Take a step back and look at what people are complaining about: 4J is not giving you free stuff fast enough. Seriously, that's what it comes down to. You're not even grateful for the fact that you're getting free stuff, you want more free stuff, you want free stuff faster, and you want them to tell you what free stuff you're going to be getting and when.
Addressing the last of those first: Long before I played Minecraft -- long before Minecraft existed -- I was once a one-person software company. And I learned something very early on: Never, ever, ever talk about any features you have planned for future releases, because people not only can but will take "I'm thinking about maybe adding such-and-such at some unknown time in the future" as "I absolutely will add such-and-such in the next release, which will be very soon" and then give you grief about you not coming through. And given the overall level of maturity of console Minecraft players, I'm sure it's even worse than what I had to deal with, since my customers were (chronologically, anyway) adults. I don't blame 4J in the slightest for not giving people who have already demonstrated that they are ungrateful, entitled, and impatient any more ammunition than they already have.
When I bought Minecraft, I paid for what came in that little green plastic box at GameStop. I didn't pay for some game it might become some day. I didn't pay for what I wanted the game to be. If it wasn't the game I wanted to play, right there, right then, I would never have handed over my twenty bucks and brought the game home with me. I think it's pretty cool that 4J is adding more things to the game, but I also know they're doing it because they want to, being good people and all, not because I'm entitled to anything more than what I bought and paid for.
Frankly, the level of entitlement I've been seeing around this issue is astounding. Nothing 4J does -- any of which is, remember, totally above and beyond their duty to create the game that was in that little green boxy -- is mandatory. Neither you nor I bought a game that came with any promise of any added content, system updates, or anything else. None. 4J may have good business reasons to give out free updates (namely making the game more attractive to future purchasers) but they have no obligation whatsoever to do so. They sold the game, you bought the game, the transaction is over. If they want to give us something else (thanks 4J!) that's just great, but we have no right to demand anything.
What we are entitled to:
A game that does what it says on the box it will do.
What we are not entitled to:
Updates to that game.
Improvements to that game.
New content for that game.
Parity with any other platform version of that game.
If 4J chooses to give us any of the latter, the correct response is "Thank you kindly," not "That's not good enough."
You know i'm kinda sick of that mentality Akynth, lets take a step back here and look at the game, which followed in the PC's steps I might remind you, of that you buy the game and 'we will continue to update it for free', this is what Mojang promised way way way back when the game was first starting to sell. You might not have been around for this but I was and, and so in turn they kept thier promise, and what happened to the game? It blew up and kept growing in popularity as they added more and more features to the game it netted them ALOT of money. When one ports a title you kinda adopt its policies, and you could say that this IS one of Minecrafts more respected policies, and I'm sure 4J knew this from the get go.
So along it comes on console, with near as many sales as the PC, in fact if you add up the total sales of all consoles its grater then they PC sales, which means they made a bucket load of cash. Lets not forget about the sales of texture packs, skin packs and mash up packs.
Now you seem to be putting alot of words into our mouths that was not indirectly said. I get it your a 4J fanboy, and that's all fine and dandy, I respect that, but none of us here are 'demanding updates', demanding free stuff so to speak. Hell I think most here would not mind paying a small fee for each new update. What we are after is information of how things are going, not so much of whats coming next, but how does the update progress, its not alot to ask, and it seems very reasonable. We aren't after specific dates, but more so 'long time', (several months away), (getting closer), (month or less), or (very close) (testing and soon shipping to console), ect...
And frankly none of us here have done anything wrong to 4J, and owe no one an apology.
You know i'm kinda sick of that mentality Akynth, lets take a step back here and look at the game, which followed in the PC's steps I might remind you, of that you buy the game and 'we will continue to update it for free', this is what Mojang promised way way way back when the game was first starting to sell. You might not have been around for this but I was and, and so in turn they kept thier promise, and what happened to the game? It blew up and kept growing in popularity as they added more and more features to the game it netted them ALOT of money. When one ports a title you kinda adopt its policies, and you could say that this IS one of Minecrafts more respected policies, and I'm sure 4J knew this from the get go.
