Microsoft has been open-source since day one. They released DOS as an open-source platform. They made it their mission statement to use open-source as their main weapon against Apple. Microsoft has never not been open source.
This is a fairly old article, but shows Microsoft's early attitude towards open source software:
They're not including Java Edition in the Better Together Update because they value milking little kids for money above all else. The main difference between Java Edition and the other platforms is that on all the other platforms you have to pay for cosmetics that are free on Java Edition. Disappointed that this is were Minecraft is at. It was a mistake for Microsoft to buy the game and now their greedy corporation is screwing it over.
It is indeed kinda sad. My biggest shock is that Jens and Nathan allowed micro-transactions in at all; especially since they seem like the type who'd be against it. It is honestly sad seeing how in more recent years several companies have changed to increase their profit margins with their target being the younger crowd, at the cost of their former glory. Youtube is especially guilty of this.
So the question remains, what financial sense does it make to develop and maintain 2 independent code bases for the same game, especially if one of those relies on libraries outside of their development and control? Clearly Microsoft is not above abandoning platforms that don't "make the cut". Given Microsoft's past history with Java, I'm surprised they haven't tried to phase out the Java version sooner.
Obviously Microsoft corporation does not benefit from keeping the Java edition around, precisely because it is more difficult for them to monetize it. Over-monetization has been shown to ruin titles very quickly. So we benefit from keeping Java edition around, and Microsoft is clearly making a move to sweep Java edition under the rug in order to skirt their legal responsibility for their own benefit and at our expense. You have to believe Microsoft has our interests in mind to think that's not what they intend to do.
Now all that said, does it even matter whether or not they kill the Java version? As long as you keep your own backups, probably not. Even then, it is just a game. Last I checked, there were other games out there. many of of better quality. It's not worth worrying about. And for the cost of the game, it's quite trivial, the cost of a moderately decent meal at a restaurant, and that meal doesn't last very long.
They've already built the game to require using the launcher just to launch the game, and the launcher can auto-install updates if you have an internet connection. Sure there's probably a way around it but you'd have to do some research and find out how. You can no longer double-click the executable because there isn't an executable in the game folder. This doesn't have anything to do with the sticker price of Minecraft, if we lose access to the Java version we may basically lose access to Minecraft as a whole. Those of us who can't afford the potentially much higher price for a version of Minecraft which is likely not nearly as fun may be cut off entirely except through pirating old versions of the game. And I can't just go out and find another game as good as Minecraft--I've tried quite a few, none even come close to measuring up so when you speak of quality I'm not sure what you mean, Minecraft at current is probably the highest quality game on the market. Quality is subjective but Minecraft does not have a single decent competitor for what it offers.
So you're looking at the here and now, and ignoring Microsoft's reputation, their history, and failing to extrapolate into the near future about what might happen to Minecraft. You're making assumptions about how okay that future will be, when you aren't bothering to get to know the company you're trying to make predictions for.
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
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There were legal cases about a similar thing a while back.. A game which people had bought was shut down, and the servers were taken offline. Some people independently set up servers for it, and got sued by the company. It was ruled that they were allowed to replace the services the company provided, as they had paid for the game for life and thus the company could not prevent them from resuscitating their ability to play. If Microsoft/Mojang decided to, as you're talking about, make it impossible for us to play by further tampering with the launcher, workarounds for that would almost certainly be within legality, due to the aforementioned precedent.
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Someone once said, in defense of a poorly thought out suggestion that was not being supported: "Theres so much awesome and rare things to add and youre just like, oh , thats too good, no, i want something common like a grass block"
If Microsoft/Mojang decided to, as you're talking about, make it impossible for us to play by further tampering with the launcher, workarounds for that would almost certainly be within legality, due to the aforementioned precedent.
What's legal and what's enforced are two separate things, plus legality is a giant web of regulations and loopholes. I don't know what game you're talking about but that was just one case. Consider the case of Nostalrius vs. Blizzard, in which Blizzard revoked access to older versions of World of Warcraft even to those who had paid for the game. Nostalrius worked hard to revive the old game and were adamant about refusing to accept funds for their work. Nevertheless, Blizzard successfully dismantled Nostalrius on a whim. People discussed and debated whether or not it was legal, but in the end it didn't matter because nobody had the resources and the desire to press a legal battle against Blizzard on the issue.
