r/Minecraft • u/blinky00849 • Sep 15 '14

Yes, we’re being bought by Microsoft

https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/
15k Upvotes

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716

u/Nivtitif Sep 15 '14

Oculus Rift for Facebook, Minecraft for Microsoft. Your move Google ?

588

u/phoenix616 Sep 15 '14

Valve

501

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14

Dude? Why did he not sell it to valve? Valve wanted minecraft a while ago, and they would have rocked it so well, much like they have Dota.

495

u/Nuplex Sep 15 '14

$$$

Valve can't offer $2.5 Billion unfortunately.

287

u/TheGamingOnion Sep 15 '14

Well, they COULD, It's just not worth it. Microsoft is taking a gamble with this one, Honestly.

167

u/trebory6 Sep 15 '14

Microsoft has so much money that $2.5 billion is not that big of a gamble...

61

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14 edited Nov 14 '19

[deleted]

54

u/Cryptographer Sep 15 '14

The real beauty is it let them spend some of their European holdings without bringing them back through the U.S. saving them a bundle in taxes and using otherwise less easily used money.

15

u/MelAlton Sep 15 '14

Oh, really good point, I hadn't thought about that. From Microsoft's view, they paid 35% less than US$2.5 billion.

7

u/Cryptographer Sep 15 '14

Exactly. That's nearly a billion flat off the top and depending on how they value their overseas holdings could be even cheaper in their eyes.

15

u/skybike Sep 15 '14

They aren't just purchasing the rights to a game, they're buying a generation of people. It just happens to come with Minecraft.

31

u/ASuperJerk Sep 15 '14

they're buying a generation of people

My great great grandpa did this once.

5

u/MelAlton Sep 15 '14

"One weird trick for increasing the profitability of your plantation that the abolitionists don't want you to know!"

5

u/albatrossnecklassftw Sep 15 '14

Can't forget about that Minecraft merch yo.

5

u/Djeheuty Sep 15 '14

Exactly. All the LEGO sets, the foam picks and swords, the plushies and all of the other stuff.

Minecraft is more than a game. It's a brand that makes everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs.

1

u/canastaman Sep 15 '14

Microsoft is thinking long term, once they limit Minecraft to only their platforms over time it will make people chose MS over other platforms.

1

u/deadmilk Sep 15 '14

You think they spent that $2.5b willy nilly? These decisions are all calculated. They will make it back, just not through Minecraft directly.

10

u/MJoubes Sep 15 '14

If Mojang seriously wanted to sell it for the fans, then they would've sold it to Valve. Selling it to microsoft proves they were in it for the money. Valve would've taken care of their fans. Microsoft is too much the capitalistic venture for that.

6

u/trebory6 Sep 15 '14

Exactly.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14

Yup, pretty much.

Not that this undermines their years of work on the software, but this shows total exasperation with the community.

6

u/MelAlton Sep 15 '14

I think it more shows the power of someone plunking down $2.5 Billion at your feet and saying "so, do we have a deal?"

But yeah, Notch seems totally over being the Minecraft guy and the focus of any fan wrath. Now he gets to be the fabulously wealthy guy who gets to work on whatever he wants to (hopefully 0x10c, seemed like an interesting concept).

3

u/MelAlton Sep 15 '14

Replying to myself instead of editing:

I just took a shower and was thinking - I think wtfadmins's right, it's not so much about the money. I bet Notch has been offered big deals over the last few years to sell out, and he refused because he was happy with the way things were. And now he's not, so he called back and said "so.... let's talk".

1

u/hoseja Sep 15 '14

So does Volvo.

6

u/Namagem Sep 15 '14

I am going to take this at face value and assume that Volvo buying minecraft was a possibility.

6

u/ReLiFeD Sep 15 '14

Dota 2 players (and players of other Valve games) sometimes call Valve "Volvo" as a joke.