No, doing a port does not mean that one company adopts the policies of another, nor that they are bound by the promises that other company made.
Also, I may be wrong here, but I believe the promise was "we will not charge for any updates we do" not "we will continue doing updates and not charge" -- a small thing, but a significant one. Mojang did not promise to do any certain updates, at any certain time -- just not to charge for them if they did. Well, 4J isn't charging for any updates they do, either, so to that extent they actually are keeping Mojang's promise, even though it isn't theirs.
I get it your a 4J fanboy, and that's all fine and dandy, I respect that,...
Your definition of "fanboy" being, I take it, anyone who disagrees with you? If you don't think it's possible for someone to believe that you're dead wrong for any reason other than them being a "fanboy" then the problem is a lot closer to you than I am ... and still would be even if you were sitting next to me.
No, I'm not anyone's fanboy. I bought a product, I used that product, I enjoyed that product, and I was satisfied with the transaction. Simple as that.
...but none of us here are 'demanding updates', demanding free stuff so to speak.
You might want to re-read the original post that started the thread. The whole point of the poster's ire was that the PC and MCPE versions had certain updates and the console version had not, and he was highly irate over that.
Hell I think most here would not mind paying a small fee for each new update.
Given the number of people who have expressed anger at even a small payment for a skin or texture pack, I'm inclined to doubt that.
What we are after is information of how things are going, not so much of whats coming next, but how does the update progress, its not alot to ask, and it seems very reasonable. We aren't after specific dates, but more so 'long time', (several months away), (getting closer), (month or less), or (very close) (testing and soon shipping to console), ect...
Both 4JSteve and I have explained why that's simply not possible. Software development doesn't fit neat schedules. Features get pulled at the last minute because there's just no time to complete them. Something is making the update fail certification testing, so it's a choice of putting off the release for another month or releasing without that. Sometimes things get pushed aside by other things that have a higher priority, even something as simple as a bug that slipped past QA.
This would be no big deal if people understood and accepted how it works. "Stuff happens." But they don't. "Getting closer", for instance, would be taken as an ironclad promise to release that feature, before any others, on a specific date. The industry jokes about release dates exist for a reason. I've seen this from both the outside and the inside, and the bottom line is they don't give out any more information because the way people treat that information will do 4J no good and potentially much harm. If the Minecraft console community was exceptional in our politeness toward the developers, our understanding of release schedules and the uncertainties thereof, and our civility overall, they might do otherwise. But posts like the one that started this thread prove to them in spades that they have made the right decision by not saying anything that might be somehow interpreted to constitute any sort of promise, because they know that it can be and will be, and no good deed will go unpunished.
And frankly none of us here have done anything wrong to 4J, and owe no one an apology.
Except, y'know, the way the OP addressed 4J, and others have said as well. That's not the way to treat people even if they don't give you what you feel entitled to.
Yeah I get it 4J doesn't owe us anything, and yes dates can't be specifically nailed down. I'm not a 12 year old whom can't grasp that concept. I'am a fully grown man, whom I might add is getting close to retirement, and whom has worked in construction for many many years. We also have deadlines, and sometimes things arise that cause us to go over that deadline, but were not talking about several months here, at the very most 30 or so days, Theres nothing saying that 'Were getting close guys, but a few problems appeared at the last moment, we'll update you more as we can'. There are many ways to word things, that shows the company is actively doing things. When 4J goes dead for awhile, people loose hope, and start drifting away.
Watching their twitter feed, I really feel for the company, as they are taking alot of flack, mainly console vs console bashing but, no matter what they post, pretty much the number one query is when, and how is the update coming. 'A be patient, were working on it', would go along ways to silence the madness, and yes they are going to still get the 'When's' but for a lot of people the information that they are working on it will be enough.
Anyhow Akynth, I apologize, i thought you were targeting most of us as that's how I took your message, but it seems more oriented towards the OP rather then the majority of follow ups. As well your right, 4J owes us nothing, and they continue to develop the game, which is good, and I reward that by buying skinpacks, texture packs and mashups at each major update to the game. Personally I could care less about skin packs, Hell I use the default steve skin, but I own nearly every skin pack, its my way of saying thanks.