The same could likely be true for Minecraft vs. Microsoft--they can break the law all they want if nobody will stand up to them. And it is very difficult to stand up to a giant like Microsoft. Most likely our best defense is Möjang themselves, who are more familiar with all of the legal details of the game, they have their own legal department with experts, and as they hold some ownership to the game and are involved in the contract, it would be much easier and more feasible for them to stand up for the game. And because Möjang are likely the only ones who can defend us from Microsoft, it is dangerous to assert that any action which is capable of removing Möjang's jurisdiction from the scene is not going to hurt Minecraft.
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
They've already built the game to require using the launcher just to launch the game...
This is news to me...
The game itself does not depend on a launcher or online services in any way (once you download the assets it needs to run); in fact, 1.6.4 and older versions do not even receive a valid session ID from the launcher so they think you are playing without an account but it has not given me any issues as I only play singleplayer and it still receives a username (it makes up a random name if one is not given) and can download a skin (I already replaced the default skin with my own so when the skin servers are down I still have it), and demo mode is set with a special command-line parameter, not whether you are logged in:
The only thing that would happen if Mojang discontinued support for older versions (aka "Java Edition") is that you'd no longer have multiplayer (unless legal rulings say otherwise) and the game would no longer be (legally) distributable.
This is news to me...
The game itself does not depend on a launcher or online services in any way (once you download the assets it needs to run); in fact, 1.6.4 and older versions
The only thing that would happen if Mojang discontinued support for older versions (aka "Java Edition") is that you'd no longer have multiplayer (unless legal rulings say otherwise) and the game would no longer be (legally) distributable.
You're using an older version of the launcher. If Möjang discontinued support for java edition, you could distribute older versions of the game and launcher but only illegally, meanwhile modern versions could be unable to play. If you choose an older version of the game on a modern launcher, it does not downgrade you to that older version, you keep the modern launcher and much of the file arrangement. You still lack an executable.
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
If Möjang discontinued support for java edition, you could distribute older versions of the game and launcher but only illegally,
Do you have confirmation of that from somewhere? Why wouldn't Mojang just continue to allow downloads of the older versions by authorized account holders, without providing any new updates or support? I've seen quite a few companies go that direction for EOL software products in order to maintain some degree of good will towards their customer base -- continue to provide the old "obsolete" version while enticing the customers to move to the newer, supported products.
Do you have confirmation of that from somewhere? Why wouldn't Mojang just continue to allow downloads of the older versions by authorized account holders, without providing any new updates or support? I've seen quite a few companies go that direction for EOL software products in order to maintain some degree of good will towards their customer base -- continue to provide the old "obsolete" version while enticing the customers to move to the newer, supported products.
Mojang's made some poor decisions but when it comes to money we've seen they won't compromise on any chances to increase their revenue. I think they'll continue to update Java Edition. They want to avoid public relations issues with their community and ceasing updates to a popular platform of the game wouldn't exactly help. Let's not forget Microsoft's 2.5 billion dollar deal wasn't so they could scrap Java Edition. They have a vision for the game's future and they're still making roughly 75 million a year from PC / Mac sales. It wouldn't make any sense for them to stop working on Java.
Mojang's made some poor decisions but when it comes to money we've seen they won't compromise on any chances to increase their revenue. I think they'll continue to update Java Edition. They want to avoid public relations issues with their community and ceasing updates to a popular platform of the game wouldn't exactly help. Let's not forget Microsoft's 2.5 billion dollar deal wasn't so they could scrap Java Edition. They have a vision for the game's future and they're still making roughly 75 million a year from PC / Mac sales. It wouldn't make any sense for them to stop working on Java.
Exactly. In all the countless threads like this I've seen, people somehow leave out a couple important facts:
(1) Mac and Linux users buy the Java version.
(2) There's no word yet that Mojang plans to port the Bedrock edition to the Mac.
(3) The Java version costs almost three times as much as the Windows 10 version and probably makes more money.
(4) The Windows 10 version exists because some phones and tablets run Windows 10 and can't run Java.
All of this translates to "Mojang (and Microsoft) would lose money if they stopped selling the Java version of Minecraft." Do people really think Microsoft wants to make less money? Does that really sound like something Microsoft would do?
You're using an older version of the launcher. If Möjang discontinued support for java edition, you could distribute older versions of the game and launcher but only illegally, meanwhile modern versions could be unable to play. If you choose an older version of the game on a modern launcher, it does not downgrade you to that older version, you keep the modern launcher and much of the file arrangement. You still lack an executable.
Older version of the launcher? You mean this one?
