Microsoft to buy minecraft for 2 billion.

[darkewaffle]

I still rock Opera. The latest iterations of IE are pretty good but FF/Chrome are 'cooler' and IE's stagnation around 6-7 turned people off of it.

 

[Platypus]

https://twitter.com/notch/status/281139739304800256

haha.

 

[edro]

I thought Google was crazy when they paid $1.65 B for YouTube.

Microsoft isn't stupid.

 

[OverVolt]

Youtube is worth way more than minecraft.

 

[TheAdvocate]

When Microsoft buys it, it will go from a 40 person company to a 500 person company. There will be so many paper pushers, PowerPoint ninjas and meeting creators running the show. They will stack rank out all the programmers and original staff in no time, leaving a hollow shell of a company with nothing left of tangible value.

Then you will get fiefdoms and infighting. It will be like Microsoft buying Rare.

For a minute there, I thought you were talking about my company.

So. Much. Suck.

 

[Red Storm]

Youtube is worth way more than minecraft.

This, and it's not even close.

A single famous YouTube celebrity with around 1 million subscribers makes between $100,000 and $300,000 in revenue. YouTube gets 45% of that. That's a single YouTube channel, now think of how many there are, how many more there will be over the years, and then there's all the other money generating video content.

 

[rockyct]

Completely disagree. Minecraft has already peaked, VR is still in the development stage and will really take off after the consumer model comes out. Minecraft is just a game, VR can be applied to so many different industries beyond gaming.

What does Oculus have that is unique to them except that they are releasing their dev kits to the public? I'm sure Google and Apple are working on it, Sony is, and Microsoft is rumored to. Facebook paid $2 billion to make up for being late in hardware development.

Microsoft is paying $2 billion for a company making $100 million a year and has $200 million in assets. It also by far the most popular game for kids and if you can get them hooked on Xbox/Windows before they turn 18, it could be huge. You also have to remember that Microsoft would have to pay a ton of taxes to bring all their foreign cash home.

 

[UglyCasanova]

My opinion is they just spent 2 billion on advertising. There is a ton of little kids who eat and breathe minecraft, having the Microsoft name slapped on front introduces a whole new tech savvy generation to the name in a good way (if they don't screw it up).

 

[Rakehellion]

Then you missed out. It's not about the graphics (and tech demos are usually more focused on graphics than anything else), it's basically a virtual LEGO world, that you can play alone or with your friends, building, exploring, or just messing around. It is THE sandbox game.

Lego was fun when I was 12. Today, I have the skill to build actual, functional machines with metal and electronics. And sandbox worlds aren't that appealing when I can write my own software with more features than Minecraft.

The game just seems incomplete, like there's nothing to do. No surprises, no objectives.

 

[randay]

Lego was fun when I was 12. Today, I have the skill to build actual, functional machines with metal and electronics. And sandbox worlds aren't that appealing when I can write my own software with more features than Minecraft.

The game just seems incomplete, like there's nothing to do. No surprises, no objectives.

big talk from someone who isnt getting offered 2 billion dollars for their incomplete, like theres nothing to do, no surprises, no objectives, game.

 

[Phoenix86]

big talk from someone who isnt getting offered 2 billion dollars for their incomplete, like theres nothing to do, no surprises, no objectives, game.

He was commenting on his perspective of the game, he didn't like it, or rather didn't see "the point". He didn't say "I don't understand why other people don't like it".

 

[randay]

He was commenting on his perspective of the game, he didn't like it, or rather didn't see "the point". He didn't say "I don't understand why other people don't like it".

he actually didnt say either of those things, so i dont really know how to reply to you.

 

[Skel]

I can say I don't see the point of the game or why other people like it. I'm really interested what Microsoft will do with it. Hard to believe they're paying that much for just a game that's been out this long.

 

[Anubis]

I believe it. Last 3 places I've worked, everyone used Chrome or Firefox, and IE was only used by the extremely tech illiterate or for corporate applications that only supported IE.

everyone where I work uses IE because everything else is blocked. cant even run it from a USB drive

also I use Opera at home, its still the best browser out there even tho version 12.x is no longer supported

and Pale Moon shits all over FF and Chrome

 

[Hugo Drax]

Ooops. 2.5 billion, and the insiders jumping ship.

 

[Jeff7]

For a minute there, I thought you were talking about my company.

So. Much. Suck.

My supervisor once tracked his time on a random week.
40% of his workweek was spent in meetings.



I'm waiting for them to form a committee that will meet to investigate how much time is spent in meetings.

They'll meet every week for four months, and ultimately be unable to reach a decision. Then there'll be a followup meeting to figure out what went wrong.


I doubt they'd like my corporate slogan: "Because talking about work is better than doing work."

$2,000,000,000 for a man's dignity and credibility? I'd take that deal, but I'm broke. I'd imagine Notch is living fairly comfortably, and who really needs two billion when you already have several tens of millions?

You find a way to use it.

Some people in the US have two bathrooms in a single home with four people. One clean bathroom with drinkable running water is a luxury for a majority of the world.
But then that's not good enough, and we want special bottled water that's far more expensive and less regulated than what's piped to your house.


Besides, only one yacht? Gee, I feel like sailing in the Indian Ocean today, but I don't feel like spending the time to get there from the western Atlantic. So why not just fly there in your private Boeing 737 jet and immediately set sail on your Indian Ocean yacht?

 

[ViviTheMage]

too much, wow ... maybe 500 mill, MAYBE.

 

[Childs]

too much, wow ... maybe 500 mill, MAYBE.

Whats strange is Microsoft said they expect to recoup their investment by the end of 2015. I don't really known anything about money, but if Mojang can generate 2.5 billion in a year, why would they sell for that price? Whats stranger is in the same articles I saw it was stated that Mojang made $100 mil in profit last year. How to do you go from that to 2.5 bil?

 

[cubby1223]

I wonder...

Would Microsoft be so evil as to cut off updates to Minecraft on the PS4? On the iPhone & Android? I'm thinking for $2.5b they're trying to make it the king of the Microsoft platform. It's the only thing that makes sense at such an insane price.

Or enable diamond purchases for $0.25 each, 5 for 99 cents.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Shit I'd walk away to my yacht with that 2.5 billion and never work again too.

 

[JEDI]

Whats strange is Microsoft said they expect to recoup their investment by the end of 2015. I don't really known anything about money, but if Mojang can generate 2.5 billion in a year, why would they sell for that price? Whats stranger is in the same articles I saw it was stated that Mojang made $100 mil in profit last year. How to do you go from that to 2.5 bil?

$2.5B!? and the company nets $100M?!

where does minecraft fit in microsofts strategy?!

doesn't SimCity have a bigger fan base?
they could have probably bought that for much less!

 

[BurnItDwn]

My understanding is that they sold 100 million copies of minecraft in the last year. its like 20 bucks so that would put their sales just in terms of games in the area of 2 billion dollars. Then theres all the money they make from merchandising as well....

This is probably the smartest investment microsoft has made since they bought the rights to Dos


EDIT: looks like 10 million in the last year ... so that would put their game sales at like 200 million, plus merchandising ... still has potential to be a real cash cow, but not on the scale I thought I had heard...

 

[darkewaffle]

There's no way 100m copies of Minecraft sold lol. And definitely not over a single year.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

16m have ever been bought. IIRC about 10m of those have been in the last year and a half.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ahhhh, looks like 54 million copies TOTAL sales across all platforms ... still a shit load, but I may have been an order of magnitude off on my hearing, must have been 10 million in the last year...