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On this day 10 years ago, Microsoft acquired #Minecraft developer Mojang for US$2.5 billion.
https://minecraft.wiki/w/Mojang_Studios#History

In a blog post announcing the purchase, Owen Jones wrote: "Everything is going to be OK. <3"
http://web.archive.org/web/20140915131835/https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/

Ten years later, Mojang now has been part of Microsoft almost twice as long as it has been independent.

It's interesting to look back at the original announcement video from Xbox as well:
https://youtu.be/lXNWchwDiG8

@minecraft

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[-] KellysNokia@lemmy.world 142 points 2 weeks ago

For me the only downside is having to use a Microsoft account to play.

Otherwise I think the frequency of updates and continued support of the Java version have been pretty solid.

Some of the mechanics have changed but I often grow to like them when I stop viewing them in isolation. For example I thought it was annoying iron ore became drops, but when I found I could use fortune pick it all made sense!

[-] ChilledPeppers@lemmy.world 37 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You forgot bedrock marketplace and chat reporting, altho I would say that over all it wasn't bad (the acquisition)

[-] ChilledPeppers@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago
  • and all other minecraft related products, like story mode, dungeons, ledgends, and earth
[-] RandomVideos@programming.dev 8 points 2 weeks ago

I havent yet seen a minecraft server that allows chat reporting

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[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 points 2 weeks ago

Bedrock marketplace is fully optional though. If you run Bedrock on a PC or Android phone, you can literally install worlds, skins, addons and texturepacks from the internet. They actually have their own installation mechanism (once you have made a texture pack for example, rename it from packname.zip to packname.mcpack , then clicking it will launch Minecraft and install it)

The only place where you cannot do this is on console... Which you weren't able to do on the 4j version either.

Also, if someone on PC has a bedrock world open with custom sideloaded packs and add-ons, etc, and someone from console joins them, they work as normal for the person on console, which is pretty neat.

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[-] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago

Many changes are fantastic but they add more and more stuff to a game whose inventory was built around having a fifth the number of regular items in your inventory. Shulker boxes are the coolest thing in the game...until they become necessary to manage the bloat, in which case they suck, because now it's just an inventory square that takes forever to use.

They need to double the size of the standard player inventory, at least.

[-] derpgon@programming.dev 5 points 2 weeks ago

Not necessarily double it, but add a row, two, or add bags that increase the inventory, maybe with a special type (ore bag, flower bag, etc.). Mods had it handled more than 10 years ago.

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[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 9 points 2 weeks ago

And the stolen accounts.

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[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 111 points 2 weeks ago

The outcome was unfortunate (no more games ever I guess??) but Tim Schafer's announcement video was at least self-aware and funny.
"I always wanted to stay independent and free. But then I thought: what if I had a lot of money".

[-] Azzu@lemm.ee 32 points 2 weeks ago

I'm just confused because they already must have had a lot of money. How much you need?

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 weeks ago

They sure didn't have Microsoft volumes of money.

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[-] Rinox@feddit.it 8 points 2 weeks ago

They had a lot of money, but MS probably added a couple zeros to that lot of money.

I'd have taken the offer too, as I'd be set for life, and so would my kids and my kids' kids.

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[-] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 58 points 2 weeks ago

Minecraft is also the only base game I know with a retail price that keeps going up instead of down. Quite bizarre if you think about it.

[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 70 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Minecraft is one of the only base games on the market that is perpetually having content and features added to it. For free.

And I don’t know of any developer other than Mojang that prioritizes and targets bug fixing to such a high degree.

Edit: TIL, some people see the phrase “one of the only” and think it means “the only”.

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 53 points 2 weeks ago

Terraia and No Man's Sky certainly leap to mind.

[-] Myr@lemmy.world 41 points 2 weeks ago

Stardew Valley... i'm sure there's more

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
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[-] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 weeks ago

Deep rock galactic is fantastic, highly recommend

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 14 points 2 weeks ago

A lot of devs do it, you just don't play them so you think it doesn't happen.

[-] WIPocket@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago
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[-] JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works 44 points 2 weeks ago

Just want to say it's good they didn't kill or make the franchise super mundane. They bought it, and kept improving on it.

