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WSJ: Mojang Could Be Worth $1 Billion
- Hawkee 14y agoI'm surprised to see an article that requires a paid subscription on the front page of HN.
- jiggy2011 14y agoSurely this depends on if they can continue to produce smash hits like minecraft. While I love the idea of 0x10c I don't know if it will replicate the success. It's something I find it hard to explain to people who don't understand things like programming and emulators. It could just be too hard to have the sort of mass appeal that minecraft did.
- dwerthen 14y agoSurely the same thing could have been said about Minecraft, having little to no mass appeal, before it became a huge hit, no?
- jiggy2011 14y agoI think there was probably more evidence in favour of minecraft being a success. For example widespread popularity of lego and other various sandbox games. Minecraft is also relatively simple to understand, pick up and place blocks. I assume that 0x10c will have a much steeper learning curve. Though it was certainly a long shot that minecraft would be as popular as it is today, the question is whether lightning can strike twice? I'm sure that 0x10c will still a profitable game but I doubt it will have sales numbers that approach minecraft's.
- nightpool 14y agoThe cool thing is none of this was made for the profit or sales numbers. Notch makes games because he loves making games. In fact, it kinda seems like he's intentionally trying for a more obscure game, something to be niche with a strong community rather then wildly popular.
- Laremere 14y agoOx10^c sounds like a game where Notch went "Ok, I have money and a fanbase which will pay attention if I make an obscure game, what game do I really want to play but wouldn't get approved in a million years by a publisher."
- rdl 14y agoI've wanted a multiplayer game where I could script most of the day to day activity for about as long as I've played games. I think 0x10^c will be super popular.
- ben0x539 14y agoLightning never strikes the same place twice, etc
- wcoenen 14y agoI never got that analogy. Lightning will strike the same place over and over again[1], because that place has the least resistance for charge to flow between the clouds and the ground. [1] http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00354.htm http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00354.htm
- zeroexzeroone 14y agoAfter lightning strikes it probably doesnt :)
- c-oreills 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod
- pavel_lishin 14y ago> It's something I find it hard to explain to people who don't understand things like programming and emulators. "It's a space game where you have to build your own computer. Unless you don't want to, in which case you can download one of, like, a million that people have already worked on for months and years."
- jiggy2011 14y agoIt depends how big a chunk of the game is dependant on the programming aspect. Since it is inherently multiplayer it's quite possible that people with technical skills will dominate the game.
- wsc981 14y agoIt will be very hard, perhaps impossible, for Mojang (or any other company) to replicate the success of Minecraft. But I don't think 0x10c needs to be as successful as Minecraft is. As long as they can make at least a little profit on 0x10c all will be fine. From what I've seen and understand about the game, I think 0x10c will certainly be profitable. The nice thing about 0x10c will be that in a way it's another sandbox game as well, but this time the sandbox is the on-ship computer instead of the world. But I also think the game will offer plenty for people who are not into programming. Markus streamed the FPS capabilities of the game recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2k8QBcaaUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2k8QBcaaUM
- jiggy2011 14y agoIt will be profitable, but it needs to be extremely profitable to justify a $1 billion valuation on the company.
- bfwi 14y agoIf they are to have chance of replicating that success, I would think they have to aggressively brand Mojang as the "creator of Minecraft". Maybe then it would be possible. I know of Minecraft, but I didn't remember that Mojang was the company behind it, before I was reminded by this post.
- topherjaynes 14y agoThis link works: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323807004578282142065371984.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732380700457828...
- slmt 14y agoIt just goes to show that social proof is extremely powerful. 1. Create a really crap game that's not really a game. 2. Create a site with a bullshit stats page showing how many geeks are supposedly buying it and how fast. 3. Spam about it on geeky sites. 4. Watch all the geeks throw money at you as they try to prove that they are geeky enough by buying a sandbox game that they "totally get." Mojang, I salute you.
- jiggy2011 14y agocrap game is fairly subjective here, it seems to have burnt enough man hours to suggest that it does have lasting appeal.
- criley 14y agoWow, you could not have misread Mojang any worse. You must be intentionally obtuse here -- I refuse to believe that you're this ignorant. You feel like some washed up older guy pissed off that his idea didn't make it, content to sit and pooh-pooh anything else that comes by. "My idea was so great, but no, stupid little blocks is what idiots around the world want" is the vibe I get from you. "Crappy game" "bullshit stats" "spam it" You're jealous and content to sit there and throw your sour grapes at anyone who dares actually like Minecraft. Honestly, you're an insult to the spirit of this site and the people who come here. To shit all over a start up that is wildly successful for no other reason than you dislike it -- Shame on you.
- Harkins 14y agoHe can be wrong without being a personal failure driven by spite. Your comment is not so nice.
- kayoone 14y agoyou just have no idea what you are talking about.
- gradys 14y agoI think this is an overly cynical view. Minecraft is actually fun, particularly with friends. The multiplayer experience is in a niche essentially on its own. This great multiplayer experience encourages people to get enlist their friends to buy the game and play with them. While I think a $1 billion valuation is probably presumes far too much about the repeatability of Minecraft-like success, I think it's obvious that Mojang's success with Minecraft is attributable to more than just effective marketing. I also don't think it's unreasonable to think that Mojang's highly innovative game design will bring them more success in the future.
- tterrace 14y agoI just finished talking with a colleague whose six year old loves minecraft and I remember talking with a twelve year old who was similarly obsessed - to the point of knowing the patch numbers and all the details. The community which grew organically around this game is incredible, and that kind of peer-to-peer promotion is priceless.