The Wiki must be lying because I have the same version they claim to be the latest and has the ability to play older versions, which I've been using after it autoupdated earlier this year with no issues whatsoever, and no, I am not using some cracked version of the launcher:
The Minecraft launcher has the ability to play old Alpha and Beta versions of the game. Currently, snapshots, Alpha, Beta, and all Release versions are available to play. Four Pre-classic versions, four Classic versions, and an Infdev version are already added under the names "old-alpha version".[2] However, Indev is still missing.
Sorry, I have no clue as to why you keep claiming that the latest launcher does not allow you to downgrade to older versions. My last post was to show that the game does not need a launcher at all once you have downloaded all of the necessary files (this is why MCP is allowed by Mojang; you can't just download MCP and the game jar, which can be downloaded directly from Mojang's servers without logging in, and decompile and run it).
IMO, most of the posts in this thread are plain hysteria, just as they were several years ago when it was announced that Microsoft was buying Mojang - there is no indication that any of what you claim (in particular, Microsoft making it totally impossible to play any older versions of the game, which would require some Windows update or such that searches your entire computer for older versions and deletes them) will happen.
I've seen quite a few companies go that direction for EOL software products in order to maintain some degree of good will towards their customer base -- continue to provide the old "obsolete" version while enticing the customers to move to the newer, supported products.
So have I, but I've never seen Microsoft do that. On the contrary, I've seen them do the exact opposite on multiple occasions.
Sorry, I have no clue as to why you keep claiming that the latest launcher does not allow you to downgrade to older versions.
That's not what I said.
You can play older versions of the game on the latest launcher, but you can't downgrade to the old launcher and play with the old game as it was back then. Since you're using the new launcher to play the old game, Microsoft might have the ability to revoke your access to those older versions of the game. In order to completely protect yourself from that, you would need an old copy of an old version of the game, from before the launcher had mandatory automatic updates hard-wired into it.
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
Since you're using the new launcher to play the old game, Microsoft might have the ability to revoke your access to those older versions of the game. In order to completely protect yourself from that, you would need an old copy of an old version of the game, from before the launcher had mandatory automatic updates hard-wired into it.
Or use something other than the official launcher? There are many ways to do that without using a cracked launcher (or even any launcher at all); again, please tell me how Microsoft would prevent me from playing the game at all, never mind that I could just use another OS (no Windows update that scans my computer and deletes anything that has even a partial binary match to Minecraft, which is really the only way they could detect it given that my custom modded jars have already been renamed and have no META-INF (containing a certificate from Mojang that verifies the jar), only many of the original class files) and/or modify the game to remove all online connections (e.g. skins and snooper) so they can't trace it.
This is exactly what I mean by "hysteria" in my last post - it is one thing to suggest that older versions might no longer be available but another to suggest that Microsoft would take such extreme measures to wipe out all traces of them from existence - if they don't care about people still running Windows XP enough to do this then why would they care about some game which wasn't even originally theirs?
The only real issue would come in the far future when computers have changed so much that old software can no longer run, such as graphics cards dropping support for the older OpenGL versions that Minecraft uses (which are already deprecated, and the "fixed function pipeline" they used is already emulated with shaders), and even then people have built emulators for many old games:
Yeah I mean, Microsoft has never kept older versions of Windows updated and secure with patches and fixes until up to a decade after they became obsolete so people could continue using them safely.
Oh wait...
They did.
That's not what they did at all. If you're talking about Windows XP service pack 3, Microsoft engineered the demise of Windows XP on purpose. It so happened to coincide with a major change to the way standard open source platforms were being coded which was partly for good reason and partly a ploy by Microsoft to further control the open source market. But they were forcing Windows XP into obsoletion regardless of whether it needed to happen or not. Service pack 3 was the final killing blow, the pretense that you could still continue to use Windows XP, yet it had been stripped of everything that made it worth using. And once you installed the patch, you couldn't go back without experiencing installation bugs unless you wiped your computer clean and installed Windows XP from a boot disk. But it's only useful as an offline computer because Microsoft ensured that Win XP versions prior to service pack 3 aren't compatible with any online technology or a wide variety of modern applications. You can't access many websites, you can't run most online content without upgrading to the modern code. Microsoft claims it's because they can't be bothered to maintain backwards compatibility and that's partly true, but largely the issue is that they purposely engineered all of the old systems obsolete because the new systems offer them more control over their users.