I don't play Minecraft now, however I know enough people who still do and continue to love it (all these years later). That's just nice.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago

I don't know if that's good honestly. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I think the simplicity of the earlier game was part of the appeal. Try playing it now. There's so much stuff that I don't know what is happening half the time. I'll play it a bit every few years with friends, but every time it feels like they've taken things too far. Is anyone actually asking for more content?

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[-] sol6_vi@lemmy.world 35 points 2 weeks ago

I still play minecraft nearly every day with my wife, siblings and soon my kids. I have no love for Microsoft but the team working on Minecraft IMO has done a great job expanding the game. The new terrain generation, mobs, mechanics are all fun additions and holy cow some of the new composers they have on the OST are brilliant.

Im sure things would be different if Mojang didnt sell out but who knows how. The game we actually have today is just as magical to me as it was in the early days.

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

Im sure things would be different if Mojang didnt sell out but who knows how.

Notch would be less rich but still relevant, so I'm good with Microsoft owning it. Notch is enough of a shitter that Microsoft basically scrubbed him from Minecraft and didn't even invite him to the 10th anniversary celebration of the game, which should be telling.

[-] sol6_vi@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

Oh yeah absolutely, fuck that guy 110%

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[-] HollowNaught@lemmy.world 33 points 2 weeks ago

Am I the only one who questioned the legality of them deleting accounts if they didn't migrate?

[-] SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

No you are not, and I'm pissed I forgot to do that.

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[-] lseif@sopuli.xyz 13 points 2 weeks ago

"mojangstas" is crazy

[-] Damage@feddit.it 9 points 2 weeks ago

I remember thinking it was madness to spend that much on a game that was already on its way out...

[-] MilitantAtheist@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

And now Notch spends his time being a wasteful, hateful idiot.

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[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

For me, that was the signal to end playing Minecraft.

[-] Reiddragon@fedi.reimu.info 6 points 2 weeks ago

@MinecraftWikiEN @minecraft > "Everything is going to be OK"

and, now that we have the benefit of hindsight, we can now definitively say that everything was indeed not ok

[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 5 points 2 weeks ago

10 years of enshittification.

[-] homicidalrobot@lemm.ee 33 points 2 weeks ago

For bedrock, yes, absolutely. Bedrock used to be lauded for its performance across multiple machines and it now runs like trash on every one with the most egregious storefront in gaming. You can spend 20 extra USD on bedrock to get a single mod-equivalent data pack. You can spend that much or more on minecraft skins that won't work outside of bedrock. Minecoins as a premium currency targeted toward children are one of the worst examples of robbing a low information userbase in gaming all around, it has reached unbelievable levels.

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[-] RandomVideos@programming.dev 14 points 2 weeks ago

Enshittification (alternately, crapification and platform decay) is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

Minecraft has not significantly degraded the original offerings to Minecraft has not significantly degraded the original offerings to better serve business customers. The only things i can think of are the featured servers and the marketplace on bedrock, which, even tough are bad, both can just be ignored(you can still import skins, datapacks, worlds etc) and trying to claim bedrock is the official version and that its better than java. If you previously had one version of minecraft, you also got the other version for free so the differences between versions are less of a problem

Minecraft has not significantly degraded their services for users and businesses. Other than chat reporting that affects bedrock edition and realms, i dont think there is anything else. Minecraft also had a lot of updates that improved the game

Has minecraft even tried to maximize profits for shareholders?

I havent played on minecraft bedrock for years so sorry if im downplaying the problems of that platform

I dont think that its fair to say that minecraft has been getting worse for profits for 10 years from 5 changes, 4 happening in 2017, and one(that only affects a small group of people) that happened in 2022, while ignoring all the ways minecraft got better

There are so many other things to complain about(everything i listed here, the copper bulb changes, fireflies being removed), but enshittification isnt one of them

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[-] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 weeks ago

I had only played for a little while after the acquisition, and only with my kids. I have always wondered how the game is doing these days.

It is the only video game my daughter plays, and now that she is in college I have considered putting up a server that her and I can play.

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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
415 points (98.4% liked)

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