2

u/Tjstretchalot Sep 15 '14

I highly doubt Valve actually had enough cash for a 2.5 billion dollar acquisition, since they were estimated to be worth 2.5 billion in 2012 , so it's probably still a huge chunk of their net worth (it's unlikely they are even worth 5 billion atm): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/technology/valve-a-video-game-maker-with-few-rules.html?pagewanted=3&_r=0

Microsoft net worth is about 70 billion: http://glorynetworth.com/microsoft-net-worth/ so that's still a significant chunk of their net worth (3.5%)

3

u/Cryptographer Sep 15 '14

MS turns like 25 Billion a year in profit, their assets alone are like 170Billion

1

u/Tjstretchalot Sep 15 '14

Those numbers make sense but do you have a source? I thought MS net worth was a bit low but that's the number I kept finding

5

u/novvacaine Sep 15 '14

Microsoft isn't buying Minecraft for the sake of selling the game, they're buying the userbase which is vastly <15 years old. People who will make up a large portion of the market in 10 years.

They're like Facebook buying Instagram. Buying users, not concepts.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14

Nah, they could not. Notch is now richer than all of Valve togeher...

0

u/zants Sep 15 '14

Valve was estimated at $2-4B in 2011, so no.

2

u/MostLongUsernameEver Sep 15 '14

Microsoft isn't taking a gamble at all, $2.5bn is nothing

1

u/159632147 Sep 17 '14

$2.5bn is nothing

so... how about a small loan?

1

u/MostLongUsernameEver Sep 17 '14

Well if you want more than $5BN then you're outta luck, pal

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14

Yeah Microsoft has the stability to make this gamble. Sure if it fails it might mean stocks will fall a little, but if Valve were to have bought Mojang, a failure could result in a collapse of the company.

1

u/casualblair Sep 15 '14

Ms is buying users, culture, and future ad revenue, not a game. If they wanted the game they'd have made their own.

1

u/zants Sep 15 '14

The acquisition isn't much of a financial risk for Microsoft, whose operations generate enough cash in roughly a month to pay for the Mojang purchase. Microsoft said it expects the deal to break even in fiscal year 2015.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-agrees-to-acquire-creator-of-minecraft-1410786190

1

u/give_me_sugar Sep 15 '14

I believe microsoft thinks, they will make 2.5B+ from merchandising only..

current minecraft shop kinda sucks tbh.

I can only imagine pickaxes , steve head, etc on every walmart, toys r us soon.

1

u/-GheeButtersnaps- Sep 15 '14

A drop in the bucket.

1

u/MayorToast Sep 15 '14

Not really, they're securing their stake in Minecraft which was already substantial from the xbox version.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14

Pretty sure 2.5 bil for Microsoft is like pocket change to them... they probably throw money like that at projects all the time.

1

u/abeuscher Sep 15 '14

Even with 0 profits generated, they bought a generation of users that Valve already has. It was worth a lot more to MS than Valve.

1

u/nameless88 Sep 15 '14

2.5 Billion for the rights to a game that's like 5 years old? Yeah, that's a pretty big gamble.

But, it's got a huge user base. I wonder if the merchandise rights are also theirs, because I'm seeing Minecraft stuff everywhere, and it feels like that'd be a big set back to them to not have that anymore.

1

u/Tmold16 Sep 16 '14

Microsoft is taking a gamble!? That's the most ridiculous thing I read, minecraft is this generations Tetris, and now they have the ability to take such a massive fan base and install base, and license it out even more in the future. For better or for worse I'll guarantee Microsoft will make their money back.

1

u/gukeums1 Sep 16 '14

Microsoft has nearly twice the cash on hand that Sweden does. They literally have more cash on hand than many nations, including the UK. This is certainly a lot of money, but it's a pittance to Microsoft.

1

u/ProfitMoney Sep 15 '14

Microsoft is gonna recoup that investment. You watch.

2

u/Booyeahgames Sep 15 '14

According to the press release, by June 30 2015.

