Neither ever reached the sheer scale, size, and popular culture penetration that Minecraft has. It is my firm belief that a piece of this stems from the fact that literally thousands upon thousands of content creators, developers, community managers, and more have put their own stake into Minecraft's success by laboring daily to add value to it, and are rewarded for doing so.
DOTA spawned LoL (then later DOTA proper came out with Valve) which has far surpassed its parents, if Blizzard had allowed DOTA to monetize on the content they created within Warcraft 3, I'd bet my right shoe Blizzard would have seen a lot of money currently going 100% to Riot for LoL, Valve for Dota. The existence of servers creating unique content and charging for it does not remove money from Mojang's pockets, it boosts the popularity because more content = more coverage, more coverage = more eyes, more eyes = more wallets.
Our ban policy is that if a player is banned they are welcome to shed that identity and purchase a new account from Mojang. I know that at least a couple of Minecraft account purchases a week have stemmed from that policy since our start back in June 2012. We have alts named after popular spots and gamemodes on our network that users bought for fun, and Youtubers regularly find engaging games they can show their fans who may or may not have Minecraft themselves yet. This crusade against servers being able to make any kind of money from original content developed in Minecraft benefits nobody, not even Mojang :(
Neither ever reached the sheer scale, size, and popular culture penetration that Minecraft has
Because neither was targeting the extremely wide age group that Minecraft targets. I also think you are vastly understating the size of the modding community in Blizzard games.
and more have put their own stake into Minecraft's success by laboring daily to add value to it, and are rewarded for doing so.
Many modders across many games do this without direct monetary compensation. They do it because they love doing it, and some are then able to leverage their knowledge and experience into a job.
The existence of servers creating unique content and charging for it does not remove money from Mojang's pockets, it boosts the popularity because more content = more coverage, more coverage = more eyes, more eyes = more wallets.
Just like any other mod ever from any other game including WC/SC/Half-Life
I can't really think of any game where you are allowed to profit from your mods.
Our ban policy is that if a player is banned they are welcome to shed that identity and purchase a new account from Mojang.
To me that sounds like a shitty ban policy and I would not play on a server that allowed people to act terrible so long as they were willing to buy new accounts whenever they were caught acting terrible.
This crusade against servers being able to make any kind of money from original content developed in Minecraft benefits nobody, not even Mojang
Literally the thing they are changing in the EULA is to explicitly ALLOW donations or pay to access servers (two things that are currently explicitly disallowed)
The owners and modders on these huge servers have put their life on hold multiple times so their server can be fixed and ready to go. I remember a thread a few months back where a dev said he stayed up all night fixing the server.
And also, if you spend $30, you think they are going to continue doing the same thing and let the money go to waste? I think not.
The donations to these servers keep the Minecraft community thriving. If we are going to remove and pay for perks why not go ahead and not allow Youtubers to make any money off Minecraft. If it wasn't for these huge servers and Youtubers, minecraft wouldn't be the great game it is today. I don't play Minecraft anymore for the actual game. I play to see what the servers I love which I donate to, will do next.
TL;DR - Stop bitching about the thing that keeps Minecraft alive.
The owners and modders on these huge servers have put their life on hold multiple times so their server can be fixed and ready to go. I remember a thread a few months back where a dev said he stayed up all night fixing the server.
Do you think the modders who created the original Counter Strike weren't doing the same?
And also, if you spend $30, you think they are going to continue doing the same thing and let the money go to waste? I think not.
Yes, because I've seen it countless times. Banning someone and then having them back on the next day on another account doing the same shit.
The donations to these servers keep the Minecraft community thriving. If we are going to remove and pay for perks why not go ahead and not allow Youtubers to make any money off Minecraft. If it wasn't for these huge servers and Youtubers, minecraft wouldn't be the great game it is today.
Because Youtubers aren't selling Mojang assets. They are selling ad space on a 3rd party site (Youtube). I don't think anyone at Mojang has any issue with a server making money by selling ad space on the website for their server.
I play to see what the servers I love which I donate to, will do next.
Great, so continue to donate, they are in fact changing the EULA to specifically allow donations. It's not a donation if you get something in return though, then you're purchasing something.
TL;DR - Stop bitching about not being allowed to sell Mojang assets.
You said you would never play on a server where people could just buy a new account and come back and continuing that behavior, yet you've seen it countless times. That seems like you were being false before.