- Shivetya 14y agoand if you don't want to play it there are many people who stream their playing of this game. I have used twitch.tv for perusing games I am interested in as well as screening games for my niece and nephew, usually I send a link to my sister and ask if the game is acceptable and would her kids enjoy that.
- tterrace 14y agoThat was another thing he mentioned - his kid watches all the minecraft youtube videos too. I'm sure if you get bored of doing your own thing you can take a look at what other people are making and come away with a whole new perspective on how to play the game.
- pimeys 14y agoI remember my friend telling me about this game and showed me a youtube video of the gameplay. I tested Minecraft and didn't like it. After a while I tested it again and I was completely hooked. Today we're playing it almost every evening after work with my wife in our own server. Doing missions together, building our own city, farming and raising animals. I just found out the FTB mod pack for it. It's unbelievable how much stuff people have added to the game. Now I can make a portal gun, build a railroad system or design my own futuristic neon city. I paid like what, 10 euros for this?
- webwanderings 14y ago> Sales occur digitally rather than through brick-and-mortar stores ... This isn't true. I bought the Minecraft (activation card) for my son through Walmart.
- mbesto 14y agoIt takes 3,000 employees for Zynga Inc., ZNGA -0.38% the largest social-network game company in the world, to generate at least $150 million in annual operating profit. From an office in Stockholm, a largely unknown company brought in more than half that sum. Its employee count: 29. Ugh, this type of statement does a massive desservice to the programming service provider industry.
- buerkle 14y agoAnd it ignores the thousands of people writing mods for minecraft.
- cookiecaper 14y agoWith something close to absolutely no support from Mojang, even though they've appropriated some of the community's features.
- nicholassmith 14y agoMinecraft isn't WoW (that's a good thing). WoW is pretty much aggressively targeted to make large amounts of money, which is why they're valued so high. Mojang seem to want to make things that are cool and fun, more than they want to set up large subscription bases, add on packs and so on. Could Mojang become a billion dollar company? Sure, maybe. Anything can happen. Is it a good comparison between them and Blizzard? I'd say no, they seem to have distinctly different goals. You know what's cool, being a company that is happy making things rather than being a billion dollar company and dealing with the headaches of stock price related soothsaying.
- bstar77 14y agoFor the people who criticize Minecraft as an underwhelming gaming experience, you need to look at the game from a different perspective... For a young child, this game has a tremendous lure... it's very simple to visually take in. All of the objects you build with bricks are abstract representations of real life things. For a child, visualizing a castle in minecraft is much easier to process than showing them one in a Lord of the Rings movie. The other thing is that there's really no rules. You can pretty much do whatever you want... build stuff, explore, play the actual campaign, fight bad guys, etc. This is the exact opposite of the 'cinematic' experience most other games try to create. Kids will bec creating their own storyline in their minds. Minecraft is the ultimate game of imagination and kids will eat it up like candy. This is why it's made so much money and has become a cultural phenomenon.
- mmahemoff 14y agoIs it really a child's game? I got the impression it had pretty broad appeal especially as it's programmable.
- bstar77 14y agoIt definitely has tremendous broad appeal, but I think the characteristics I mentioned above is what puts it into this category of it's own. Notch has done an amazing design job of baking in advanced gameplay without affecting any of the accessibility.
- nicpottier 14y agoI love Minecraft, it is genius, original and tons of fun, but you need at least two points to draw a line, one hit does not a trend make. The game world is littered with 'one hit wonders' but it is very hard to repeat that success, doubly so on the scale of Minecraft. For those that say Mojang is somehow unique, that Notch is the messiah of indy gaming, all I can say is survivor bias. The game industry is chock full of brilliant, passionate peeps who build really original games that just fail to spark the imagination of a large audience for one reason or another. Hope the best for Mojang and co, love their work on Minecraft and hope they can follow it up with something just as unique, but this article is making some big leaps.
- justinhj 14y agoI've been working on video games for 20 years and from my perspective Minecraft is not a one hit wonder, it's the coming of age of a genre. It reminds me of when I first saw Doom running. It was graphically beautiful for the day and a real technical accomplishment. Although it was by no means the first FPS, it was a huge hit and drove a lot of other companies to go into the genre. That industry has peaked today with Call of Duty being a $1b franchise. With Minecraft, Notch took some really good games and put them together in a way that had much more Universal appeal. I wouldn't be surprised if the genre expands and matures and takes 15 years to play out. I think it's likely Mojang will lead that process.
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- geuis 14y agoPlease don't submit articles behind pay walls.
- martinced 14y agoI think one real lesson here is that super-shiny high end graphics are not what counts. The gameplay is by far the most important ingredient in any game's success. More than ten years ago back when I playing Counter-Strike (CS still being immensively succesful btw) I was using a "low poly" mod: this would replace the models of the players with models made of fewer polygons (the head became a cube, etc.) because it would give me a faster framerate. And the shitty graphics didn't matter: the important thing was the gameplay. If you can have both great gameplay, great graphics and great perfs, go for it. But if you have to choose and want to get succesful: cut down the graphics budget. That's not what's going to make your game succesful.
- corkeh 14y agoFor those having trouble getting past the paywall: http://wsjwap.mo2do.net/s/4150/388?articleId=SB10001424127887323807004578282142065371984&fullStory=fullStory http://wsjwap.mo2do.net/s/4150/388?articleId=SB1000142412788...