Ever notice that Microsoft products stopped asking if you want them to update? They just do it without your permission. They release updates on a regular basis, and every software application running on the same open source is forced to release updates to keep up, then the user is forced to install updates just to use the applications. Sometimes you have the option not to install the update, but it'll stop working after a few months if you don't.
But I'm not done pointing out problems regarding Windows XP yet. Microsoft's website stopped carrying pre-Vista versions of basic applications like Microsoft Office. If you have a problem with an application and try to get help from Microsoft, they will happily offer free service and will recommend you use their tools to repair the application, which will upgrade it to Windows 7 version--or these days probably Windows 10 version. That version doesn't work on Windows XP and they know it, but once it's installed you now cannot use the application and cannot downgrade it without uninstalling the operating system. They were trying to sneak in Windows 7 stuff left and right back when I still used XP, but I finally gave up on it because it simply doesn't work anymore. By now I imagine it's even worse. I hear some people do use XP, but as I understand it, there's no actual benefit anymore. It doesn't have the features that originally made XP great. Now you might as well just get Windows 7, but Microsoft is already trying to trick users into upgrading to Windows 10 so they can get rid of 7, and this time they don't have an excuse because the two are perfectly compatible with each other as far as the coding style is concerned.
But I'm ranting. Short story: Microsoft pretends to offer old versions, but you never get the value those programs once had because their best features are disabled.
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
This is exactly what I mean by "hysteria" in my last post - it is one thing to suggest that older versions might no longer be available but another to suggest that Microsoft would take such extreme measures to wipe out all traces of them from existence
They don't even need to go that far. All they need to do is stifle the old content enough that the majority of the playerbase leaves it behind, by then they've already spoiled it and more will leave either due to a lack of playerbase or because the game quality is soured. It becomes a vicious cycle that eventually weeds out all but the most die-hard supporters. Pan forward and everyone else is paying more money for a worse product, and most of them won't have a clue what happened.
You talk about what people are technically able to do but you forget that what people will do is a factor. People won't play old versions of Minecraft even if they want to, if they don't know how. And even if they know how, many of them won't if it's difficult or technically illegal regardless of the chances of them getting caught. Still more won't do it just because the payerbase is thinned out. Just because we can access the game behind a wall of red tape doesn't mean our game is safe.
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
Never underestimate the power of microtransactions. Rockstar made a half a billion dollars on microtransactions.
EA Games routinely trashes their games with game-breaking pay-to-win microtransactions and it makes the game so bad everyone quits. What do they do? They buy the next game, fall for the microtransactions, and end up paying way more than the sticker price for a game they enjoy for a way below average amount of time.
"You'd think EA would learn from their mistakes."
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
EA Games routinely trashes their games with game-breaking pay-to-win microtransactions and it makes the game so bad everyone quits. What do they do? They buy the next game, fall for the microtransactions, and end up paying way more than the sticker price for a game they enjoy for a way below average amount of time.
"You'd think EA would learn from their mistakes."
Why make good games when you can make hundreds of millions of dollars?
Pretty much what Valve did with Steam. Why continue making games when you can just make money of other people selling their work on your platform? MS saw that someone else found a good way to make easy money and they want their own version of it, even though this case is on a much smaller scale (yet). They even use the same 30% cut.
This is exactly why Valve has gotten lazy with their content. I heard about CS:GO skins, and I couldn't believe it. Apparently people pay hundreds just for skins. Valve has no need to do anything themselves anymore. TF2 hats and weapons are an example, and the fact they haven't released a new game in years. Though they are coming out with Artifact, that's just a money-grab that nobody is going to touch with a 10-foot rod. It seems the seeds for this were planted earlier on than one may think. Word has it that some of the people who were going to be behind HL:3 left long ago due to frustration with the company.
A very popular game that's frequented by younger players (BTU platforms); those two combined make for a prime target for a microtransaction setup. Something like this will drag in far more than 75 million in the long run, if it succeeds.
75 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the potential profits from the microtransactions of the marketplace. For the amount of resources committed, it's a trivial amount. For the amount spent on buying Mojang, more so. Furthermore, the only profit the Java edition brings in after the point of sale is from Realms.
Let's explain it another way:
A company has two products, but some of their customers can't (or won't) use both products. X dollars is the amount of money spent yearly on Product 1 by people who don't buy Product 2.
The company adds microtransactions to Product 2. Let's say the potential profits from Product 2 microtransactions (Y dollars) is huge compared to the profits from Product 1. Total profits are X dollars + Y dollars.
The company now kills Product 1, because Y > X. Total profits are now (X + Y) -X, or Y dollars.
