In the last 24 hours, 8176 thousand people have bought the game, and 33 thousand have registered. You can't argue cold, hard numbers.
The same page also lists that only "3252" players have played today. Out of a total of what, 1.5 million? You can sell a million copies but it doesn't mean that people are still interested and playing. I can see how you can use the number of buyers as a sign of growth, but I don't.
Thanks for a link by the way, that'll be real helpful in the future. I wonder why it's not listed on the main page anymore? Or am I just blind?
1st, thats 3000 people on RIGHT NOW. Not today. About the link, you go to Home, and then there is a "more stats" link at the bottom of the paragraph.
I've never even posted here before and I expect, judging by the level of previous posts by what I can only see as some kind of strange cult that is determined to defend Notch even when it is clear he isn't bothered , I'll be called on that and somehow in their minds it will invalidate my point and keep their cotton wool intact.
However, all I see here is a flawless argument on why Minecraft WAS good and why it is not as good as it once was.
If you honestly think Minecraft is as good as it was when Notch actually gave a crap then why haven't you given a good reason why (SHUT UP and YOU PIRATED are not reasons).
The latest additions to the game are things that are esily added and not the things we all REALLY want. We wanted BIG SCARY WATER CREATURES we get Squid instead. We wanted Hell, yeah Single player only.... Lanterns have been promised for a long time but thats just not happening. Almost every update for the last 6 months have been based off of or straight TAKEN from user mods (including the wolf/dog update). He doesn't want to do the work himself.
He started the game with a strong idea and belief of what he wanted to give everyone, we paid for the idea. He got half way and lost interest. Oh and he DID say he will give all updates for free, he knows that and thats why he made that card game crap.
Please don't insult me, instead show me where I'm wrong (I'm not).
You are wrong. The game can not get "worse" because notch doesn't add what you want. You like the game before squid, he adds squid you hate it because he didn't add giant sea monsters? Your logic doesn't make sense at all. Some people need to think there arguments out better.
Well, how often do you think Steve Jobs actually works? (Well, he's been on medical leave for a while now... think he still is...)
How many days do you think Steve Ballmer actually works in a year?
If you want a more relevant (directly video-game related) examples:
How about Gabe Newell?
Or Robin Walker?
The fact is, they probably don't work very long, and when they do it is stuff that most people with a 10th grade education and a year or two of educational summer camps could handle. You just don't notice as much because they have a lot of people working for them.
The months in 2009 and 2010 where there was the majority of vacation time, there was only one game dev: Notch.
So far in 2011, they have all taken so much time off because mojang is such a small company that ALL of them can go to award ceremonies. If they are recieving awards, they aren't doing that bad. In a few more months, the wave of awards will be pretty much gone, and there will be nothing but game dev (well, and notch's marraige, apparently? I can see him giving his employees a few days off for that since he will be on a honeymoon and feeling happy and such.)
Right now, mojang is like a "mom and pop" store rather than something like "walmart" or "target"
There's another vacation due this year, when he gets married. Can't wait to see the forum explode over that one.
At the end of the vacation with his mother, he did an interview with a fansite for the game. He also was inspired to make more underwater content (though obviously this has less immediately tangible results).
During the trip to GDC, he and the rest of the group were working on getting the servers running again. At one point they were debugging code on the plane.
Now, I have given you two facts which show that, even on a vacation, Notch is productive. Will that change your mind?
I'm fine with him taking a vacation for his honeymoon; That's an important moment in any couple's relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a full month, given the amount of money that he has. My problem with it is that he knows that he's going to take this super long vacation, and yet he takes even more vacations in the meantime. Most people would work harder to make up for the time lost, especially to such a vocal fanbase.
’m sorry about the downtime
I don’t know what happened exactly, as I’m currently on a fight and seated far away from the other guys. But it seems that as soon as the entire company sat down on a cross Atlantic flight, the minecraft.net servers went down. This is frustrating.
We are working on improving server stability and uptime.
To me, this doesn't sound like they're working on it, it just sounds to me like a "I'm sorry that no one is staffing our networks since we're all on vacation." Again, if another member of the team posted something that specifically said "I am actually fixing the issue midflight!" then please, show me.
The amount of hypocrisy that Notch shows about server stability is just appalling. He says not to buy any games from Ubisoft anymore because their servers were down when he tried to activate his game once, but his stuff seems to go down once a month. I get it, it's a popular game, server stress is a given. But with the amount of cash that he obviously has to throw around (vacations, buying new games and gadgets for himself), you'd think he'd be able to use some of those funds to solve a massive problem that the community has.
