Well, file this under ‘holy crap’.
Microsoft is nearing a deal to buy Mojang AB, makers of the Minecraft video game franchise, according to a new report. According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal would value Mojang at more than $2 billion and could be signed as soon as this week.
No. Just no.
Maybe Notch just got bored of it all and decided to pursue his vinyl collecting hobby full-time.
The person claiming the GPL applies to the server code must really be upset now.
The money available to the other programmers who did get hire just took a big jump up.
A .NET version of minecraft coming soon.
Cool
I know you’re joking (I hope you’re joking!) but the game is in dire need of optimization, even if that means a complete rewrite in a more efficient language. Minetest has proven that a fun, playable Minecraft style game is blazing fast in C++. Java is great for a lot of things, but I think Minecraft demonstrates its limits.
Agreed.
As long as it stays Linux-compatible and Microsoft doesn’t try to weasel out of the “will be open-sourced when it’s no longer profitable” promise, I don’t care what it’s written in.
Edited 2014-09-10 01:26 UTC
If Microsoft owns it, any promises of source code release are now gone. As for platform compatibility, I hope they keep Linux in the mix but then again it wouldn’t surprise me if it was dropped if they do port it away from java to something else (like .net).
Edited 2014-09-10 01:48 UTC
Yeah, I can’t see it being a good thing to drop support for Linux. I would hope they don’t. I have less fear for a drop of OS X version, but that’s the one that’d effect me most so if it did happen I’d be crying under the rug.
Optimisation? Totally worth a look though. It does need it.
Is there a .net framework for Linux? (complete ignorance on my part…)
Yes. The Mono project implements .NET for Linux and MonoGame provides a Linux implementation of XNA 4.0.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28software%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonoGame
A lot of the games in various Humble Bundles got ported using the MonoGame-SDL2 version.
https://github.com/flibitijibibo/MonoGame
Edited 2014-09-10 03:25 UTC
Now referred to as FNA
ssokolow is correct, mono implements .net runtime/framework under linux. Here’s their official feature compatibility list:
http://www.mono-project.com/docs/about-mono/compatibility/
Note that anything written in pure .net classes should run ok in foreign environments for the pieces of the framework that are implemented by mono. However a particular area mono struggles with is native code interop (ie windows DLLs, activex, etc), which are windows-specific dependencies. These can’t run under linux (well, maybe they can under WINE, but I don’t believe believe Mono supports this). Anyways, using native code in a .net project is a fairly atypical scenario – most .net devs prefer not to do that.
Hypothetically, if a corporation like microsoft wanted to make something like Minecraft.net incompatible with Mono, they could do so by adding windows-specific dependencies for things that don’t work in Mono.
This should be true, and yet I almost never see any .net application make their way to for example Linux. There must be tonnes of useful applications written in .net that should theoretically run out-of-the-box on Linux. why aren’t we seeing any of those?
Because in contrast with Java compatible JVMs, Mono only cherry picks which .NET classes they support.
WPF, which most Windows desktop applications nowadays use, is not supported.
http://www.mono-project.com/docs/about-mono/compatibility/
Although thanks to .Net Portable Assemblies the situation across .NET implementations code compatibility has improved a lot.
Still it forces developers to implement the UI multiple times. No, Gtk# cannot even begin to compare to WPF.
Also, only parts of the .NET runtime are covered by Microsoft’s Community Promise or whatever – the core components. Some .NET components aren’t covered – WinForms, for example – and are possibly encumbered by patents.
That’s why, for a lot of distributions, WinForms and other components aren’t part of the default mono package set.
And implementing the UI multiple times has actually become a selling point for Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android, where they don’t even have a cross platform GUI toolkit (though they did make something of a wrapper recently called Xamarin.Forms).
I actually think there’s something to this, as if I recall correctly, folks even in the desktop world used to complain endlessly about apps that don’t use the native GUI toolkits on each platform. Xamarin has standardized on doing exactly that.
Now I just wish they’d rewrite Xamarin Studio with native OSX widgets, instead of gtk#, or whatever they are using now.
A great many Android applications are written in C# (.NET). Those are running on Linux. Quite a few ASP.NET websites are running on Linux. The reasons there are not more ASP.NET on Linux sites are largely cultural (within the Open Source community) rather than technical.
Many Windows desktop apps use WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). WPF is perhaps the best example of .NET functionality that Mono does not support. It would take a lot of effort to port a large WPF app to Linux as you would essentially be rewriting the UI from scratch.
There are .NET desktop apps that run on Linux but their authors generally chose a cross-platform UI strategy before they wrote the code.