I worked for decades as a software engineer, and I see nothing wrong with keeping your customers informed about how development is going. If 4J Studios choose to stop development on MC (which will likely result in Microsoft/Mojang awarding the job to someone else) they can have the courtesy to inform us. Given that this is about as likely as a snowball in hell, I assume 4J will continue to work on Minecraft for the consoles, and that this work will result in expansions and enhancements to the game. And given that, some sort of feedback to the customers who have spent millions on the game is not unreasonable.
The word "entitled" is like the word "productivity". You know it isn't meant benignly, and someone is about to make your life less pleasant.
Whoa everyone - before this gets out of hand. What I'm saying (and I think both Cobra and Akynth are agreeing with) is that Minecraft itself has caused a social change within the attitudes of young gamers by opening up the PC version of the game so much towards "community" programming. Given the generally younger and generally older audiences on the Xbox 360, it's natural that many of the younger ones would just expect to experience the same level of "community" privileges on the Xbox 360 and the older ones would not. Regardless, the console environment was never set up with that sort of level of participation in the process in mind. To enable it is not simply a matter of Microsoft changing a few rules, the whole OS architecture would have to be changed somewhat to adapt to it... and at least on the Xbox 360, there is not enough economic incentive for Microsoft to do that since the system is essentially obsolete (due to its technical limitations). Whether or not Microsoft can or will eventually adapt the Xbox One to this new "social reality" among younger gamers remains to be seen... but I don't see it happening on the Xbox 360. In any case, 4J is not really in any position to unilaterally just change it. They are porters of a game being designed by another company (Mojang) now owned by Microsoft... and are generally caught between a rock and a hard place here. Because of Minecraft, we've gone from a generation of gamers who were just happy to play the game to a generation that won't be happy unless they are allowed to participate in the development of the game. As I said, nothing wrong in that... just vastly different "worlds."
Cobra - 4J would certainly make a formal announcement if their development of Minecraft CE were to stop. The absence of any announcement is, to me, a clear indication that they are "still working on it." and I really still don't need to hear in a tweet each week that they are "still working on it" to "know" this. As a person who is just happy to play the game and don't really care about the development details, I also don't need to ask 4J to reveal such things... actually, in some respects, it's nice to be surprised when an update comes out (kind of like opening an present). But, I get that the younger gamers are not of the same mindset... don't understand why they find constantly being bonged by useless robot "we're working on it" tweets so comforting... but a lot of companies are now opting to go that route.
Another issue with all this is the amount of communication that does already go on here in so many different places... and still there are number of community members who seem rue to even see it, let alone read it. Just look at how many different threads get started on the same old "bugs" over and over and over again. (I can't count how many times I've typed "Help & Options" - "Settings" - "Reset to Defaults") On that note, I sort of question that anything short of personalized answers to every thread by 4J themselves would pacify many of the masses.
Cobra - 4J would certainly make a formal announcement if their development of Minecraft CE were to stop. The absence of any announcement is, to me, a clear indication that they are "still working on it." and I really still don't need to hear in a tweet each week that they are "still working on it" to "know" this. As a person who is just happy to play the game and don't really care about the development details, I also don't need to ask 4J to reveal such things... actually, in some respects, it's nice to be surprised when an update comes out (kind of like opening an present). But, I get that the younger gamers are not of the same mindset... don't understand why they find constantly being bonged by useless robot "we're working on it" tweets so comforting... but a lot of companies are now opting to go that route.
. . .
I was being facetious in my last post to illustrate a point. Clearly, 4J are not going to stop work on their main bread and butter. Knowing that does not make us "entitled", and neither does requesting feedback about it.
I am very happy to use the creative sandbox exactly as it is, myself. I'm not demanding any changes. If anything, I'm more concerned that changes will break or bog down things that work well now. I do, however, expect fixes to serious issues. Any remaining world-corruption bugs need to be fixed, and anything impeding the only backup mechanism possible on the XONE (synching) needs to be fixed. Crashing or freezing while reading a corrupt save is inexcusable, and really needs to be fixed, if it isn't already.