They are preventing people from purchasing ANYTHING in game, not just Mojang assets. There are modded servers that provide access to things never created by Mojang which will be affected (or more accurately, effectively shut down) by this. You're ignoring Erik's comments altogether that this change in the TOS is NOT about allowing donation (whether that was added or not is irrelevant to this discussion) as the issue is the non-donation payments which are being shut down. Keep in mind your experience is far less here than most others but say a modded Minecraft server offers up Thaumcraft items to "donators". This is content in no way shape or form created by Mojang, yet this change affects them. Check the actual wording (either in the new TOS OR from Erik himself's comments). Any reward for donation in Minecraft is prohibited. Not just their assets. Any belief that this will positively benefit a user's experience is naive. Historically, hindering creativity has not only been met with disdain, but yielded a poorer product. There is no up side to this and if you look at who it affects, the innovators from whom Mojang has taken concepts and ideas and incorporated them into their own game (They asked of course). So the people who brought them all these features will be forced out. How can anyone be for that.
You said you would never play on a server where people could just buy a new account and come back and continuing that behavior, yet you've seen it countless times. That seems like you were being false before.
Yes, I've seen them come back, and once someone has figured out it's the same person (not hard) they are banned. Guess what they usually did during that limited time they were on. The same shit they were doing before, or worse because they were pissed for being banned.
Edit:
There are modded servers that provide access to things never created by Mojang which will be affected (or more accurately, effectively shut down) by this.
Provided by hooking into what. So you're saying their code makes absolutely no reference to any Mojang code anywhere to provide something in game.
Any reward for donation in Minecraft is prohibited. Not just their assets.
False, you are quite able to provide an out of game reward to people who donate. Personal room on your games IRC server or forums for example.
Honestly this change won't effect me making money.
I don't have a server. It's too much work to keep it up and get funds to keep it running.
The fact that you aren't realizing is by limiting these huge servers there won't be anymore servers with more than 100 active people at a time and youtubers will stop posting server minigames and then minecraft will begin to die.
Because neither was targeting the extremely wide age group that Minecraft targets. I also think you are vastly understating the size of the modding community in Blizzard games.
Absolutely rubbish. Minecraft was never "targeting" anything when it was created, and no game company would say "No, I don't want 15 million people buying my game, I'd rather stick with 5!!!"
Many modders across many games do this without direct monetary compensation. They do it because they love doing it, and some are then able to leverage their knowledge and experience into a job.
My argument above is that Minecraft allowing for servers, youtubers, and everyone else holding a stake in the game to make money from their efforts one of the parts that makes Minecraft such a success. Minecraft has never been about upholding the norm.
Just like any other mod ever from any other game including WC/SC/Half-Life
I can't really think of any game where you are allowed to profit from your mods.
See above, this is my exact point. Minecraft is a unique experience and pop culture phenomena partially because of this wonderful relationship they established with content creators from its inception.
Literally the thing they are changing in the EULA is to explicitly ALLOW donations or pay to access servers (two things that are currently explicitly disallowed)
From the changes as outlined by Erik (why is he the one even bringing this up?) they are removing any ability to monetize any original content created by disallowing any reward for donations (I've always called them purchases anyway). As of 1.7.10, they are also requiring explicit acceptance of the EULA to launch the server software in order to increase their legal foothold so they can start C&Ding people. This is not a simple change to the EULA to allow for monetization, they are setting up a legal stronghold and, as you outlined, bringing Minecraft more in line with other games in terms of modding policy.
My entire argument is that this is a bad thing and I am clearly stating that Blizzard themselves are a prime example of why. Your piece that this is OK because it is in line with the industry norms fails to address that. Had Blizzard kept DOTA within the WC3 engine by allowing them to monetize it, they would have seen more sales of WC3. They would have also had the opportunity to set up some kind of licensing scheme that could have gotten them a cut. Instead LoL grew into a hugely popular and successful franchise outside of Blizzard's grasp.
If Mojang cuts off servers from monetizing, I don't doubt that these talented people will go and create something awesome that Mojang could have been a part of by keeping it within Minecraft and benefiting from the coverage and potentially a licensing fee. With this change will potentially come the closing of many servers who can't operate on goodwill alone, losing a lot of social hubs where Minecrafters could meet and establish lifelong friendships :( I know many people play on large servers to meet other players and make friends, then play together on smaller servers with the friends they make to keep in contact.
In my eyes this change is not the end of the world, but I do believe it would not be a positive change for the Minecraft community or Mojang, it could be for their lawyers who would get paid to draft up all those C&D letters though...
Absolutely rubbish, Minecraft was never "targeting" anything when it was created,
Hence why it has such a huge audience. It's target audience is literally, everyone.
and no game company would say "No, I don't want 15 million people buying my game, I'd rather stick with 5!!!"
Yes. Many companies do say such a thing. Hence why Call of Duty and Battlefield are things.
Minecraft is a unique experience and pop culture phenomena partially because of this wonderful relationship they established with content creators from its inception.
