Open-sourcing Doom increased, rather than decreased sales.
Doom also went open source long before there were any sequels, and while it was still the hottest shit in PC gaming.
Comment on Minecraft is removing code obfuscation in Java Edition
sus@programming.dev 20 hours agoThat’s definitely not how GPL specifically works, and the small amount of sales of doom 2 today is not at all comparable to the massive amount of minecraft sales and minecraft-related microtransactions that microsoft is raking in.
chunes@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
C8r9VwDUTeY3ZufQRYvq@sopuli.xyz 9 hours ago
What proportion of those sales are for Java edition? This sounds like an attempt to make mods and therefore java edition into a more popular/appealing product. They know that most users are not going to do anything with source code.
planish@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
I thought they were still hoping to convince people to use Bedrock so they had to buy Windows.
C8r9VwDUTeY3ZufQRYvq@sopuli.xyz 4 hours ago
I admit I also thought they were trying to basically replace java edition with bedrock, so I’m not sure. Just trying to make sense of this move without assuming that Microsoft is being nice about something
azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
And Hytale got shitcanned!
It’s actually amazing that in an industry so hell-bent on copying successful formulas ad-nauseam (e.g. Quake&Doom spawning the whole genre of First Person Shooters), Minecraft has not seen anything reach the status of spiritual successor in over 15 years of charts-topping sales performance. Not from its own studio, not from its former creator, not with the Late Hypixel Studios.
There are survival games and base-building games and exploration games, but none of them are “Minecraft-likes” in the way that early FPS were “Quake-likes”. CS has Valorant. LoL has Dota. Tekken has Street Fighter. PUBG has Fortnite has Roblox. Minecraft somehow remains truly one-of-a-kind, a gaming UFO that eludes suits looking for a replicable formula. I actually believe Mojang themselves don’t understand why Minecraft works in the first place either, which is why every update seemingly either underwhelms or angers everyone. That game is lightning in a bottle and no-one knows what to do with it.
If Nadella had a stroke so bad he decided to make Minecraft FOSS, I’d be really interested to see what would happen. If any for-profit company was allowed to make direct Minecraft derivatives, I do think we would see a level of creativity and innovation that would dwarf even the already extremely prolific current modding scene.