Well, how often do you think Steve Jobs actually works? (Well, he's been on medical leave right now...)
How about
How many days do you think Steve Ballmer actually works in a year?
If you want a more relevant (directly video-game related) examples:
How about Gabe Newell?
Or Robin Walker?
they have a whole company for that, and big, productive teams.
notch doesnt.
You know all those stories of millionaires paying off debt, paying wages, and investing in their company, but in three years, they are twice as rich?
Yeah.
you know how notch has a game that is selling as good as almost no game before and he is slowly abandoning it? not investing in his company, going on vacations all the time?
yeah.
1st, thats 3000 people on RIGHT NOW. Not today. About the link, you go to Home, and then there is a "more stats" link at the bottom of the paragraph.
And 3000 people isn't really all that much, not when you have a market of close to two million people who've bought the game. I'd say that a large amount have grown bored with the game due to lack of updates, or disgruntled with Notch's horrible business ethics.
Also thanks for the link, I'm surprised I couldn't find that.
2. You say that Notch "promised the community" things. Notch never promised anything. Hell, when you buy the game, it CLEARLY says "WHEN YOU PAY, YOU ARE PAYING FOR THE GAME IN ITS CURRENT STATE". If he abandoned Minecraft, he'd be legally allowed to do that, and it wouldn't be a scam.
I’m going to start up pre-purchases of the game soon, at a discount of the full price.
The full game will be €20, but if you pre-purchase while it’s in alpha, you get it for just €9.95. If you wait until beta (ie when survival mode is released), the price goes up to €14.95. If you wait until release (after survival mode works well), you’ll have to pay full price.
If you don’t want to pay (or can’t), there will be a free demo after beta. Either way, you will be able to play the game as you do now for free up until release. I will however include some benefits for pre-purchases.
Here’s what you get for purchasing:
* You help fund development of Minecraft.
* Custom skins in multiplayer, starting very soon. * All future updates of the game, including all expansions and addons. You never have to pay again.
* Once you’ve bought the game, it’s yours. Do whatever you want with it!
* Survival mode
Expansions include (these will happen after release):
+ Zombie Siege
+ Capture the Flag
+ Various level importers. (I’ve already got a doom level importer working.. kinda. :biggrin.gif:)
+ AND MORE!
Not everyone bought the game in beta. This is the deal that I bought the game for. Many other people also bought it at this moment. This is our user agreement with Notch. This may not be yours, but denying that this exists is purely asinine.
1st, thats 3000 people on RIGHT NOW. Not today. About the link, you go to Home, and then there is a "more stats" link at the bottom of the paragraph.
And 3000 people isn't really all that much, not when you have a market of close to two million people who've bought the game. I'd say that a large amount have grown bored with the game due to lack of updates, or disgruntled with Notch's horrible business ethics.
Also thanks for the link, I'm surprised I couldn't find that.
See my post. That is 3,200 people online on SERVERS (which are very expensive, mind you).
That doesn't count people playing in singleplayer or on private servers.
Furthermore, this is not peak time, most people are sleeping or at work.
lol that's nothing.
Heroes of Newerth has like 40,000 people online right now, and that was also independently created and grown by a smallish company. Not as small now, as they have used their income to, you know, hire more people and grow the company.
So many companies have released games about the size of minecraft, and then EXPANDED LIKE CRAZY to become a studio that actually has decent output.
Well, how often do you think Steve Jobs actually works? (Well, he's been on medical leave right now...)
How about
How many days do you think Steve Ballmer actually works in a year?
If you want a more relevant (directly video-game related) examples:
How about Gabe Newell?
Or Robin Walker?
they have a whole company for that, and big, productive teams.
notch doesnt.
You know all those stories of millionaires paying off debt, paying wages, and investing in their company, but in three years, they are twice as rich?
Yeah.
you know how notch has a game that is selling as good as almost no game before and he is slowly abandoning it? not investing in his company, going on vacations all the time?
yeah.
Sorry, I forgot his employees, office, and equipment appeared out of nowhere.
Oh wait...
bro, he said 'he wants to keep it small' that means he will not get bigger.
and setting up a company is not taking a month. I know this, ive got a company with more than twice as many people than mojang, stuff like office was done before i hired people, to prevent no one working. this is just a ******** excuse, if you ask anyone who knows what having a company is about.
msj, sorry, i overread that.
