Microsoft seeking to acquire Mojang for $2B - What does this mean for Bukkit?

As many of you may not be aware of (this post is about 15 minutes after the announcement), the technological giant Microsoft is seeking to acquire Mojang for about 2 Billion USD, and the deal, if any, may close early this week (as per Wall Street Journal).

What does this mean for Mojang, for Minecraft, and for the modding community?

Mojang has always reaffirmed its independence as a core value of the company. But clearly, this doesn't seem to be the case with this acquisition in prospect.[1] Obviously this is no longer the case. While I may never know why, this isn't what truly concerns Bukkit, and the whole modding community. While Bukkit is in the verge of collapse with the recent departure of many members of our beloved, volunteer-based, staff team, the modding community is still overall strong for Minecraft. But Microsoft has never really condoned modding of their IPs. This has been seen with refusals for modding on XBox minecraft (while I understand this may not be logistically sound in practice anyways, it serves as a precedent)[2]. Will Microsoft adopt a policy of salutary neglect towards modding, openly condone it, or openly crackdown on modding? I would like to say they turn a blind eye, but this is unknown at the time. I really hope Microsoft does not interfere too much with Mojang other than give them the resources to continue expanding on Minecraft (maybe that official API, eh? ) and their other games. What do any of you think this means for Minecraft ... and the modding community?


[1] - Article from 2013 affirms this: http://www.edge-online.com/news/min...ns-down-multiple-suitors-to-stay-independent/
[2] - Simple google search, such as information from gaming conventions like PAX.

 

It means nothing for Bukkit, as the "news" are rumors.

 

If there was no mods/plugins/maps (things that done by community) - Minecraft wouldn't be that popular.
Mojang actually only doing 10% of Minecraft overall. 90% is done by community. Remember how much you played minecraft on actually vanilla build/ vanilla server (without a single mod and a single plugin), and without community-made maps.

 

Microsoft could make a server software in .NET (run in Mono for Linux users), then we make plugins for it in C#. That would be awesome. I hate Java as a language (no operator overloading is a big one)

 

I can only hope Mojang won't sell out to a company like Microsoft. 95% of Minecraft's success is because of the community. Modders, developers, server owners, and YouTubers all being innovation, advertising to the table for Mojang which without Minecraft wouldn't nearly be as popular as it is now.

 

Oh crap. Mojang, No.
Stupid decision.

 

Is it all starting to make sense now?

Microsoft wouldn't want even a whiff of GPL or LGPL, would they?

 

AoH_Ruthless
There are the pros and cons.

Microsoft's user/work base is extremely huge, making extremely quick updates and ideas that Mojang cannot.
Making the updates/patches to Minecraft that Mojang alone takes ages to release, Microsoft on the other hand can speed this process...

And besides what can a company like Microsoft take Minecraft, a sandbox game , in another direction? It is what it is... a sandbox game, as long as they leave us to allow client/server modifications and do whatever we want, nothing will go wrong.

On the other hand...
If the people at Microsoft think horribly and change the aspect of this game (RPG, MMO, Shooter, Tetris) to anything else but a sandbox game, Most of the player base of Minecraft will leave.
We came here to play a sandbox game and nothing else.

 

They could do RPG type stuff, so long as it was a separate gamemode or something. That would actually be kinda cool.

 

Windows_i7_920
I don't think most of the player base wants a whole rpg element. For one, it goes against the concept of a sandbox game because it is a completely different playstyle. Who knows; this deal may not even be real.

 

Microsoft's process would be to charge a client-access licensing fee, and a Minecraft server license based on number of cpu cores, like they do for everything else.

They don't do anything for free

 

FYI

hehehe

 

Welp.. turns out i was wrong and overlooked how fiscally smart the company can be. So basically they buy Mojang and use it as a way to offset cash sitting there idle. So even if Mojang tanks and crashes as of right now it's still a profit / loss win for Microsoft.

What I mean to say is, its cheaper for the company to keep the $2.5bn in acquisition than it is to keep it in the bank per say (which is scary). Furthermore all they (Microsoft) need to do is attach a windows logo to the brand and they could even write down losses of Windows marketing to it (creative accounting) etc.

So before everyone runs out and says "i'll show you M$ i'll avoid buying your shit and make you pay" well.. you'd be punching yourself in the face in the end...

Well played MSFT.. well played.