Microsoft is known to release the source for a game they wrote, one without much hope for profitability – Allegiance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance_(video_game)
I’d expect MS to make it Xbox exclusive. Why else would they care to buy it? Xbox has poor times, so they want to boost it with something. This won’t turn into anything positive for gamers though, especially for Linux gamers.
Morgan,
The minecraft world is an interesting computer science problem, I have tons of ideas for how I’d build & optimize my own engine. I’d probably use C++ myself, but Java isn’t necessarily to blame. Inefficient coding practices are very easy to adopt in java. Often times coders are even encouraged to not even think about the performance implications of memory allocation/deallocation under the hood, because java. Consequently many java projects are *horrendously* bloated and slow. One client of mine is using a proprietary java application that makes everyone who touches it want to shoot themselves.
Anyways, Minetest had the benefit of knowing what the engine had to be capable of doing before any of it’s code was written. In theory, this can result in superior upfront designs compared to evolutionary code that didn’t get optimized for the end result.
It is very important for a Java developer to understand the memory management and garbage collection mechanisms utilized in Java. It is critical to know how to use the variables correctly to get reasonable performance out of the system. Blindly calling ‘new’ every time you need an object is one source of big performance problems.
For example take two similar snippets of code:
int arrayLength = 1000000;
Boolean[] b = new Boolean[arrayLength];
for(int i = 0; i < arrayLength; i++)
{
b[ i ] = new Boolean(true);
}
for(int i = 0; i < arrayLength; i++)
{
b[ i ] = Boolean.valueOf(true);
}
The second for cycle runs multiple orders of magnitude faster. All you need to do is to read a book called “Effective Java” to pick up tiny but important things like this.
Therefore I believe that Minecraft performance problem can be buried under both inefficient programming and algorithms or just plain wrong approach to a problem at hand. Java is indeed the last thing to blame here.
Edited 2014-09-10 08:20 UTC
If the difference between good and bad performance is indeed things like the code above, then, yeah, Java is to blame. The first thing to blame, in fact.
If you don’t come from a Java-only background, stuff like this is completely a non-issue in C++11.
You need to know the inner workings of Java to make programs with optimal performance. That does not mean that Java is slow language. Simply it is perhaps too high level language allowing you to express same thing very differently resulting in very different performance.
Comparing Java with C++ is quite ridiculous. The approach and mentality to programming is soo different. Having said that, you can easily shoot yourself into foot with Boost library which is pretty much considered a standard tool for any C++ project. Create massive amount of boost::shared_ptr instancies and aggressively limit the available memory and you can easily run into same performance problems as Java does. Remember Java VM does not give you access to the whole system memory (like native C++ program would have) but instead either uses default memory limits or expects a user to specify the available heap size.
You need ton configure java memory very specifically to gain optimum performance – requiring you to understand the inner workings of garbage collectors and object allocations in the first place.
So all in all. Java performance is standing on the totally different grounds than C++ performance and that still does not make Java a bad language.
Edited 2014-09-10 13:48 UTC
And you overuse shared_ptr if you try to “new” everything like in Java. The point of shared_ptr is not supposed to be dynamic allocation, but to declare ownership of a resource. If you need a lot of something, the STANDARD way is to use std::vector of objects. Not even a vector of pointers, but a vector of objects. Dynamic allocation and dereferencing are the killers of performance, all of which is unavoidable in Java, very avoidable in C++.
That’s why I put in the caveat that you don’t come into C++ from a Java-only background. Dynamic allocation is king in Java. Not in C++.
Java’s not alone as a bad language. It’s at least as bad as all other languages with reference semantics. Value semantics is what’s needed for performance, and only C++ takes that seriously by making it the default.
I think this makes Java necessarily to blame.
C++ has the opposite problem such that they have to tell people to, yes, think about performance, but don’t homebrew everything – let the compiler and standard library do most of the thinking.
I guess Java is partially to blame. That said, Minecraft is spectacularly bad even for a Java application.
Noteworthy point: While I doubt Microsoft’s unbeatably well-funded legal team would agree, I do seem to remember Mojang believing their list of promises to be legally binding.
…or at least enough so that, when Minecraft hadn’t been ported to anything else yet, Realms didn’t exist, and DLC was still on their list of potential sources for ongoing income, they were grudgingly reasurring indev-era buyers (of which I am one) that, while it was a bad decision in retrospect, they’d honor the “all DLC is free for alpha buyers” interpretation of their alpha-stage “all future addons are included for free” promise to buyers.
Either way, as long as I manage to archive Linux, Windows, and MacOS versions of the last cross-platform release and any instrumentation necessary to ensure LAN/VPN play will continue to work, I’ll be happy.
(The only reason I want continued updates is that I’m still waiting for a stable modding API so I can write a mod to bring back the less RPG-y, more sandbox-y direction Minecraft seemed to be going during the golden age of the Seeeeecret Friday Updates)
Edited 2014-09-10 02:08 UTC
Money talks. Even for Notch.