I was being facetious in my last post to illustrate a point. Clearly, 4J are not going to stop work on their main bread and butter. Knowing that does not make us "entitled", and neither does requesting feedback about it.
I am very happy to use the creative sandbox exactly as it is, myself. I'm not demanding any changes. If anything, I'm more concerned that changes will break or bog down things that work well now. I do, however, expect fixes to serious issues. Any remaining world-corruption bugs need to be fixed, and anything impeding the only backup mechanism possible on the XONE (synching) needs to be fixed. Crashing or freezing while reading a corrupt save is inexcusable, and really needs to be fixed, if it isn't already.
I agree... getting those particular issues finally fixed would go much much farther in promoting good relations than tweets about "working on it."
hoa ... whoa here ....
Take a step back and look at what people are complaining about: 4J is not giving you free stuff fast enough. Seriously, that's what it comes down to. You're not even grateful for the fact that you're getting free stuff, you want more free stuff, you want free stuff faster, and you want them to tell you what free stuff you're going to be getting and when.
You got to be kidding me, "Free stuff" allegations was in 2015?
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Retired StaffWhoa ... whoa here ....
Take a step back and look at what people are complaining about: 4J is not giving you free stuff fast enough. Seriously, that's what it comes down to. You're not even grateful for the fact that you're getting free stuff, you want more free stuff, you want free stuff faster, and you want them to tell you what free stuff you're going to be getting and when.
Addressing the last of those first: Long before I played Minecraft -- long before Minecraft existed -- I was once a one-person software company. And I learned something very early on: Never, ever, ever talk about any features you have planned for future releases, because people not only can but will take "I'm thinking about maybe adding such-and-such at some unknown time in the future" as "I absolutely will add such-and-such in the next release, which will be very soon" and then give you grief about you not coming through. And given the overall level of maturity of console Minecraft players, I'm sure it's even worse than what I had to deal with, since my customers were (chronologically, anyway) adults. I don't blame 4J in the slightest for not giving people who have already demonstrated that they are ungrateful, entitled, and impatient any more ammunition than they already have.
When I bought Minecraft, I paid for what came in that little green plastic box at GameStop. I didn't pay for some game it might become some day. I didn't pay for what I wanted the game to be. If it wasn't the game I wanted to play, right there, right then, I would never have handed over my twenty bucks and brought the game home with me. I think it's pretty cool that 4J is adding more things to the game, but I also know they're doing it because they want to, being good people and all, not because I'm entitled to anything more than what I bought and paid for.
Frankly, the level of entitlement I've been seeing around this issue is astounding. Nothing 4J does -- any of which is, remember, totally above and beyond their duty to create the game that was in that little green boxy -- is mandatory. Neither you nor I bought a game that came with any promise of any added content, system updates, or anything else. None. 4J may have good business reasons to give out free updates (namely making the game more attractive to future purchasers) but they have no obligation whatsoever to do so. They sold the game, you bought the game, the transaction is over. If they want to give us something else (thanks 4J!) that's just great, but we have no right to demand anything.
What we are entitled to:
What we are not entitled to:
If 4J chooses to give us any of the latter, the correct response is "Thank you kindly," not "That's not good enough."
And frankly, I think they're owed some apologies.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
You know i'm kinda sick of that mentality Akynth, lets take a step back here and look at the game, which followed in the PC's steps I might remind you, of that you buy the game and 'we will continue to update it for free', this is what Mojang promised way way way back when the game was first starting to sell. You might not have been around for this but I was and, and so in turn they kept thier promise, and what happened to the game? It blew up and kept growing in popularity as they added more and more features to the game it netted them ALOT of money. When one ports a title you kinda adopt its policies, and you could say that this IS one of Minecrafts more respected policies, and I'm sure 4J knew this from the get go.
