Microsoft buys Minecraft?
This company just can't keep a steady pace of either screwing things up or doing things right. The company seemed to be generally doing OK of late. Even the Win8 haters aren't pre-emptively bashing Win9, they are simply re-bashing on Win8. But now this?
They better have a plan here. It isn't JUST that they purchase Minecraft. It is that they purchased it for $2.5B AND are losing the top execs AND there is no (known) additional big projects in the pipeline.
Additionally, if you look at the reason Persson is leaving when the deal completes you get a sense that they are buying a company that is facing some hardships under the surface. And that is important. If the old CEO felt stressed by the demands the community was putting on him due to the size it had grown too then something needs to change. And if something changes under new management they will look like the bad guys.
In other words... Microsoft will likely need to "improve" upon the community interaction model. If it was stressing the founder of the company, it will destroy hired goons. And the second those changes are in place, if they piss off anyone, Microsoft will be blamed. Even if the fixes are legitimate.
Buying it to get the game on Windows Phone is INSANE. 1 game isn't going to rake people in. And that is all Mojang was. ONE GAME! With 2.5 billion dollars to throw around, they would have been better off choosing 25 companies that make desirable apps or games that are missing and tossing each one a $100 million dollars to make it happen. Target the right apps missing from the catalogue and it could be a REAL game changer for many. And even the most stubborn of companies would probably agree, even if they had been publicly against the platform in the past for $100 million of funded development.
Heck $10 million would probably sway people just as well, and could net them 250 more top apps. With those numbers they could even convince some of the adopter who half-assed their submissions to clean them up. At $1 million a piece there might be some big name hold outs but at 2500 apps for the same price as Minecraft. Even with the potential remaining gaps at that price, the wider spread of quality apps on boarded might even outweigh the above offers.
AND it doesn't look like Microsoft is buying a company for fears that they couldn't convince them to develop for their platform without being able to make them do it.
At the end of the day, $2.5B is a ton of cash. It could have been invested much better. Especially since most of that money walks out the doors in the hands of the soon to ex-CEO of Mojang.
They better have a plan here. It isn't JUST that they purchase Minecraft. It is that they purchased it for $2.5B AND are losing the top execs AND there is no (known) additional big projects in the pipeline.
Additionally, if you look at the reason Persson is leaving when the deal completes you get a sense that they are buying a company that is facing some hardships under the surface. And that is important. If the old CEO felt stressed by the demands the community was putting on him due to the size it had grown too then something needs to change. And if something changes under new management they will look like the bad guys.
In other words... Microsoft will likely need to "improve" upon the community interaction model. If it was stressing the founder of the company, it will destroy hired goons. And the second those changes are in place, if they piss off anyone, Microsoft will be blamed. Even if the fixes are legitimate.
Buying it to get the game on Windows Phone is INSANE. 1 game isn't going to rake people in. And that is all Mojang was. ONE GAME! With 2.5 billion dollars to throw around, they would have been better off choosing 25 companies that make desirable apps or games that are missing and tossing each one a $100 million dollars to make it happen. Target the right apps missing from the catalogue and it could be a REAL game changer for many. And even the most stubborn of companies would probably agree, even if they had been publicly against the platform in the past for $100 million of funded development.
Heck $10 million would probably sway people just as well, and could net them 250 more top apps. With those numbers they could even convince some of the adopter who half-assed their submissions to clean them up. At $1 million a piece there might be some big name hold outs but at 2500 apps for the same price as Minecraft. Even with the potential remaining gaps at that price, the wider spread of quality apps on boarded might even outweigh the above offers.
AND it doesn't look like Microsoft is buying a company for fears that they couldn't convince them to develop for their platform without being able to make them do it.
At the end of the day, $2.5B is a ton of cash. It could have been invested much better. Especially since most of that money walks out the doors in the hands of the soon to ex-CEO of Mojang.
Comments
Post a Comment