Is X+Y greater than Y? Would a company actually say "You know what? Screw that source of income. We want less money!"
The reason people called a lot of the posts in this thread "hysteria" is because it's all imagining worst-case scenarios while somehow overlooking the fact that Microsoft like money. Microsoft is not going to kill off one source of income just because another source of income makes more money. They want it ALL. The comical and poorly-informed discussion of Windows XP ignores the fact that Microsoft killed Windows XP support because (1) it was 8 years old, (2) the replacement (Vista) had been out for two years. No one was buying XP anymore, and it was costing Microsoft money to continue supporting it. It wasn't making a profit anymore.
When the Java version of Minecraft is making less money than it costs to support it, Microsoft will probably kill it off then. Or add microtransactions to get money, since there's nothing really stopping them from doing that. It's too early to say "Minecraft Java is going to die" when we haven't seen a failed attempt to add microtransactions. And it's certainly too early to say it's going to die when they just hired more devs for the Java team. If they are spending more money on Java, that means they think they'll make money from Java, which means they aren't planning to kill it.
Years from now? Maybe. But why kill all fun enjoyment now because you're fretting over something that may or may not happen in the distant future?
A company has two products, but some of their customers can't (or won't) use both products. X dollars is the amount of money spent yearly on Product 1 by people who don't buy Product 2.
The company adds microtransactions to Product 2. Let's say the potential profits from Product 2 microtransactions (Y dollars) is huge compared to the profits from Product 1. Total profits are X dollars + Y dollars.
The company now kills Product 1, because Y > X. Total profits are now (X + Y) -X, or Y dollars.
Is X+Y greater than Y?
You did your math wrong.
We're talking about a case of a company killing X as part of a strategy to make Y bigger. Let's say they can make Y 10% more profitable by doing something that deliberately hurts X. They know that X will lose 50% profit but die-hard fans will continue to support it no matter what the company does to it. If Y = 10x, that's a loss of 0.5X and a gain of 0.1Y. It's a net gain of 0.05Y or 0.5X. And I was using a weaker example to demonstrate how even a minor success in a potent market can make completely screwing over a dry market financially worthwhile. Many times these companies have done exactly that, sometimes for not even that big of a net gain, but just because they were confident there would be any gain at all. Apparently how we the players feel about it these changes isn't very important to them--most likely because the biggest money comes from kids who don't know the history of these games, and they've already stopped paying so much by the time they realize how to tell what isn't actually a good purchase.
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
This is a fairly old article, but shows Microsoft's early attitude towards open source software:
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-long-history-of-open-source-acrimony/
- sunperp
It is indeed kinda sad. My biggest shock is that Jens and Nathan allowed micro-transactions in at all; especially since they seem like the type who'd be against it. It is honestly sad seeing how in more recent years several companies have changed to increase their profit margins with their target being the younger crowd, at the cost of their former glory. Youtube is especially guilty of this.
Figured it was time for a change.
Obviously Microsoft corporation does not benefit from keeping the Java edition around, precisely because it is more difficult for them to monetize it. Over-monetization has been shown to ruin titles very quickly. So we benefit from keeping Java edition around, and Microsoft is clearly making a move to sweep Java edition under the rug in order to skirt their legal responsibility for their own benefit and at our expense. You have to believe Microsoft has our interests in mind to think that's not what they intend to do.
They've already built the game to require using the launcher just to launch the game, and the launcher can auto-install updates if you have an internet connection. Sure there's probably a way around it but you'd have to do some research and find out how. You can no longer double-click the executable because there isn't an executable in the game folder. This doesn't have anything to do with the sticker price of Minecraft, if we lose access to the Java version we may basically lose access to Minecraft as a whole. Those of us who can't afford the potentially much higher price for a version of Minecraft which is likely not nearly as fun may be cut off entirely except through pirating old versions of the game. And I can't just go out and find another game as good as Minecraft--I've tried quite a few, none even come close to measuring up so when you speak of quality I'm not sure what you mean, Minecraft at current is probably the highest quality game on the market. Quality is subjective but Minecraft does not have a single decent competitor for what it offers.
So you're looking at the here and now, and ignoring Microsoft's reputation, their history, and failing to extrapolate into the near future about what might happen to Minecraft. You're making assumptions about how okay that future will be, when you aren't bothering to get to know the company you're trying to make predictions for.
