Minecraft's Developer Making $350,000 $100,000 Per Day [Updated]

from the um.-wow. dept

We've been writing a few stories about Minecraft lately, kicking off with a discussion about how developer Markus Persson doesn't worry about "piracy," because he feels it's better to focus on giving people a reason to buy than caring about what others are doing. More recently, there was a big discussion around the simple coolness of a guy in Minecraft building a working computer within the game itself. Both were neat stories.

Now Jay sends in some news that continues to build on the legend of Minecraft, pointing to a story claiming that Persson is making $350,000 per day (see the update below). With alpha software, and without going after "pirates" who are supposedly destroying the industry. Yeah. Apparently, he's selling a copy every 3 seconds. And he's done all this with no distribution. No retail deals. Just creating a really good game, getting people interested in it, not treating them like criminals, and giving them a reason to buy.

Whatever happened to "pirates" killing the gaming market, huh?

Update: There's some discussion in the comments about this, and I hadn't realized that Persson posts sales stats publicly. From that, it looks like the $350k per day claim was a bit exaggerated -- though, there was one such day. It looks like a more typical day is closer to $100,000. Still seems like a pretty damn good success story.
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Filed Under: business models, indie games, markus persson, minecraft, revenue


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 10:58am

    But if there was no piracy he would be making $700,000 a day!!! I know this is true despite having no evidence because my local IP lobbyist/lawyer told me so!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Robert Ring (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:00am

      Re:

      I blindly yet resolutely support your argument.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Brian (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:08am

        Re: Re:

        And I have made up some pie charts and bar graphs from data collected from thin air to back up your support with "real" evidence

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:49pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          I shall proceed to misinterpret your facts and write an angry newspaper article about how piracy is destroying the games industry (it's behind a paywall, because that is the only way to save my industry).

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            Blatant Coward (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 2:29pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            I will now write an op-ed piece on these facts on how the Internet is dead, and all games should be distributed with paper newspapers only. My critics will all be dismissed because they have all those "1's and 0's" all in their heads.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      niranjan, 3 Mar 2017 @ 7:21pm

      Re:

      hello

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:00am

    He got my €9.99 about 2 weeks ago.

    Though, he may not be treating his customers as criminals -- PayPal thought he was for awhile.

    I still find it amazing that one company can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make a polished game while an individual can produce such a success in the Alpha stage -- without even having a studio to work out of. Talk about ROI!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      hater, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:28am

      Re:

      Yea, but its Quake 1 graphics...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:36am

        Re: Re:

        And no one seems to care.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:42am

        Re: Re:

        While there isn't anything wrong with that, once you play the game for a little while you realize there's much more going on then anything Quake or Doom or Unreal could output. I'm actually quite impressed.

        He got my money Friday and I've already put way more then $13 into it. I've got a tower that's probably 500ft high with a mine shaft that drops probably over a thousand feet down. I have a beach front house where the second floor is entirely glass.

        It's a fun way to be creative while otherwise you would just be watching TV.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Just Some Guy, 6 Oct 2010 @ 5:52am

          Glass houses

          I do love the glass.

          My latest is a glass pyramid at the cloud level. Drop a bucket of water over the top to spread out down the sides and fall in a giant wave. Lava is even more fun, but I keep killing myself experimenting with it.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Hephaestus (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:45am

        Re: Re:

        More like castle wolfenstein ...

