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(I originally put the below as an edit at the top of this post, but I kept adding more and more to it and so decided to cut it back out and make it its own post.)
Just to be crystal clear here, my problem isn't that Notch is selling Mojang.
My problem is that he's selling Mojang to goddamn, motherfucking Microsoft. About the only worse thing he could have done would have been to sell to EA (or Activision or Ubisoft). (Then again, who's to say he didn't shop Mojang around to all of those guys and more, and Microsoft was the only one who gave him the time of day? That's entirely possible.)
If he were selling it to, say, Bethesda or some other publisher with much less of a shitty reputation, then I probably wouldn't have a problem with it. But even then... well, let's just say that in my observations of the video game industry over the past 20+ years, I have never seen a case where a small developer getting bought by a bigger publisher led to the quality of the stuff made by that small developer substantially increasing.
But then, it's his fucking company, and he can ruin it however he pleases. Hope that $2B Micro$oft money helps him sleep better at night. Doesn't mean I have to like it, but there's little I can do about it except rant futilely. And this is coming from a guy who hasn't even played Minecraft seriously in probably over a year or more now. I can't really imagine how those who are still actively playing it to this day really feel about this.
Just to be crystal clear here, my problem isn't that Notch is selling Mojang.
My problem is that he's selling Mojang to goddamn, motherfucking Microsoft. About the only worse thing he could have done would have been to sell to EA (or Activision or Ubisoft). (Then again, who's to say he didn't shop Mojang around to all of those guys and more, and Microsoft was the only one who gave him the time of day? That's entirely possible.)
If he were selling it to, say, Bethesda or some other publisher with much less of a shitty reputation, then I probably wouldn't have a problem with it. But even then... well, let's just say that in my observations of the video game industry over the past 20+ years, I have never seen a case where a small developer getting bought by a bigger publisher led to the quality of the stuff made by that small developer substantially increasing.
But then, it's his fucking company, and he can ruin it however he pleases. Hope that $2B Micro$oft money helps him sleep better at night. Doesn't mean I have to like it, but there's little I can do about it except rant futilely. And this is coming from a guy who hasn't even played Minecraft seriously in probably over a year or more now. I can't really imagine how those who are still actively playing it to this day really feel about this.