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).There were legal cases about a similar thing a while back.. A game which people had bought was shut down, and the servers were taken offline. Some people independently set up servers for it, and got sued by the company. It was ruled that they were allowed to replace the services the company provided, as they had paid for the game for life and thus the company could not prevent them from resuscitating their ability to play. If Microsoft/Mojang decided to, as you're talking about, make it impossible for us to play by further tampering with the launcher, workarounds for that would almost certainly be within legality, due to the aforementioned precedent.
Someone once said, in defense of a poorly thought out suggestion that was not being supported: "Theres so much awesome and rare things to add and youre just like, oh , thats too good, no, i want something common like a grass block"
What's legal and what's enforced are two separate things, plus legality is a giant web of regulations and loopholes. I don't know what game you're talking about but that was just one case. Consider the case of Nostalrius vs. Blizzard, in which Blizzard revoked access to older versions of World of Warcraft even to those who had paid for the game. Nostalrius worked hard to revive the old game and were adamant about refusing to accept funds for their work. Nevertheless, Blizzard successfully dismantled Nostalrius on a whim. People discussed and debated whether or not it was legal, but in the end it didn't matter because nobody had the resources and the desire to press a legal battle against Blizzard on the issue.
The same could likely be true for Minecraft vs. Microsoft--they can break the law all they want if nobody will stand up to them. And it is very difficult to stand up to a giant like Microsoft. Most likely our best defense is Möjang themselves, who are more familiar with all of the legal details of the game, they have their own legal department with experts, and as they hold some ownership to the game and are involved in the contract, it would be much easier and more feasible for them to stand up for the game. And because Möjang are likely the only ones who can defend us from Microsoft, it is dangerous to assert that any action which is capable of removing Möjang's jurisdiction from the scene is not going to hurt Minecraft.
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).This is news to me...
The game itself does not depend on a launcher or online services in any way (once you download the assets it needs to run); in fact, 1.6.4 and older versions do not even receive a valid session ID from the launcher so they think you are playing without an account but it has not given me any issues as I only play singleplayer and it still receives a username (it makes up a random name if one is not given) and can download a skin (I already replaced the default skin with my own so when the skin servers are down I still have it), and demo mode is set with a special command-line parameter, not whether you are logged in:
MCL-7282 Minecraft Launcher fails to pass Session ID to pre 1.7.2 Minecraft clients
The only thing that would happen if Mojang discontinued support for older versions (aka "Java Edition") is that you'd no longer have multiplayer (unless legal rulings say otherwise) and the game would no longer be (legally) distributable.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
You're using an older version of the launcher. If Möjang discontinued support for java edition, you could distribute older versions of the game and launcher but only illegally, meanwhile modern versions could be unable to play. If you choose an older version of the game on a modern launcher, it does not downgrade you to that older version, you keep the modern launcher and much of the file arrangement. You still lack an executable.
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).Do you have confirmation of that from somewhere? Why wouldn't Mojang just continue to allow downloads of the older versions by authorized account holders, without providing any new updates or support? I've seen quite a few companies go that direction for EOL software products in order to maintain some degree of good will towards their customer base -- continue to provide the old "obsolete" version while enticing the customers to move to the newer, supported products.
- sunperp
Mojang's made some poor decisions but when it comes to money we've seen they won't compromise on any chances to increase their revenue. I think they'll continue to update Java Edition. They want to avoid public relations issues with their community and ceasing updates to a popular platform of the game wouldn't exactly help. Let's not forget Microsoft's 2.5 billion dollar deal wasn't so they could scrap Java Edition. They have a vision for the game's future and they're still making roughly 75 million a year from PC / Mac sales. It wouldn't make any sense for them to stop working on Java.
Exactly. In all the countless threads like this I've seen, people somehow leave out a couple important facts:
(1) Mac and Linux users buy the Java version.
(2) There's no word yet that Mojang plans to port the Bedrock edition to the Mac.
(3) The Java version costs almost three times as much as the Windows 10 version and probably makes more money.
(4) The Windows 10 version exists because some phones and tablets run Windows 10 and can't run Java.
All of this translates to "Mojang (and Microsoft) would lose money if they stopped selling the Java version of Minecraft." Do people really think Microsoft wants to make less money? Does that really sound like something Microsoft would do?
Older version of the launcher? You mean this one?