So along it comes on console, with near as many sales as the PC, in fact if you add up the total sales of all consoles its grater then they PC sales, which means they made a bucket load of cash. Lets not forget about the sales of texture packs, skin packs and mash up packs.
Now you seem to be putting alot of words into our mouths that was not indirectly said. I get it your a 4J fanboy, and that's all fine and dandy, I respect that, but none of us here are 'demanding updates', demanding free stuff so to speak. Hell I think most here would not mind paying a small fee for each new update. What we are after is information of how things are going, not so much of whats coming next, but how does the update progress, its not alot to ask, and it seems very reasonable. We aren't after specific dates, but more so 'long time', (several months away), (getting closer), (month or less), or (very close) (testing and soon shipping to console), ect...
And frankly none of us here have done anything wrong to 4J, and owe no one an apology.
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Retired StaffNo, doing a port does not mean that one company adopts the policies of another, nor that they are bound by the promises that other company made.
Also, I may be wrong here, but I believe the promise was "we will not charge for any updates we do" not "we will continue doing updates and not charge" -- a small thing, but a significant one. Mojang did not promise to do any certain updates, at any certain time -- just not to charge for them if they did. Well, 4J isn't charging for any updates they do, either, so to that extent they actually are keeping Mojang's promise, even though it isn't theirs.
Your definition of "fanboy" being, I take it, anyone who disagrees with you? If you don't think it's possible for someone to believe that you're dead wrong for any reason other than them being a "fanboy" then the problem is a lot closer to you than I am ... and still would be even if you were sitting next to me.
No, I'm not anyone's fanboy. I bought a product, I used that product, I enjoyed that product, and I was satisfied with the transaction. Simple as that.
You might want to re-read the original post that started the thread. The whole point of the poster's ire was that the PC and MCPE versions had certain updates and the console version had not, and he was highly irate over that.
Given the number of people who have expressed anger at even a small payment for a skin or texture pack, I'm inclined to doubt that.
Both 4JSteve and I have explained why that's simply not possible. Software development doesn't fit neat schedules. Features get pulled at the last minute because there's just no time to complete them. Something is making the update fail certification testing, so it's a choice of putting off the release for another month or releasing without that. Sometimes things get pushed aside by other things that have a higher priority, even something as simple as a bug that slipped past QA.
This would be no big deal if people understood and accepted how it works. "Stuff happens." But they don't. "Getting closer", for instance, would be taken as an ironclad promise to release that feature, before any others, on a specific date. The industry jokes about release dates exist for a reason. I've seen this from both the outside and the inside, and the bottom line is they don't give out any more information because the way people treat that information will do 4J no good and potentially much harm. If the Minecraft console community was exceptional in our politeness toward the developers, our understanding of release schedules and the uncertainties thereof, and our civility overall, they might do otherwise. But posts like the one that started this thread prove to them in spades that they have made the right decision by not saying anything that might be somehow interpreted to constitute any sort of promise, because they know that it can be and will be, and no good deed will go unpunished.
Except, y'know, the way the OP addressed 4J, and others have said as well. That's not the way to treat people even if they don't give you what you feel entitled to.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
Yeah I get it 4J doesn't owe us anything, and yes dates can't be specifically nailed down. I'm not a 12 year old whom can't grasp that concept. I'am a fully grown man, whom I might add is getting close to retirement, and whom has worked in construction for many many years. We also have deadlines, and sometimes things arise that cause us to go over that deadline, but were not talking about several months here, at the very most 30 or so days, Theres nothing saying that 'Were getting close guys, but a few problems appeared at the last moment, we'll update you more as we can'. There are many ways to word things, that shows the company is actively doing things. When 4J goes dead for awhile, people loose hope, and start drifting away.
Watching their twitter feed, I really feel for the company, as they are taking alot of flack, mainly console vs console bashing but, no matter what they post, pretty much the number one query is when, and how is the update coming. 'A be patient, were working on it', would go along ways to silence the madness, and yes they are going to still get the 'When's' but for a lot of people the information that they are working on it will be enough.