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:53am

          Re: Re: Re:

          That's one thing I was thinking about doing. Rebuilding Wolfenstein 3D with Minecraft. Don't know how to do the doors though.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            another mike (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:29pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            Use wood doors for the non-keyed doors in the level and iron doors and red-matter torches for the keyed doors. (Remember iron doors are too heavy to operate without external power; like from a lever, pressure plate, or red-matter torch.) Then just orient the doors the right way to keep the player from just shooting into and clearing a room before they have to enter.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2010 @ 11:56am

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            6 pieces of planks(the stuff u get directly from wood) in a door shape

            link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        chris (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:06pm

        Re: Re:

        Yea, but its Quake 1 graphics...

        beautiful graphics + shitty controls = shitty game.
        shitty graphics + awesome fun = awesome game.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Parallax Abstraction (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:01am

    Please

    So one massive abberation of a success story means that piracy is no problem whatsoever? Please. I don't agree with how the game industry is trying to combat thieves and I am totally on board with the notion that DRM is not the answer. But c'mon Mike, this is a stretch even for you. There are plenty of universally renowned games that no one bought and that this guy is (deservedly) succeeding in this very unique way is not a sign of any kind of trend. Are thieves everything that's wrong with the game industry? Certainly not. But they are still a very big problem.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      jc (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:13am

      Re: Please

      "Are thieves everything that's wrong with the game industry? Certainly not. But they are still a very big problem."

      [citation needed]

      Also, who says Minecraft is a "massive abberation(sp)"? What about the Humble Indie Bundle? What about sites like Kongregate which feature flash games by independent studios?

      I think people like you read a post like this and then try to analyze it in isolation. There have been many other posts about video games, piracy, and methods for making money on games - why do you insist on commenting on this post as though it's a stand alone treatise on file sharing in the video game market?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Parallax Abstraction (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:23am

        Re: Re: Please

        I take issue with the argument that "all you have to do is make a good game and people will pay for it!" Tell that to System Shock 2, Psychonauts, the Freedom Force games and any other numbers of critically and player acclaimed commercial failures over the years. Minecraft is cool and its uniqueness (and the viral nature of it) combined with its low price certainly have made it the deserved runaway success that it is. But to say that this proves that piracy isn't a real problem is ridiculous. There are a lot of entitled people out there who will still steal a product no matter how much "reason to buy" is offered. I do believe a certain amount of this must be considered a cost of doing business and accepted and that's why I support the idea that things like DRM do nothing to solve the problem while hurting the true customers.

        However, one guy making $350,000/day (a figure which is in dispute as others have already pointed out) and the success of the Humble Indie Bundle (a bunch of games that didn't sell nearly as well until the price was heavily discounted and which were still pirated to Hell and back) is not a sign that piracy is a non-issue and that just "make a good game" isn't the universal answer. Many also agree that Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a fantastic game as well but the developer is on record as saying it was still heavily pirated and despite selling well, hasn't been enough to give them the stability they need.

        You guys are so determined to prove that piracy is a non-issue that you will glom on to any success story (and the ones you cited are true but still the vast minority of cases) and say "See, it's not a problem if you just make good games!" Making good product is essential but to insinuate that it's all that is needed to guarantee success is ludicrous.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:26am

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          No one insinuated that "all" you have to do is make a good product, that's just the silly strawman you've set up.

          Hint: The developer of Minecraft didn't just make Minecraft then sit around hoping people would support him by purchasing it.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          JEDIDIAH, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:29am

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          Been there. Done that.

          Have seen and been a part of different game releases under roughly equal conditions (the same studio/publisher). Of course there are wide difference between the results generated from lame games and games that the developers themselves are not embarrassed of.

          If someone outside of EA is having trouble selling their games then they have more reason to blame EA than random pirates. Buying up all the end caps in Best Buy really means more than a bunch of people swapping pirated games.

          Perhaps more of the industry should acknowledge all of their competitors and stop making excuses.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:43am

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          Game ratings by critics and players doesn't mean anything if it doesn't sell. Why did the commercial failures you mention fail? Considering I have never heard of any of them, that is probably why. It can be the greatest game in the world, but if your market doesn't know, what is the point? If piracy hurt numbers as bad as they say, very few developers would risk millions on a game. The money is out there, the hard part is convincing people to give it to you, i.e. the "Reason to Buy" Mike is always talking about.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          jc (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:00pm

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          Props to the people who pointed out that "just making a good game" is not the only suggestion.