The Wiki must be lying because I have the same version they claim to be the latest and has the ability to play older versions, which I've been using after it autoupdated earlier this year with no issues whatsoever, and no, I am not using some cracked version of the launcher:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_launcher
Sorry, I have no clue as to why you keep claiming that the latest launcher does not allow you to downgrade to older versions. My last post was to show that the game does not need a launcher at all once you have downloaded all of the necessary files (this is why MCP is allowed by Mojang; you can't just download MCP and the game jar, which can be downloaded directly from Mojang's servers without logging in, and decompile and run it).
IMO, most of the posts in this thread are plain hysteria, just as they were several years ago when it was announced that Microsoft was buying Mojang - there is no indication that any of what you claim (in particular, Microsoft making it totally impossible to play any older versions of the game, which would require some Windows update or such that searches your entire computer for older versions and deletes them) will happen.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
So have I, but I've never seen Microsoft do that. On the contrary, I've seen them do the exact opposite on multiple occasions.
That's not what I said.
You can play older versions of the game on the latest launcher, but you can't downgrade to the old launcher and play with the old game as it was back then. Since you're using the new launcher to play the old game, Microsoft might have the ability to revoke your access to those older versions of the game. In order to completely protect yourself from that, you would need an old copy of an old version of the game, from before the launcher had mandatory automatic updates hard-wired into it.
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).Or use something other than the official launcher? There are many ways to do that without using a cracked launcher (or even any launcher at all); again, please tell me how Microsoft would prevent me from playing the game at all, never mind that I could just use another OS (no Windows update that scans my computer and deletes anything that has even a partial binary match to Minecraft, which is really the only way they could detect it given that my custom modded jars have already been renamed and have no META-INF (containing a certificate from Mojang that verifies the jar), only many of the original class files) and/or modify the game to remove all online connections (e.g. skins and snooper) so they can't trace it.
This is exactly what I mean by "hysteria" in my last post - it is one thing to suggest that older versions might no longer be available but another to suggest that Microsoft would take such extreme measures to wipe out all traces of them from existence - if they don't care about people still running Windows XP enough to do this then why would they care about some game which wasn't even originally theirs?
The only real issue would come in the far future when computers have changed so much that old software can no longer run, such as graphics cards dropping support for the older OpenGL versions that Minecraft uses (which are already deprecated, and the "fixed function pipeline" they used is already emulated with shaders), and even then people have built emulators for many old games:
You can play nearly 2,400 classic MS-DOS games for free right now
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
That's not what they did at all. If you're talking about Windows XP service pack 3, Microsoft engineered the demise of Windows XP on purpose. It so happened to coincide with a major change to the way standard open source platforms were being coded which was partly for good reason and partly a ploy by Microsoft to further control the open source market. But they were forcing Windows XP into obsoletion regardless of whether it needed to happen or not. Service pack 3 was the final killing blow, the pretense that you could still continue to use Windows XP, yet it had been stripped of everything that made it worth using. And once you installed the patch, you couldn't go back without experiencing installation bugs unless you wiped your computer clean and installed Windows XP from a boot disk. But it's only useful as an offline computer because Microsoft ensured that Win XP versions prior to service pack 3 aren't compatible with any online technology or a wide variety of modern applications. You can't access many websites, you can't run most online content without upgrading to the modern code. Microsoft claims it's because they can't be bothered to maintain backwards compatibility and that's partly true, but largely the issue is that they purposely engineered all of the old systems obsolete because the new systems offer them more control over their users.
Ever notice that Microsoft products stopped asking if you want them to update? They just do it without your permission. They release updates on a regular basis, and every software application running on the same open source is forced to release updates to keep up, then the user is forced to install updates just to use the applications. Sometimes you have the option not to install the update, but it'll stop working after a few months if you don't.
But I'm not done pointing out problems regarding Windows XP yet. Microsoft's website stopped carrying pre-Vista versions of basic applications like Microsoft Office. If you have a problem with an application and try to get help from Microsoft, they will happily offer free service and will recommend you use their tools to repair the application, which will upgrade it to Windows 7 version--or these days probably Windows 10 version. That version doesn't work on Windows XP and they know it, but once it's installed you now cannot use the application and cannot downgrade it without uninstalling the operating system. They were trying to sneak in Windows 7 stuff left and right back when I still used XP, but I finally gave up on it because it simply doesn't work anymore. By now I imagine it's even worse. I hear some people do use XP, but as I understand it, there's no actual benefit anymore. It doesn't have the features that originally made XP great. Now you might as well just get Windows 7, but Microsoft is already trying to trick users into upgrading to Windows 10 so they can get rid of 7, and this time they don't have an excuse because the two are perfectly compatible with each other as far as the coding style is concerned.
