Minecraft and Microsoft What's next? By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News
If you're trying to understand why Minecraft-maker Mojang is being bought by Microsoft, just play the game.
The single-player game is about an individual who has to survive in a harsh world with only their imagination to ensure their safety. Their survival is dependent on their ability to create a home and fight monsters using only the tools and weapons that they build with their hands.
It's easy to see this as a metaphor about Markus "Notch", the game's creator If computer games were subjected to the same analysis as novels. In the past, he's talked about his childhood and how he was "relatively poor" as well as his ability to make his own entertainment, as well as whether he'll need to get over the same "demons” that troubled his father.
Notch's success in the harsh world was enabled by his family friends, family and the success of the items he made by hand. However, that success has also led to other obstacles. They are even more difficult to overcome.
The changes were evident at Minecon in 2012, where it was now impossible for Notch to walk more than just a few feet before being grabbed by another fan eager to shake his hand, pat him on the back, snap pictures or ask him to sign their foam sword.
People control
He was never content with the transformation from a humble programmer who was responsible for his own code to a leader of an international movement. His sincere explanation of the reason he decided to leave Mojang - "it’s about my sanity" shows that.
He's aware that Minecraft is now about managing a community - much more than it is about creating and maintaining a codebase.
And therein lies the potential issue for Microsoft.
With Xbox Live and its other cloud services there is no doubt that it has the experience in running a huge computer infrastructure that serves millions of paying customers. It will be essential when it begins running the behind-the-scenes systems that keep Minecraft going.
But Microsoft is likely to alienate this community if it doesn't realize how personal the game is not just for Notch however, but for the majority of the players who play it. It's where they get to meet their friends and make new ones, where they show their personality in a way, show off their technical and creative prowess, where they find themselves.
I have witnessed this with my kids who play it in different ways. One is a big fan of modified versions that involve arena battles or capture-the-flag-type competitions. The other spends hours creating intricate homes around the swooping tracks of minecarts. Sometimes, he constructs treehouses that extend across forests. They also often go on adventures with their friends in search of treasure, avoiding creepers, and battling zombies, spiders and skeletons.
They, and millions like them, are able to do this because of the freedom and openness of Minecraft. I Love Html5 They can alter the game to their liking due to its flexibility. This is because it grants players access to a level of control that Microsoft has never granted in its business software. And that is what has made the millions who play Minecraft worried. The fans don't want Microsoft to mess with their right to play with the game as they wish. They feel a deep sense of ownership over the games they make.
Microsoft will have to complete a tough jobdue to the importance of this community.
It will have to battle two of the biggest enemies of online gamers : downtime (aka delay) and the lag. It is likely that any issue with the game's availability in the future will be blamed on Microsoft - whether it is the company's fault or not.
If it is not handled properly If handled poorly, it could result in a large portion of the community turning against Microsoft by making more radical changes to the game's running, like limiting the way people can alter it or charging them for things they don't have.
This would be a terrible issue, given that the majority of its users are kids and will eventually become gamers. Microsoft wants to impress them with its Minecraft management. If it does it wrong it could end up being one of the monsters people would like to fight and kill.
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