          Also, your 3 examples couldn't be more perfect examples of the problems with the game industry. You are correct that all 3 got great reviews, know what else they had in common?


          • The people leading development on all three games were first timers (or very new to managing game development).

          • WAY over (already high) budgets. I think Psychonauts cost around $20 million to produce.

          • All 3 had their release eclipsed by something major in the game industry: release of the Xbox for freedom force, release of the Xbox 360 for psychonauts (which worked on the old system), release of the PS2 for System Shock 2.



          There were a lot of forces at work and just blaming "piracy" is the easy way out.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          crade (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:03pm

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          Did you consider that it could be both:
          "Not only about making a good game"
          and
          "Not being hindered by piracy"
          Both at the same time?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Zacqary Adam Green (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 3:58pm

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          I take issue with the argument that "all you have to do is use the tried-and-true corporate publisher business model and people will pay for it!" Tell that to System Shock 2, Psychonauts, the Freedom Force games and any other numbers of critically and player acclaimed commercial failures over the years.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 4:55pm

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          You have the answer and yet you refuse to see it.

          The real problem is not piracy is the price, you can charge $50 and have almost no one buy it or you can reduce that price to $5 dollars or my preferred price point $0.005 cents and have millions buying it and re-buying.

          We live in an organic society and it haves is natural laws the 20/80 being one of them, only 20% will buy anything at any given moment in a good day if the conditions are right, but when they are not people won't buy it at all they will find alternatives one being piracy.

          "System Shock 2, Psychonauts, the Freedom Force games" about that if they failed in the market how are they success?

          Pacman I heard of and people still talk about it, Mario Bros is huge, Sonic, Medal of Honor, Halo but those games you cited I don't know them and never heard of them, how much success can they have had it when not everyone heard about those things?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          jsf (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:09am

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          I take issue with the argument that "all you have to do is make a good game and people will pay for it!"

          Tell that to System Shock 2, Psychonauts, the Freedom Force games and any other numbers of critically and player acclaimed commercial failures over the years.

          The thing is these two statements are not mutually exclusive. Many people did pay money for all the game mentioned, and that is exactly what the first statement says. Just because something is a commercial/financial failure does not mean there were not sales or that the product wasn't good.

          What the first statement does not say is that your company will be a financial success because of the sales you have. That depends on a lot more then just sales. In particular the cost side of the equation. Just because you can create a great game does NOT mean that you know how to run a profitable company. There are dozens of examples of this over the past three decades.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          hxa7241, 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:37am

          Re: Re: Re: Please

          So, because some games are 'pirated heavily' and some companies can't make enough money, piracy is a problem? This is incorrectly founded because it assumes the wrong question.

          Remember the basic purpose of all IP: it is to support production so the public will get enough supply. That is the standard orthodox view. It means the determinant of whether there is a problem is whether the public is getting enough of the particular good. The purpose is not to ensure that all companies can survive, or that all can make comfortable money, or that any, some, or all are rich.

          So, the question to ask is: are sufficient games produced? And the answer should be clear even to casual inspection: there are absolutely loads of games being produced. There are most likely more being produced now, of more variety, than ever before. There are plenty; there is, if anything, a surfeit.

          In which case, by the standard definition of IP, there really does not appear to be a problem in piracy. In fact, since piracy is higher than ever before, yet production is also higher, we are led to rather the opposite conclusion. Piracy -- or really, freer communication -- is beneficial. IP is actually now malfunctional in the current technological context and the de facto weakening of it by piracy is *good*.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:41pm

      Re: Please

      So one massive abberation of a success story means that piracy is no problem whatsoever?

      It means that any problem is a business model issue, not one of blaming users. If you put together a good product, combined with a good business model, then piracy is not a problem.

      Sure, if you're a bad business person, then perhaps piracy can "limit" your growth. But the real problem is that you're a bad business person.