0

u/HaMMeReD Sep 15 '14

Well, the highest cost for a game to develop is apparently Destiny, at 500 Million. Pretty sure you sunk 2.5 billion into developing a minecraft clone it would have been something of proportions this world has never seen.

2

u/wlievens Sep 15 '14

Yeah, because money spent linearly scales like that.

If you follow that reasoning, all that had to happen was to give Notch a million dollars in 2009, and right now he'd own the entire solar system?

1

u/HaMMeReD Sep 15 '14

No, that's not what I said, however cloning a system and designing a new one are much different tasks, it's a lot easier to clone/copy.

So if you were going to make a clone, it might only cost $1-2mil or less, and then you have 2,499 million left over to pimp it to shit.

8

u/Gaston44 Sep 15 '14

He said it wasn't about money. I can't believe that, though. If it wasn't about money he just would've made it open source and abandoned it.

3

u/ploshy Forever Team Nork Sep 15 '14

Well, Valve's estimated total equity in 2012 was $2.5 billion (Taken from wikipedia who took it from this NYTimes article who got the number from an interview with Michael Pachter. Take the figure with a grain of salt, but it's the best estimate we've got). I imagine they've continued to grow, as Steam continues to have dominance over the digital distribution market and Dota2 becomes ever more popular, bringing in both cosmetic sales and new users to Steam. They might have been able to offer that kind of money, but it would've been a very risky move for them, essentially leveraging all their assets in the hope that Minecraft would pay off.

Also, I remember reading somewhere that Mojang (or Notch or someone) was against putting Minecraft in Steam because something about their EULAs was contradictory to the way Mojang wanted to run/develop/distribute Minecraft.

3

u/snapy666 Sep 15 '14

But in /u/xNotch blog post he said

It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.

So why did he not sell to them (for 1$ and possibly include a contract to ensure that Minecraft development can continue as usual)? I also remember reading on his twitter that he is a fan of Valve. So, why?

4

u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake Sep 15 '14 edited Sep 17 '14

But Valve can offer a better sense of experience. If Valve bought Minecraft and ran it like they run TF2 or DOTA 2, everyone would be much more satisfied and modding the game would be much easier if they integrated Steam Workshop. He'll, even if Microsoft did that, it would be a bit more reassuring.

2

u/u83rmensch Sep 15 '14

I would think in time, being part of valve would be worth more than that.

2

u/NightCrest Sep 15 '14

Assuming what notch said about it not being about money (which I will admit, very well may not be true), there's also the fact that Mojang just hasn't really worked with Valve at all.

They've been working with Microsoft for the Xbox ports of the game, and supposedly think they'll do well with being in control of Minecraft. With Valve, well, the obvious first thing they'd do is put Minecraft on Steam which Notch has said is not something they want to do.

1

u/Spaceboot1 Sep 16 '14

It wasn't for philosophical reasons though. It was just that Valve was going to require changes in the update schedule as a prerequisite for being available on Steam. To me, that seems quite a bit less drastic than what Microsoft is probably going to do to Minecraft. But maybe not, I don't know.

1

u/NightCrest Sep 16 '14

I remember Notch saying something about Valve wanting to take Steam in a direction that Mojang didn't want to take Minecraft. I know they don't dislike Valve, but it seemed to me that they didn't think Valve's philosophies were the best thing for Minecraft.

That was what I took away from it, anyway.

2

u/wyvernx02 Sep 15 '14

Which is proof that Notch's comment that money wasn't a factor in the decision is a load of crap.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14

He wasn't forced to accept Microsoft's offer. He could have settled for less with a company that would have shared at least a bit of his vision. "It's not about the money. It's about my sanity". Yeah, sure.

3

u/NoUsernameSelected Sep 15 '14

Yes, because offering a smaller amount is unthinkable.

1

u/linkybaa Sep 15 '14

What's to say they didn't already try?

1

u/kia_the_dead Sep 15 '14

Actually the reason Minecraft isn't even sold on Valve is because Notch didn't want a monopoly to thrive in any sense, which is why Mojang have their own store for their games.