge potential in a plugin appstore if the company can sort out the current mess.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[splok]

Looks like it's official now, $2.5 exit: https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/

 

[MattCour]

Good for him, that's one big payday! It's amazing to think that it all started with one guy..