      There are plenty of universally renowned games that no one bought and that this guy is (deservedly) succeeding in this very unique way is not a sign of any kind of trend.

      No one said all you needed was a good game.

      And no one said this is a trend. But it does prove that if you put things together right, piracy is no problem at all.

      Are thieves everything that's wrong with the game industry?

      Ah, you're someone who thinks infringement is theft. Well, then that's your first problem. Once you understand why that's not true, perhaps you'll understand the rest.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Michael, 5 Oct 2010 @ 5:42pm

      Re: Please

      No they aren't. The attitude towards them is the problem. Why is this so hard? Change the attitude and you change the problem. Treat them like thieves and you have a problem with people stealing and how best to stop them. Treat them like customers and you have a problem of innovation and how best to make it so those customers are happy to pay.

      Getting customers to pay is actually a far, far easier problem to solve than stopping thieves from stealing. There is no control over how thieves will steal, but there's 100% control over how customers can and will pay. You just have to provide that opportunity.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Nick Coghlan (profile), 7 Oct 2010 @ 5:59pm

        Re: Re: Please

        Getting customers to pay is actually a far, far easier problem to solve than stopping thieves from stealing. There is no control over how thieves will steal, but there's 100% control over how customers can and will pay. You just have to provide that opportunity.
        Beautifully put.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    A Dan (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:03am

    Sounds off

    It's not really clear what time scale we're talking here. It sold around that much on a particular day, perhaps; not every day over the last two weeks. Or at least, if that's happened, it's not clear from the linked article.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Designerfx (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:08am

    penny arcade effect

    Penny Arcade is kinda like Oprah. Once they mention something popularity tends to explode, and this is something they've noticed recently.

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/9/17/

    granted, one of the many reasons it did is probably because it's indie friendly.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 2:57pm

      Re: penny arcade effect

      Minecraft had a whole bunch of very high-profile exposes pretty rapidly. Penny Arcade was a big one, but there were impressive stories topping reddit, dig, fark, youtube, and nearly everywhere else.

      The computer-in-the-game was cool, but so was the Enterprise-D, and the guy accidentally burning down his house during a fireplace tutorial, and lots of other things.

      Internet sensations snowball quick. I'd love to see an analysis of propagation across various social sites correlated with minecraft's sales.

      I'd try it myself but I'm still up to my nose in civ5.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:10am

    Well as of 09/24/2010, Notch posted this in his blog:

    "...I mean 0.27%. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Well, that was 140 accounts!"

    By my mental math that puts this at around 52,000 units sold as of a week ago. If we assume everyone of these accounts paid the current going rate of €9.99 that is a total of ~€519.5K (~$712K USD.

    Of course, the game did make have another viral plug recently when someone revealed a 1:1 reproduction of the USS Enterprise.

    http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/09/the-true-story-behind-the-amazing-minecraf t-enterprise-d.ars

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    bob, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:23am

    bb

    If yougo to the minecraft site and click on stats it actually shows you total sales/sales for last 24 hours. He is completely open on the money he is making.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:30am

    He got my 13.39 or whatever it was a bit back. Fun game.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Derek Bredensteiner (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:37am

    Totals

    As of right now (current reported sales and current exchange rate):

    http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp
    332759 (30.26%) have bought the game.

    http://www.minecraft.net/prepurchase.jsp
    If you pre-purchase now during alpha, you pay just €9.95!


    4,580,037.14 US dollars. Not bad.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Bob, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:48am

    Why is this a success?

    Halo sold $200 million on the first day. That's almost 1000 times as much. That kind of number would be a real success.

    If he can cover his costs at $351,000 per day and salt something away, that's great. That's a fine. But it doesn't mean anything about whether DRM is bad or piracy is not a problem.

    This really is rhetorical sloppiness. By the same token, some inner city school district can be a success because one kid went to Harvard. Some police department can be considered a success if one tourist manages to escape unmugged.