See my post. That is 3,200 people online on SERVERS (which are very expensive, mind you).
That doesn't count people playing in singleplayer or on private servers.
Furthermore, this is not peak time, most people are sleeping or at work.
theres 2'000'000 people who bought the game. you would expect more people playing on a server a day, thats his point.
You just don't notice as much because they have a lot of people working for them.
This is exactly the problem! If, with a full staff, they're unable to do as much work as one man did by himself, then there is obviously a huge problem with the company.
It's not like they took off October-March for one award ceremony, right?
And where did it say he must continue development?
Guess what?
It doesn't.
Here’s what you get for purchasing:
* All future updates of the game, including all expansions and addons. You never have to pay again.
expansions and addons all get released after the release.
edit: whats a mp game? sorry, i do not know that.
Multiplayer.
And yes, expansions and addons get released after release.
But it never promised that they would be developed. He simply promised you wouldn't PAY for them.
Here’s what you get for purchasing:
* You help fund development of Minecraft.
* Custom skins in multiplayer, starting very soon.
* All future updates of the game, including all expansions and addons. You never have to pay again.
* Once you’ve bought the game, it’s yours. Do whatever you want with it!
* Survival mode
Expansions include (these will happen after release):
+ Zombie Siege
+ Capture the Flag
+ Various level importers. (I’ve already got a doom level importer working.. kinda. :biggrin.gif:)
he said you wouldnt pay for the expansions, and then he listed the expansions he promises to do.
sure, its just a promise: its not a good business strategy to promise things you are not gonna do.
Uh, no, it says there are 3,200 players online IN SERVERS.
Do you have any clue how many people are sleeping? Or at work? Or playing offline in singleplayer?
Regardless, there is a total of 1,664,480 sold copies of minecraft. 2885 people are playing online, as of my last refresh.
This means that 0.17% of the people who bought Minecraft are currently playing it online. This is an extremely small population, you must realize that.
Notch is a really hard worker, but he simply doesn't have the time !
You know running a company takes time right?
Minecraft will probably never stop getting updated, but even when he stops right now and says minecraft is finished, then I don't even care! Approximatly a million people like the game as it is at it's current state. For them and for me minecraft will never be inferior than the product he promised us.
I think notch changed the name of dungeons and levers to adventure, and it were just possible game modes!
It prob will be in an expansion and alpha users got promised the didn't ever have to pay for minecraft any more!
Beta users will maybe,maybe have to pay.
What is your minecraft username btw?
actually to a lot of us, he still needs to update the game a lot. There are a lot of promises that he needs to keep before he cuts updates. but yeah, in the past few months, he's taken more vacations than I would allow for in employment. If anything, I wish he would include a modloader and even include compatability with texturepacks above 16x16. if he isn't going to work on the game, then at least have modders do it. Hell, i'm actually ecstatic that jeb even put up a video of the wolves.
1st, thats 3000 people on RIGHT NOW. Not today. About the link, you go to Home, and then there is a "more stats" link at the bottom of the paragraph.
And 3000 people isn't really all that much, not when you have a market of close to two million people who've bought the game. I'd say that a large amount have grown bored with the game due to lack of updates, or disgruntled with Notch's horrible business ethics.
Also thanks for the link, I'm surprised I couldn't find that.
that link also only counts the people who are playing SMP, and doesn't include SSP.
3,000 people online is a pretty decent number.
there's probably about 4 or 5k playing single player.
Let's reference tf2...
tf2 has, on average, 340 servers going at any time (or at least that are visible to me, some may be locked by region)
340 servers with a max of 32, but default of 24.... (ave = 28)
there are probably about 100 completely empty servers, and most servers stay about 3/4 full...
240*3/4*28 = and average of 5,040 people on at any given time (estimated guess, I would give a specific number, but I can't find a stats page for tf2)
3,000 people on servers playing a game that has sold 1.7 million copies is a higher percentage of playing players than roughly 5,000 people playing a game that has sold 20 million copies. (I remember seeing that 20m figure in a tf2 blog update somewhere - I will try to find it)
You get early access to the game to a discounted price!
You help fund the development of Minecraft
Custom skins in multiplayer
Once you've bought the game, it's yours. No DRM."
Again, this is the new, revised ToS that doesn't apply to alpha buyers.
lol that's nothing.
Heroes of Newerth has like 40,000 people online right now, and that was also independently created and grown by a smallish company. Not as small now, as they have used their income to, you know, hire more people and grow the company.
