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Minecraft Reaches Beta Status, Price Goes Up
Eric writes "After over a year of development, Minecraft has hit Beta status today. Minecraft was developed for about a week before its public release on May 17, 2009. With the new milestone, the price of the game has increased to €14.95; when Minecraft moves beyond beta status, it will sell for €20.00. The beta is more focused on polish and content. The aim is to add proper modding support via a stable API, some kind of non-intrusive narrative to help drive the game experience early on, and a late-game goal. Updates will be less frequent, so as to make sure stability is maintained thanks to more extended testing. Despite this, there have already been two beta releases: client and server Beta 1.0 followed quickly by client 1.0_01."
did they get their money back from PayPal?
The summary fails to mention the spectacular fail.
The release that was supposed to inaugurate the beta also created a bunch of bugs for both single- and multi-player modes, including dupe bugs, which he was trying to fix.
The patch that followed the beta release was supposed to fix those bugs, and didn't. Minecraft remains almost unplayable for me in single- or multi-player mode; my friends can't even connect to the server anymore.
I understand that "beta" is just a milestone, but this is really inauspicious.
http://www.tenjou.net/
Minecraft Reaches Beta Status, Price Goes Up
If there's one thing I don't do, it's buy software that isn't written yet. Maybe under some limited conditions in custom software both otherwise, let me know when you're done and what you're charging for it and I'll consider it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Regardless of whether you blame Minecraft's success on luck or Notch's genius, he's a rather poor programmer. If you read through the release notes on his blog, he's apparently incapable of adding features without breaking lots of stuff on the way and waiting for him to fix basic functionality can take months.
I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that programming 'under the spotlight' can be very distracting. What with twitter, blog comments, and forums there are far too many ways for the customer base to contact Notch 24/7. That's got to make fixing stuff hard if people are constantly shouting "FIX IT!" in your ear.
I bought the alpha a few months ago, and while I haven't played it recently due to time contraints, it is easily well worth the money that is being charged. I played it far more than games that cost three times as much, not to mention that when playing it, I was never frustrated, or angry, but thoroughly enjoying the experience, which is something I can't say about most games, not to mention ones that aren't even freaking finished yet!
Wait a minute, that's not a swiss bank account number! :)
Paying for an alpha is not exactly paying for vapourware. It's more like half-condensed-ware or semisolidware. It's really been a fun game, and was (mostly) worth the money. Crashes every sunrise and sunset was annoying until a reinstall fixed that.
I mean, I just read Mi*****ft, and I think "Wow, Windows is finnaly in beta, but the price is even more up?".
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There is a mineral called redstone in the game that can be placed like circuitry, albeit with a 15-block activation distance. Redstone torches act like NOT gates, but can be combined into more complex logic gates.
Youtube is now littered with demos, but I think this is one of the better ones: Working 16-bit computer built inside Minecraft.
You're way behind, Mr. Mopps. Behold: http://linnnk.com/awesome-minecraft-costume
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Minecraft is one of those little homebrew projects that has taken on a life of its own.
Really - it's simple without being simplistic, and allows people fantastic expression of their creativity.
It's totally worth paying for, and supporting this programmer.
The next obvious step would be a more robust permanent world capability, along with the ability to lock ones' creations from the deliberate vandalism and destruction of others.
-Styopa
Yes, it is "that bad" although I don't really think it's fair to judge it in that manner. It's like playing with legos, scribbling in a sketch pad, singing to oneself, or writing poetry. Just a creative outlet for its own sake. So what if it's "just like a sandbox?" Nobody criticizes children for liking to play in a sandbox. It's fun and if it weren't so messy, I'm sure some adults would continue to do it. So why not create a game that allows for some of that sandbox experience?
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
IF you need spoon fed goals and someone else to set up achievements and motivate you, then yeah it's bad.
OTOH if you like fining new things , building new things and having a digital area to play in, then it's awesome.
My son loves it. It was awesome watching him try to figure out how to make tracks, then a mine cart, and then figuring out how to make a powered mine cart. No one to tell him what to do, no preset goals. Just how creative he can be with the rules inside the minecraft world.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He apparently has *millions* of dollars now.. why not hire a team of decent C programmers and convert the game? I imagine you could get it running on mobile platforms damn fast shortly afterwards and make even more money.
How we know is more important than what we know.