    Plus, I think your definition of DRM is a bit bogus. He may not use the letters DRM to describe what he's doing, but he's consciously adding features that have exactly the same effect. By forcing people to log into the central server to access many features, he gets all of the benefits:

    Instead of just relying on guilt tripping pirates into buying, or wasting time and money trying to stop them, I can offer online-only services that actually add to the game experience. Online level saving, centralized skins, friends lists and secure name verification for multiplayer. None of these features can be accessed by people with pirated versions of the game, and hopefully they can be features that turn pirates from thieves into potential customers


    He's just better at PR. It's clear that the cool thing is to claim you're not doing DRM while tracking everyone's usage and violating their privacy. As long as you just claim that it's not DRM and call the existing game companies stupid, people in this blog's echo chamber will just believe the hype and not look any deeper.

    I think the big game now will be to dream up more acronyms that are practically the same as DRM while just being different in spelling. How about RTB?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:09pm

      Re: Why is this a success?

      Wow, that was a giant load of shit. Where do I start?

      You're using a game created by a big name studio published by mother f***ing Microsoft as the success bar? What the hell have you been smoking. Halo: Reach is the sixth(?) game in a vary well selling series, $200 million is expected.

      I do not see a mention of DRM in this article so you may have to point that out to me.

      While online mode is a form of DRM (kinda, but not really), he's not corrupting pirates games. Hell he isn't even bothering with them. Just imagine how much of that $200mill went to DRM and fighting piracy (shit, how much went to the publisher alone).

      As for the "echo chamber" remark, you're not one to talk. You and others like you just keep spouting the same exact thing over and over and over again despite any evidence to the contrary. I know it's rare where you are (especially in that echo chamber you call a head), but we work on logic here. When logic points in one direction only then that's the direction it points, we don't argue with it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Bob, 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:29pm

        Re: Re: Why is this a success?

        While online mode is a form of DRM (kinda, but not really), he's not corrupting pirates games.

        Again, he's just better a PR. Imagine he said, "If I detect piracy or even suspect it, I disable some of the most important features." Everyone here would be squalking. Everyone here would be up in arms, pouting and saying, "He doesn't respect us as customers."

        But he's smart, smarter than I may ever be. He just claims that some crippled demoware is the real game and the extra features are just RTB. Because he used Mike's favorite TLA not his least favorite, Mike thinks this is all great.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:44pm

          Re: Re: Re: Why is this a success?

          Yeah, it's PR, but he's not making it hard in any way to pirate the software as Steven has already pointed out.

          We've never said you can make a good game, treat your customers like shit, and still make money hand over fist.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            bob, 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:56pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re: Why is this a success?

            Again, he allows you to "pirate" the demoware. If you want all of the features, you have to pay. If he used DRM to turn off backing up the levels, well, everyone would be saying that he used DRM. But if just changes the packaging, it's all supercool.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:08pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why is this a success?

              Dude, you can try and label it whatever you like. I'll choose "being successful while not lobbying for laws that hurt me"

              link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              BigKeithO (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:47pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why is this a success?

              Sounds like a reason to buy to me... Pirate the game all you want, if you like it and want to expand the functionality purchase the full version.

              Potential Customer: "I like this demo/game I pirated, if only there was some way to expand on what I am able to do with it..."

              Game Developer: "Well if you pay me money you can unlock all of these additional features."

              Potential Customer: "I think I will do that! You just gave me a reason to give you my money."

              Is it really that hard to understand?

              link to this | view in chronology ]

          • icon
            Torinir (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 2:01pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re: Why is this a success?

            Wait... Infinity Ward and Activision made a shit game, treated their customers like shit, and still made money hand over fist...

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              Jay (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 9:28pm

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why is this a success?

              Note: Activision treats everyone and everything like a microtransaction.

              Infinity Ward only turned that way when the two CEOs wouldn't play ball to Kotick's ways of thinking.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Steven (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 12:14pm

      Re: Why is this a success?