So many companies have released games about the size of minecraft, and then EXPANDED LIKE CRAZY to become a studio that actually has decent output.
Notch is not a very good businessman.
You seem to forget Heroes of Newerth is a completely MP game.
People playing SP still get counted, the login request tells the server to increment the online count (and presumably another is sent when the client closes, though I haven't peeked at that part of the code). You're only not counted if you hit "play offline". Even if FIVE TIMES as many people don't connect to minecraft.net than do, that's still only 18,000 people playing, or slightly over 1% of the people who have bought the game (18000/1664498 bought copies at the time of writing). That's absolutely pathetic.
Quote from Traviskolber »
You get early access to the game to a discounted price!
You help fund the development of Minecraft
Custom skins in multiplayer
Once you've bought the game, it's yours. No DRM."
Some of us bought during Alpha (or in my case, Classic), before Notch's "classy" switch of terms. Original contract still applies, any lawyer will tell you that (not that I'm one).
Uh, no, it says there are 3,200 players online IN SERVERS.
Do you have any clue how many people are sleeping? Or at work? Or playing offline in singleplayer?
Regardless, there is a total of 1,664,480 sold copies of minecraft. 2885 people are playing online, as of my last refresh.
This means that 0.17% of the people who bought Minecraft are currently playing it online. This is an extremely small population, you must realize that.
Again, read my damn post.
- 60% or more are at work or are sleeping.
- 50% of that 40% are in singleplayer.
- 90% or more of that 20% left are in private servers (aka fake LAN)
- The rest are on the expensive professional servers.
You're just making up numbers. See, the thing about making up statistics is that they mean absolutely nothing. You can't just say that "60% are sleeping". How are you going to prove that?
Honestly you're trying really hard to explain something that no one can prove. I'm using the statistics given on the website, which clearly show that only 0.17% of purchased copies of Minecraft are being used online.
1st, thats 3000 people on RIGHT NOW. Not today. About the link, you go to Home, and then there is a "more stats" link at the bottom of the paragraph.
You are wrong. The game can not get "worse" because notch doesn't add what you want. You like the game before squid, he adds squid you hate it because he didn't add giant sea monsters? Your logic doesn't make sense at all. Some people need to think there arguments out better.
How many days do you think Steve Ballmer actually works in a year?
If you want a more relevant (directly video-game related) examples:
How about Gabe Newell?
Or Robin Walker?
The fact is, they probably don't work very long, and when they do it is stuff that most people with a 10th grade education and a year or two of educational summer camps could handle. You just don't notice as much because they have a lot of people working for them.
The months in 2009 and 2010 where there was the majority of vacation time, there was only one game dev: Notch.
So far in 2011, they have all taken so much time off because mojang is such a small company that ALL of them can go to award ceremonies. If they are recieving awards, they aren't doing that bad. In a few more months, the wave of awards will be pretty much gone, and there will be nothing but game dev (well, and notch's marraige, apparently? I can see him giving his employees a few days off for that since he will be on a honeymoon and feeling happy and such.)
Right now, mojang is like a "mom and pop" store rather than something like "walmart" or "target"
I'm fine with him taking a vacation for his honeymoon; That's an important moment in any couple's relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a full month, given the amount of money that he has. My problem with it is that he knows that he's going to take this super long vacation, and yet he takes even more vacations in the meantime. Most people would work harder to make up for the time lost, especially to such a vocal fanbase.
To me, this doesn't sound like they're working on it, it just sounds to me like a "I'm sorry that no one is staffing our networks since we're all on vacation." Again, if another member of the team posted something that specifically said "I am actually fixing the issue midflight!" then please, show me.
The amount of hypocrisy that Notch shows about server stability is just appalling. He says not to buy any games from Ubisoft anymore because their servers were down when he tried to activate his game once, but his stuff seems to go down once a month. I get it, it's a popular game, server stress is a given. But with the amount of cash that he obviously has to throw around (vacations, buying new games and gadgets for himself), you'd think he'd be able to use some of those funds to solve a massive problem that the community has.
they have a whole company for that, and big, productive teams.
notch doesnt.
you know how notch has a game that is selling as good as almost no game before and he is slowly abandoning it? not investing in his company, going on vacations all the time?
yeah.
which was my point.
if you had read that.
And 3000 people isn't really all that much, not when you have a market of close to two million people who've bought the game. I'd say that a large amount have grown bored with the game due to lack of updates, or disgruntled with Notch's horrible business ethics.