But I'm ranting. Short story: Microsoft pretends to offer old versions, but you never get the value those programs once had because their best features are disabled.
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).They don't even need to go that far. All they need to do is stifle the old content enough that the majority of the playerbase leaves it behind, by then they've already spoiled it and more will leave either due to a lack of playerbase or because the game quality is soured. It becomes a vicious cycle that eventually weeds out all but the most die-hard supporters. Pan forward and everyone else is paying more money for a worse product, and most of them won't have a clue what happened.
You talk about what people are technically able to do but you forget that what people will do is a factor. People won't play old versions of Minecraft even if they want to, if they don't know how. And even if they know how, many of them won't if it's difficult or technically illegal regardless of the chances of them getting caught. Still more won't do it just because the payerbase is thinned out. Just because we can access the game behind a wall of red tape doesn't mean our game is safe.
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).EA Games routinely trashes their games with game-breaking pay-to-win microtransactions and it makes the game so bad everyone quits. What do they do? They buy the next game, fall for the microtransactions, and end up paying way more than the sticker price for a game they enjoy for a way below average amount of time.
"You'd think EA would learn from their mistakes."
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).Where did I underestimate micro transactions? I think you completely misunderstood...
Why make good games when you can make hundreds of millions of dollars?
This is exactly why Valve has gotten lazy with their content. I heard about CS:GO skins, and I couldn't believe it. Apparently people pay hundreds just for skins. Valve has no need to do anything themselves anymore. TF2 hats and weapons are an example, and the fact they haven't released a new game in years. Though they are coming out with Artifact, that's just a money-grab that nobody is going to touch with a 10-foot rod. It seems the seeds for this were planted earlier on than one may think. Word has it that some of the people who were going to be behind HL:3 left long ago due to frustration with the company.
A very popular game that's frequented by younger players (BTU platforms); those two combined make for a prime target for a microtransaction setup. Something like this will drag in far more than 75 million in the long run, if it succeeds.
Figured it was time for a change.
Let's explain it another way:
A company has two products, but some of their customers can't (or won't) use both products. X dollars is the amount of money spent yearly on Product 1 by people who don't buy Product 2.
The company adds microtransactions to Product 2. Let's say the potential profits from Product 2 microtransactions (Y dollars) is huge compared to the profits from Product 1. Total profits are X dollars + Y dollars.
The company now kills Product 1, because Y > X. Total profits are now (X + Y) -X, or Y dollars.
Is X+Y greater than Y? Would a company actually say "You know what? Screw that source of income. We want less money!"
The reason people called a lot of the posts in this thread "hysteria" is because it's all imagining worst-case scenarios while somehow overlooking the fact that Microsoft like money. Microsoft is not going to kill off one source of income just because another source of income makes more money. They want it ALL. The comical and poorly-informed discussion of Windows XP ignores the fact that Microsoft killed Windows XP support because (1) it was 8 years old, (2) the replacement (Vista) had been out for two years. No one was buying XP anymore, and it was costing Microsoft money to continue supporting it. It wasn't making a profit anymore.
When the Java version of Minecraft is making less money than it costs to support it, Microsoft will probably kill it off then. Or add microtransactions to get money, since there's nothing really stopping them from doing that. It's too early to say "Minecraft Java is going to die" when we haven't seen a failed attempt to add microtransactions. And it's certainly too early to say it's going to die when they just hired more devs for the Java team. If they are spending more money on Java, that means they think they'll make money from Java, which means they aren't planning to kill it.
Years from now? Maybe. But why kill all fun enjoyment now because you're fretting over something that may or may not happen in the distant future?
You did your math wrong.
We're talking about a case of a company killing X as part of a strategy to make Y bigger. Let's say they can make Y 10% more profitable by doing something that deliberately hurts X. They know that X will lose 50% profit but die-hard fans will continue to support it no matter what the company does to it. If Y = 10x, that's a loss of 0.5X and a gain of 0.1Y. It's a net gain of 0.05Y or 0.5X. And I was using a weaker example to demonstrate how even a minor success in a potent market can make completely screwing over a dry market financially worthwhile. Many times these companies have done exactly that, sometimes for not even that big of a net gain, but just because they were confident there would be any gain at all. Apparently how we the players feel about it these changes isn't very important to them--most likely because the biggest money comes from kids who don't know the history of these games, and they've already stopped paying so much by the time they realize how to tell what isn't actually a good purchase.
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).