      But he also offers the server for free download (I run one for myself and a few friends). The username verficiation can be turned off. Backing up a level is really basic stuff. That knocks out most of that list.

      It's certainly more convenient to buy and sign up, but it's fairly easy to get around (I did buy).

      Most importantly the DRM that it lacks are the types of things that root my machine, require an always on internet connection, install additional non-game software, require some random magic token to get started, etc...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:46pm

      Re: Why is this a success?

      Halo sold $200 million on the first day. That's almost 1000 times as much. That kind of number would be a real success.

      Uh, wow did you ever miss the point.

      Halo did that with how many developers? And what budget? And how much spent on marketing? And how many retail partners?

      Right. That's the point.

      On a per person basis, which do you think made more?

      If he can cover his costs at $351,000 per day and salt something away, that's great

      I love the implication that someone cannot cover their costs at $351,000 per day.

      But it doesn't mean anything about whether DRM is bad or piracy is not a problem.

      Er, actually, it does. It shows that you don't need DRM and you can succeed incredibly well without worrying about "pirates."

      Plus, I think your definition of DRM is a bit bogus. He may not use the letters DRM to describe what he's doing, but he's consciously adding features that have exactly the same effect. By forcing people to log into the central server to access many features, he gets all of the benefits:

      Hello Bob, someone just discovered a reason to buy.

      It's not DRM.

      Besides, as others point out, he makes the code available for others to do stuff as well.

      He's just better at PR.

      Indeed. And that's important. Who said otherwise?

      It's clear that the cool thing is to claim you're not doing DRM while tracking everyone's usage and violating their privacy.

      Whose privacy was violated?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Brendy, 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:35pm

    I'm surprised because it's such a crappy game

    I played the demo and was so uninterested in it's simplicity. I was not impressed when there are similar platforms that are way more fun and better quality. It's graphics were like quake 1 but worse. I'd much rather spend time making worlds in a game that is fun, like littlebigplanet.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Mike Masnick (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:37pm

    Updated

    Hey guys, I updated the post. With the specific sales figures, it looks like the $350k was one day only, but he does appear to be making over $100k per day. Still an incredible success story.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Ryan Diederich, 5 Oct 2010 @ 1:51pm

    Fools...

    Mike didnt say that this was cause to believe piracy wasnt real, or not a problem. He said that this IS PROOF that is doesnt HAVE TO BE A PROBLEM.

    This is a really big deal. This is just like the notion that anyone can grow up to be president, anyone can grow up and make 100,000 a day without the help of big studios or investing money. This guy is great. I hope he donates some of it, cause thats just too much money.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    JCampbell, 5 Oct 2010 @ 2:29pm

    "Whatever happened to "pirates" killing the gaming market, huh?"

    I suppose by the same reasoning every blizzard disproves global warming.

    That kind of logic shows the value of a college education has been in steep decline for much longer than I thought.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 2:47pm

      Re:

      I suppose by the same reasoning every blizzard disproves global warming.

      That kind of logic shows the value of a college education has been in steep decline for much longer than I thought.


      Logic fail! Very different situations. One involves a situation in which individuals have control over the situation, and the other does not.

      What this example shows is that *if* you do things right, "piracy" is not a problem. It's a conditional. There is no conditional with the Blizzard. It's just a data point. And before you say that this success is just a datapoint too, look at what we're disproving. The claim is that piracy makes it difficult to impossible to make money with video games. With such a claim, you only need a single data point to disprove it. With a trend like global warming, you need a lot more than a single datapoint.

      And, in the meantime, you might refrain on the insults when you're flat out wrong. I taught logic in college. I didn't get it wrong here.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    PrometheeFeu (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 3:06pm

    100k a day is nothing to complain about... hell, after 3 months of that, I would be happy not making another cent in my life.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    InterestedParty, 5 Oct 2010 @ 3:44pm

    @#11 Parallax Abstractio

    You are of course absolutely correct. However, Mike's take is that the business owner must account for people stealing their product.