Also thanks for the link, I'm surprised I couldn't find that.
Again:
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/121044061/ ... ew-economy
Not everyone bought the game in beta. This is the deal that I bought the game for. Many other people also bought it at this moment. This is our user agreement with Notch. This may not be yours, but denying that this exists is purely asinine.
lol that's nothing.
Heroes of Newerth has like 40,000 people online right now, and that was also independently created and grown by a smallish company. Not as small now, as they have used their income to, you know, hire more people and grow the company.
So many companies have released games about the size of minecraft, and then EXPANDED LIKE CRAZY to become a studio that actually has decent output.
Notch is not a very good businessman.
bro, he said 'he wants to keep it small' that means he will not get bigger.
and setting up a company is not taking a month. I know this, ive got a company with more than twice as many people than mojang, stuff like office was done before i hired people, to prevent no one working. this is just a ******** excuse, if you ask anyone who knows what having a company is about.
msj, sorry, i overread that.
theres 2'000'000 people who bought the game. you would expect more people playing on a server a day, thats his point.
even if its not peak time, its a small number.
This is exactly the problem! If, with a full staff, they're unable to do as much work as one man did by himself, then there is obviously a huge problem with the company.
It's not like they took off October-March for one award ceremony, right?
Here’s what you get for purchasing:
* All future updates of the game, including all expansions and addons. You never have to pay again.
expansions and addons all get released after the release.
edit: whats a mp game? sorry, i do not know that.
Here’s what you get for purchasing:
* You help fund development of Minecraft.
* Custom skins in multiplayer, starting very soon.
* All future updates of the game, including all expansions and addons. You never have to pay again.
* Once you’ve bought the game, it’s yours. Do whatever you want with it!
* Survival mode
Expansions include (these will happen after release):
+ Zombie Siege
+ Capture the Flag
+ Various level importers. (I’ve already got a doom level importer working.. kinda. :biggrin.gif:)
he said you wouldnt pay for the expansions, and then he listed the expansions he promises to do.
sure, its just a promise: its not a good business strategy to promise things you are not gonna do.
Regardless, there is a total of 1,664,480 sold copies of minecraft. 2885 people are playing online, as of my last refresh.
This means that 0.17% of the people who bought Minecraft are currently playing it online. This is an extremely small population, you must realize that.
actually to a lot of us, he still needs to update the game a lot. There are a lot of promises that he needs to keep before he cuts updates. but yeah, in the past few months, he's taken more vacations than I would allow for in employment. If anything, I wish he would include a modloader and even include compatability with texturepacks above 16x16. if he isn't going to work on the game, then at least have modders do it. Hell, i'm actually ecstatic that jeb even put up a video of the wolves.
that link also only counts the people who are playing SMP, and doesn't include SSP.
3,000 people online is a pretty decent number.
there's probably about 4 or 5k playing single player.
Let's reference tf2...
tf2 has, on average, 340 servers going at any time (or at least that are visible to me, some may be locked by region)
340 servers with a max of 32, but default of 24.... (ave = 28)
there are probably about 100 completely empty servers, and most servers stay about 3/4 full...
240*3/4*28 = and average of 5,040 people on at any given time (estimated guess, I would give a specific number, but I can't find a stats page for tf2)
3,000 people on servers playing a game that has sold 1.7 million copies is a higher percentage of playing players than roughly 5,000 people playing a game that has sold 20 million copies. (I remember seeing that 20m figure in a tf2 blog update somewhere - I will try to find it)
Again, this is the new, revised ToS that doesn't apply to alpha buyers.
People playing SP still get counted, the login request tells the server to increment the online count (and presumably another is sent when the client closes, though I haven't peeked at that part of the code). You're only not counted if you hit "play offline". Even if FIVE TIMES as many people don't connect to minecraft.net than do, that's still only 18,000 people playing, or slightly over 1% of the people who have bought the game (18000/1664498 bought copies at the time of writing). That's absolutely pathetic.
Some of us bought during Alpha (or in my case, Classic), before Notch's "classy" switch of terms. Original contract still applies, any lawyer will tell you that (not that I'm one).
You're just making up numbers. See, the thing about making up statistics is that they mean absolutely nothing. You can't just say that "60% are sleeping". How are you going to prove that?
Honestly you're trying really hard to explain something that no one can prove. I'm using the statistics given on the website, which clearly show that only 0.17% of purchased copies of Minecraft are being used online.
Seriously nearly all of your posts mention Minecraft being in beta, it's getting old really quick