Next!
Look how well that worked for Bungie (rolls eyes)
I know, right! Halo was SUCH a failure under Microsoft!
Microsoft paid between $20 million and $40 million for Bungie in total (estimates vary).
Halo 2 made $125 million on release day
Halo 3 made $170 million on release day
Not to mention the drive it brought to XBox sales.
Microsoft’s purchase of Bungie was an unmitigated Success. They later spun it off and its soon releasing (what is anticipated to be) the fasted selling game of all time. So yes, I would say it worked out well for them.
Bungie is one of the few acquisitions Microsoft (and Bungie) got totally right, so this is actually a terrible example
Well, it helped Microsoft sell their console, and the Bungie owners made money.
Whatever you may think of the games themselves, the Halo franchise has commercially been very successful.
No wonder he changed his tune on Facebook/Oculus Rift so fast.
Kind of makes him a dick to bash another company only to end up doing the same deal with the devil.
It’s also kind of a dick to judge someone based on a complete unconfirmed rumour outside of their control.
You know what? Notch was kind of a dick for getting mad at Oculus Rift and then suddenly changing his tune for his given (and insincere sounding) reasons, even without this “rumour”. In fact, you could say he’s kind of a dick for chucking a hissy fit over the purchase in the first place.
So I think I have every reason to be able to judge him as being a dick. So nice try. Dick.
It seems to be a little more than just an unsubstantiated rumor at this point though.
It’s going to fall in line with the tiled UI. What’s next?
“Nooooooooo”
Here is a video for a greater dramatic effect.
http://youtu.be/Eal4fep7pK4?t=28s
Who cares?!? I just don’t see what this shitty game is all about. There’s a masterpiece called Far Cry 4 that’s going to be released soon. Dozens of other high-end, incredible games are on the horizon…I mean, there’s no shortage of good PC games.
I say let them do whatever they want to do. It’s their money after all.
Then why are you commenting?
So who died and made you God around here?
That’s it? That’s your defence for making a whiny irrelevant comment?
WELL DONE, you http://youtu.be/16Gcxb-6DNE?t=1m33s
Edited 2014-09-12 02:17 UTC
Are you trying to be funny? ‘Cause it ain’t working out for you, I’m sorry to say. I hope you don’t do that for a living.
And no, I don’t have to go into an pointless debate with some random loser on the Internet.
Person at the butt of the joke doesn’t find the joke funny.
News at 11.
See what I mean? No style at all. Please comment further so we can laugh at you while you’re digging your own grave.
What was that? I can’t hear you over you getting modded down to 0.
I was unaware “modding” raises your e-penis to stratospheric levels. You should get out more, that way when someone says something to you, you don’t get your panties all twisted up.
http://www.osnews.com/thread?596036
“So who died and made you God around here?”
It appears like I’m arguing with a dolt. No worries, there’s plenty of space in mental asylums for you.
Really? Your first comment on this article is a whiny bitchy complaint about why people cares when you don’t, as though everyone should have your preferences and nothing else. That alone makes you a hipster cunt.
Then when I simply asked a question of why even bother commenting if you don’t care, you get all defensive about who died* etc etc. All in an effort to hide the fact that you commented on an article you CLAIMED you didn’t care about.
* In answer to your question, it was your wife who died and made me God.
Hipster cunt? Ahahaha!!! Is that the best you can come up with from down under? Should I feel insulted by your meaningless drivel?
Puhlease! Wake up, boy. I couldn’t care less about you, what M$ does with all their money, or Minecraft for that matter.
And as for your answer, you need to go back to programming, as you suck at trying to insult people. Seriously, just let it go.
And yet you can’t stop commenting.
You’re hopeless.
“I don’t care” <writes comment> “I still don’t care”<writes comments> “Look how much I’m not caring” <still writes comments>
I bet you bragged to your friend about how you never watched Big Brother and you secretly did
You, uhhh, started the “pointless debate”. I, myself, couldn’t give a shit about COD, but i know that some people give many a shit. I’m not so narrowminded that i just completely disregard everybody’s opinion that doesn’t fit my own view.
Grow up a bit you whiny little kid.
Edited 2014-09-12 12:39 UTC
Kid? You must be new here. Haha!
True, Minecraft is an acquired taste. But first person shooters are a dime a dozen. The cool graphics only mask the fact that it’s the same thing over and over….shoot everything that moves, and try not to go into epileptic seizures from the big flashy graphics and ridiculous game speed.
Linking to a paid article — not cool.
Hence the additional The Verge link.
I always thought Microsoft owned Minesweeper.