    And realistically, in this day and age, Mike is correct too.

    But which of you is "right"? I tend to favor your side, than Mike's. Unlike Mike, I'm not cool with people stealing software.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 5:01pm

      Re: @#11 Parallax Abstractio

      Apparently you are cool with not knowing what words mean, though.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Jay (profile), 5 Oct 2010 @ 9:34pm

      Re: @#11 Parallax Abstractio

      If you're making that much money, are you really worried about the people that want to pirate it, or are you more worried about making the product better for the ones that have the cash?

      It's like I go into a grocery store. I browse around then decide I don't want anything and leave. All the ads in the world mean nothing to me unless I need to purchase (Example) milk. Well, then I need bread and cereal... Suddenly, you need more.

      So which is it? Worry about pirates? Or care for customers?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 5 Oct 2010 @ 5:07pm

    But he's put in anti-piracy measures!

    From your first link: "Online level saving, centralized skins, friends lists and secure name verification for multiplayer." -- Okay, so it's written to require a remote server, nothing new there. What's the "reason to buy" beyond that?

    Looks to me like Persson doesn't *now* worry about piracy because he's *already* worried about it and put in anti-piracy measures that cripple pirated copies. HOW does this prove your view that piracy can be ignored?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 5 Oct 2010 @ 6:00pm

      Re: But he's put in anti-piracy measures!

      If that’s what counts as “anti-piracy measures”, perhaps more game publishers should do the exact same thing, instead of the intrusive measures that piss off legitimate customers that they’re using now?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Nick Coghlan (profile), 7 Oct 2010 @ 6:14pm

        Re: Re: But he's put in anti-piracy measures!

        Like, say, Blizzard. You can play the single-player campaign of SC2 with a pirated copy, but that's about it.

        Although, notably unlike Blizzard, the Minecraft guy doesn't care if you choose to run private servers instead of paying for access to the official ones.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Old Foggie, 5 Oct 2010 @ 5:58pm

    You whippersnappers!

    What ever happened to making money legitimately by doing things like farming?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    InterestedParty, 5 Oct 2010 @ 7:17pm

    Re: But he's put in anti-piracy measures!

    Looks to me like Persson doesn't *now* worry about piracy because he's *already* worried about it and put in anti-piracy measures that cripple pirated copies. HOW does this prove your view that piracy can be ignored? Yeah, it's client-server and he it's not open source. He also mentions he will not release the source until after sales slow down. If he was truly not worried about piracy, then he'd release the source right now. But he won't because he's afraid it will hurt his bottom line since it'd make it easy for others to copy his work...just like the big boys. His DRM is called a compiler and architecting things so that key pieces run remotely. I hate DRM too. The DRM solutions that have been pushed are invasive and often very broken (and in many cases, breaks things around it). But to pretend that DRM isn't useful or that a business if fundamentally broken is willful stupidity (yes, I mean stupid). The only thing that separates Minecraft from the big boys is that pirates have, as of yet, not found a way to break his form DRM.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Interested Party, 5 Oct 2010 @ 7:20pm

    Re: But he's put in anti-piracy measures!

    (again with better formatting)
    "Looks to me like Persson doesn't *now* worry about piracy because he's *already* worried about it and put in anti-piracy measures that cripple pirated copies. HOW does this prove your view that piracy can be ignored? "

    EXACTLY! Persson DOES have DRM. It's called a client-server and it's not open source code. As of yet, no one has been able to break this "DRM".

    He also mentions he will not release the source until after sales slow down. If he was truly not worried about piracy, then he'd release the source right now. But he won't because he's afraid it will hurt his bottom line since it'd make it easy for others to copy his work...just like the big boys.