Anyhow Akynth, I apologize, i thought you were targeting most of us as that's how I took your message, but it seems more oriented towards the OP rather then the majority of follow ups. As well your right, 4J owes us nothing, and they continue to develop the game, which is good, and I reward that by buying skinpacks, texture packs and mashups at each major update to the game. Personally I could care less about skin packs, Hell I use the default steve skin, but I own nearly every skin pack, its my way of saying thanks.
I worked for decades as a software engineer, and I see nothing wrong with keeping your customers informed about how development is going. If 4J Studios choose to stop development on MC (which will likely result in Microsoft/Mojang awarding the job to someone else) they can have the courtesy to inform us. Given that this is about as likely as a snowball in hell, I assume 4J will continue to work on Minecraft for the consoles, and that this work will result in expansions and enhancements to the game. And given that, some sort of feedback to the customers who have spent millions on the game is not unreasonable.
The word "entitled" is like the word "productivity". You know it isn't meant benignly, and someone is about to make your life less pleasant.
Whoa everyone - before this gets out of hand. What I'm saying (and I think both Cobra and Akynth are agreeing with) is that Minecraft itself has caused a social change within the attitudes of young gamers by opening up the PC version of the game so much towards "community" programming. Given the generally younger and generally older audiences on the Xbox 360, it's natural that many of the younger ones would just expect to experience the same level of "community" privileges on the Xbox 360 and the older ones would not. Regardless, the console environment was never set up with that sort of level of participation in the process in mind. To enable it is not simply a matter of Microsoft changing a few rules, the whole OS architecture would have to be changed somewhat to adapt to it... and at least on the Xbox 360, there is not enough economic incentive for Microsoft to do that since the system is essentially obsolete (due to its technical limitations). Whether or not Microsoft can or will eventually adapt the Xbox One to this new "social reality" among younger gamers remains to be seen... but I don't see it happening on the Xbox 360. In any case, 4J is not really in any position to unilaterally just change it. They are porters of a game being designed by another company (Mojang) now owned by Microsoft... and are generally caught between a rock and a hard place here. Because of Minecraft, we've gone from a generation of gamers who were just happy to play the game to a generation that won't be happy unless they are allowed to participate in the development of the game. As I said, nothing wrong in that... just vastly different "worlds."
Cobra - 4J would certainly make a formal announcement if their development of Minecraft CE were to stop. The absence of any announcement is, to me, a clear indication that they are "still working on it." and I really still don't need to hear in a tweet each week that they are "still working on it" to "know" this. As a person who is just happy to play the game and don't really care about the development details, I also don't need to ask 4J to reveal such things... actually, in some respects, it's nice to be surprised when an update comes out (kind of like opening an present). But, I get that the younger gamers are not of the same mindset... don't understand why they find constantly being bonged by useless robot "we're working on it" tweets so comforting... but a lot of companies are now opting to go that route.
Another issue with all this is the amount of communication that does already go on here in so many different places... and still there are number of community members who seem rue to even see it, let alone read it. Just look at how many different threads get started on the same old "bugs" over and over and over again. (I can't count how many times I've typed "Help & Options" - "Settings" - "Reset to Defaults") On that note, I sort of question that anything short of personalized answers to every thread by 4J themselves would pacify many of the masses.
However, "fine tuning" by players isn't allowed on the Xbox 360. It's up to 4J to optimize the game for each console (Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, & PS4).
I was being facetious in my last post to illustrate a point. Clearly, 4J are not going to stop work on their main bread and butter. Knowing that does not make us "entitled", and neither does requesting feedback about it.
I am very happy to use the creative sandbox exactly as it is, myself. I'm not demanding any changes. If anything, I'm more concerned that changes will break or bog down things that work well now. I do, however, expect fixes to serious issues. Any remaining world-corruption bugs need to be fixed, and anything impeding the only backup mechanism possible on the XONE (synching) needs to be fixed. Crashing or freezing while reading a corrupt save is inexcusable, and really needs to be fixed, if it isn't already.
I agree... getting those particular issues finally fixed would go much much farther in promoting good relations than tweets about "working on it."
"I stand on my ground"