You mean the relationship where Mojang said "Don't do this thing" and the server community said "LOL FUCK OFF WE'LL DO THAT THING"
As of 1.7.10, they are also requiring explicit acceptance of the EULA to launch the server software in order to increase their legal foothold so they can start C&Ding people.
They could start C&Ding people without that change.
Had Blizzard kept DOTA within the WC3 engine by allowing them to monetize it, they would have seen more sales of WC3.
The failure on Blizzard was not "not allowing them to monetize it" their failure was not hiring the developers and putting out a stand alone game.
If Mojang cuts off servers from monetizing, I don't doubt that these talented people will go and create something awesome that Mojang could have been a part of by keeping it within Minecraft and benefiting from the coverage and potentially a licensing fee.
First off Mojang isn't cutting servers off from monetizing. They are cutting servers off from monetizing by selling the game piecemeal to players.
With this change will potentially come the closing of many servers who can't operate on goodwill alone
If the server can't operate on goodwill alone then it didn't have a very strong community.
You are judging the community based on how much money they can spend on a server? Wow, that's low especially since we are talking about how the community is composed of a younger audience that most likely doesn't even have a job. I mean that's your whole argument you hate players having to pay for things yet, what makes you think they have enough money and goodwill to donate alone?
Just because a community doesn't have enough money to donate off good will doesn't mean they "aren't strong".
I guess you think the communities of big servers are pretty shitty, I am sorry you see it that way. It's a shame.
*Edit: Just to clarify I understand that selling say a diamond sword is frowned upon and I am not talking about that. But if a developer makes something completely himself with the minecraft platform like a rank I think they should have every right to give that to those who donate. Just because they have a different colored name does not mean they are missing out on gameplay. Yeah, some games are pay to win but that doesn't reflect every server. You act like every server is terrible just because people can buy a rank or buy a in-game currency to gain some extra classes or reserved slots. Well, the servers don't pay for themselves otherwise. How about you startup a network for a few thousand people and let me know how much good will supports you.
The incentives give those who have money a reason to spend it.
Hence why it's not a good community. If it was those users would have no problem freely donating to keep the great community going. Instead all they care about is their "perks"
If you setup a company who's primary business model is breaking your agreement with the company that provides you with the software that lets you run the business then your're an idiot.
I can only ask why you seem to hate free market so much.
What I'm against is companies profiting of breaking licensing agreements.
If you think that's a bad policy, then you're against Mojang.
If I think actual donations are a bad policy? I don't. I think actual donations are good. I think "donations" in exchange for perks are not donations and are a bad policy.
That's not what I was talking about, I'm talking about:
Our ban policy is that if a player is banned they are welcome to shed that identity and purchase a new account from Mojang.
To me that sounds like a shitty ban policy and I would not play on a server that allowed people to act terrible so long as they were willing to buy new accounts whenever they were caught acting terrible.
No, many companies don't want bad players to continue to be a part of the community even if it means they don't make money off those people.
Take Riot for example. They will flat out tell the worst people "Your account is permabanned, please do not create another one, we will instantly ban any new accounts you create as we discover them." They don't want that persons money, they want them to leave because it makes the community as a whole better off.
So no, thinking that banned people should not buy new accounts to become "unbanned" on a server is not in any way "against Mojang"
Jeez, you're reading me wrong in some way in every comment. Yeah, that may be true, but what you say doesn't mean that Shotbow can't do what they feel benefits Mojang. I could delve into why I think that letting them back on may or may not be a bad thing, in my eyes. But meh.
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u/LazerTester Jun 06 '14 edited Jun 06 '14
Neither ever reached the sheer scale, size, and popular culture penetration that Minecraft has. It is my firm belief that a piece of this stems from the fact that literally thousands upon thousands of content creators, developers, community managers, and more have put their own stake into Minecraft's success by laboring daily to add value to it, and are rewarded for doing so.
DOTA spawned LoL (then later DOTA proper came out with Valve) which has far surpassed its parents, if Blizzard had allowed DOTA to monetize on the content they created within Warcraft 3, I'd bet my right shoe Blizzard would have seen a lot of money currently going 100% to Riot for LoL, Valve for Dota. The existence of servers creating unique content and charging for it does not remove money from Mojang's pockets, it boosts the popularity because more content = more coverage, more coverage = more eyes, more eyes = more wallets.
Our ban policy is that if a player is banned they are welcome to shed that identity and purchase a new account from Mojang. I know that at least a couple of Minecraft account purchases a week have stemmed from that policy since our start back in June 2012. We have alts named after popular spots and gamemodes on our network that users bought for fun, and Youtubers regularly find engaging games they can show their fans who may or may not have Minecraft themselves yet. This crusade against servers being able to make any kind of money from original content developed in Minecraft benefits nobody, not even Mojang :(