    I hate DRM too. The DRM solutions that have been pushed are invasive and often very broken (and in many cases, breaks things around it). But to pretend that DRM isn't useful or that a business if fundamentally broken is willful stupidity (yes, I mean stupid).

    Again, the only thing that separates Minecraft from the big boys is that pirates have, as of yet, not found a way to break his form DRM.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    sebsauvage, 7 Oct 2010 @ 2:22am

    What DRM ?

    DRM in Minecraft ? What are you talking about ?
    Play online once so that the game downloads its assets, then you can play Minecraft offline, with no internet connexion whatsoever, for as long as you wish.
    You can also ZIP the game, put it on any other computer and play.
    No tokens, no expiration, no connexion required to play, no hardware verification.
    Even if Mojan Specification and its website are nuked into oblivion, I will be able to play this game in my grave provided that it's still compatible with the latest Java runtime.
    No, there are no DRM in Minecraft. Just incentives to update online to get new goodies (and you get lifetime upgrades once you've bought the game).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    coolbeans, 8 Dec 2010 @ 1:15am

    Pre: Pirates of Minecrack

    story too long. did not read.
    http://cool.storyb.ro

    And i skimmed enuff of the comments to understand that someone is butthurt about Minecrack's Pirates.

    What Pirates?
    You have to understand:
    Copy 1: Free
    Copy 2: Pay for Account
    Source Code: POSTED FOR ALL TO SEE.

    you want something to complain about? Simple: your "so-called" Pirates are "borrowing" code the same way as rappers make music. People are just lazy.

    63% of all statisics are wrong, yet 43% of people believe them whether they're true or not.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mikr N, 7 Sep 2011 @ 9:09pm

    So he makes 36 million dollars a year...holy fuck.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mr. Pirate,, 11 Dec 2011 @ 2:15am

    I must be bad

    I think i have pirated more then half my games.... before i bought them, i use them as a more complete demo that doesn't gimp what the real game will be like.

    If i don't like them, i don't buy them and i don't play them anymore...

    Now not every person is like me, who purches games after downloading a pirate copy.... but i know i am not the only one who does it, and a lot of my friends really like what i do as they enjoy my opinions and they thank me for it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    holy shmolly, 12 Dec 2011 @ 11:40am

    wow

    hes making 36 million a year, hes making bank SON!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    blah blah, 9 Apr 2012 @ 7:25pm

    i nver would have bough this game if i wouldnt of pirated it to find out if it was good now i told my friends about it and got him four more sales

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    v, 4 Mar 2013 @ 5:52pm

    please make minecraft pocket edition more fun

    ok if the owner is readig this i just want to say if you can make the pocket edition more like the x-box version because the x-box version is way better though i dont have an x-box and i see how much fun the x-box version is with mine carts and tracks and levers and buckets etc. please try doing this i love minecraft its awsome thanks

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    v, 4 Mar 2013 @ 5:53pm

    please make minecraft pocket edition more fun

    ok if the owner is readig this i just want to say if you can make the pocket edition more like the x-box version because the x-box version is way better though i dont have an x-box and i see how much fun the x-box version is with mine carts and tracks and levers and buckets etc. please try doing this i love minecraft its awsome thanks

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anna, 30 May 2013 @ 12:27pm

    Genius!

    Nowadays, we are always into the best graphics, the best action, the best this and that but who knew something so simple can get so popular? Jeb is a genius, and for thinking out of the box, he is rewarded! great job

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2014 @ 10:24am

    bitch bitch

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2014 @ 10:25am

    ass holes yall ruining the gamedont sell it to microsoft

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    IkeMarthPikachewYT (profile), 21 Apr 2016 @ 7:44am

    Well i think that if he made 100k a day he would need to keep developing Minecraft since October 11, 2011 he would've made 182.5 million for the 5 years he has been developing Minecraft as his and Notch's prodigy.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Crazygamer99, 13 Sep 2016 @ 1:08am

    So is 1k daily profit a scam?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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