Minecraft Forums

I have seen far more ignorance on this subject than I would have thought existed.

First, suddenly everybody becomes armchair financial advisors. and corporate experts, when they have no idea how any of it actually works.

Second, The acquisition is unlikely to change very much. Too many people are ignorantly saying that Microsoft will focus on the xbox version and that they will cut off support for Mac/Linux. There is no prior art to cite that on and the fact is that Microsoft is not stupid. People like to say it, but it cannot be true. You do not become an industry juggernaught by fumbling around and making bad decisions.

If Jeb, Dinnerbone, etc don't like a change Minecraft wants to make, they can stonewall it. Microsoft cannot do anything about this. Unlike Microsoft's previous acquisitions often cited as Microsoft "Killing them off" (for example, when they bought rare after all the good people had already left and formed free-radical, which left the rare they purchased with pretty much just the people who knew how to make crappy collect-a-thons).... Dinnerbone and Jeb are very much in the public eye. They are actively tweeting about their work, and what they are doing.Unlike with Rare, Bungie, etc. They cannot simply replace departing employees or employees that give them a hard time. If they try to do that, the community will pretty much dissolve on it's own. So at least for the foreseeable future, Microsoft will almost certainly take a very "non-interference" approach. They can make suggestions, offer assistance, and keep their ear to the ground, but they are not going to jump in and say "oh we're rewriting it in C# also you guys are all fired and we're bringing in a team from XBox to rewrite everything for the Xbox one" or any other ridiculous theories people with overactive imaginations are cooking up. When they bought mojang they didn't instantly brainwash dinnerbone and Jeb- they almost certainly have their own reservations about the deal, but they might not realize that they are actually the more powerful party in the relationship here. Can anybody name any Rare Software Developer? I can't. They didn't tweet or interact. Dinnerbone and Jeb do- their absence would not go unnoticed and either quitting or being replaced would have significant negative impact. And again- Microsoft isn't stupid, they know this and they will do whatever they can to prevent that.

It definitely signals an end to an era for Minecraft and while there is a thin fog of uncertainty, it is not nearly as thick as people make it out to be.

Also worth considering- Microsoft Open Sourced their latest compiler release, Roslyn. And that was never really promised or considered previously. They are not some unchanging behemoth stuck in the past- they are not IBM, they are the upstart, agile company that screwed IBM over, and I doubt they 've forgotten that. Given the heavy role that the community plays in Minecraft decisions and how much people want that in light of the recent Bukkit self-destruction, they may ask that the Plugin API be given priority and provide the Mojang crew with any resources or people with expertise in the matter (remember, almost all of Microsoft's programs have heavy and commercializable extensibility).

Can someone still explain to me why they think modding is dead in Minecraft? Sure Im not getting the connection. Other then maybe MS selling DLC. You can't sell another modders code without permission so the whole Mods are going to cost money is not going to happen.

Other then some of the modders leaving because they hate MS. Whats going to happen? Even if we only ever have 1.8 to mod forever we still have 1.8. And all the older versions of minecraft.