Friendly Pirate Challenges Minecraft Creator To Quake 3 Battle
from the what-goes-around-comes-around dept
Minecraft developer Markus Persson, better known as notch, made headlines last year when he proposed to settle a trademark dispute with Bethesda with a Quake 3 match. Now, in yet another example of how being open, human and awesome is the best response to “problems” like piracy, Ashley Sheridan points us to two recent tweets on notch’s feed:
Notch is well known for not worrying too much about piracy or believing in “lost sales”, and the staggering success of Minecraft speaks for the wisdom of that attitude. It also goes to show that, despite what critics claim, accepting the reality of piracy doesn’t mean letting any and all activity run rampant. When you threaten people, or send lawyers after them, they might get scared but they will definitely get defensive (and not like you very much). But by reaching out to the guy, notch had a friendly exchange and the pirate site came down (plus what I assume will be an epic Quake battle on q3dm17, which I gather from Google is some sort of badass space platform map). Are there other pirates who would have ignored notch or set up shop elsewhere? Probably—but they will always find a way to do what they do. Indeed, some people will always be jerks/idiots/dumb kids too, as some of the reactions to the disappearance of the site showed—which notch recognizes, so he took it in stride:
It sucks that some people are like that, but attacking them sure isn’t going to change them. It’s a waste of time, and can cause people to threaten and drive away pirates like the one with whom notch reached a friendly resolution.
Filed Under: markus persson, minecraft, notch, quake 3
Comments on “Friendly Pirate Challenges Minecraft Creator To Quake 3 Battle”
Sugar and sh*t
You can catch flies with both, but one gets your hands dirty.
I wonder what will happen if the pirate beats notch in Quake 3. Will he let the site stay up? Probably not, but he has to give him some kind of acknowledgement over this.
Re: Re:
hmmm I don’t know. Actually I don’t know who really won anyway, the article doesn’t say :]
someone should challenge him the quake for releasing minecrafts source code
Re: Response to: monkyyy on Apr 12th, 2012 @ 1:55pm
he already did.
Total man-crush.
He needs to watch out for angry freetards. Some of them may be armed.
Re: Re:
Of course not. No one gives out free weapons.
I expected:
“Some people have been threatening to kill me over this. Fire up Quake and hop onto *insert server address here* and let’s see what you’ve got.”
Re: Re:
Given some of the people rumored to be have been selected to play should the Bethesda Q3 trademark settlement have gone ahead, I don’t like the odds of anyone but actual paid pro-gamers taking notch.
I admit I pirated Minecraft when it was in 0.4 beta.
Guess what? Now I coughed up $20 and have a legit copy, as does my wife and we’ve gifted Minecraft to 2 other friends.
Oh, plus we’ve got the 10 cent phone version. Not because of my fear of getting fined, but because I realized it was a really good game and deserved my support!
Due to notch’s relaxed attitude and acceptance of piracy (and the awesomeness of the game), at least in this case he hasn’t gotten 1 lost sale due to piracy, but gained 4 sales because of it.
Re: Re:
yeah I did the same thing, except with the 1.8 beta :]
I would say that, even though Notch being awesome and pretty much fully backing the modding community is a big part of minecraft’s success, I would say the main reason for minecraft’s success would be because it is an awesome, innovative game that people want to play.
The fact that it’s such an awesome game yet still gains so much support from the fans, monetary and otherwise, is a testament to how much Mojang has done right.
Hey guys i have a dilemma: My friend “AH” is sort of megalomaniacal but right now he’s just asking for the Sudetenland. If I don’t give it to him I think he’s gonna be real mad. I think I’m just gonna go ahead and let him have it. What’s the worst that could happen? You catch more flies with sugar, right??
Re: Re:
Really? Godwin’s law -this- early in a conversation?
Re: Re:
Hey, guys, our colonies are asking for independence! How funny! They wouldn’t be able to amount to anything without us. I think I’ll just tell them no. What’re they gonna do, rebel?
Re: Re:
Well they did just have a Quake beta match. If he wants anything else, guess we’ll just have to play another match in Quake beta as I’ve got a couple of friends who are pros at it. Host server will be “France” and we’ll play on the “Normandy” map.
Re: Re:
I really don’t get what Nazis have to do with this article. Anyone care to explain?
Re: Re: Re:
The Internet is Hitler.
Re: Re: Re:
WW2 was launched over a game of Quake gone bad. How do you not know this?
I highly doubt the success of mine craft is due to “his attitude towards piracy”. Anything to back that up? Of course not…
The guy made something that people WANTED, nothing to do with piracy. Offer me something new and interesting, I’m willing to put some cash forward. Offer me remakes and sequels? I’ll embrace piracy because the product is not worth the money.
Re: Re:
His positive attitude towards piracy *assisted* in the success of minecraft though.
Initially notch was just happy to have people exposed to his game – and some of people who pirated then went on to be customers.
I almost guarentee that if he was pissy about the whole thing, the percentage of pirates-to-customers would have been lower.
Re: Re:
“due to” – no. It was due to the fact that Minecraft is awesome (reportedly – I’ve stayed far away because I fear how badly it might addict me)
But aided by? Most definitely. He’s focused on turning pirates into customers for a long time.
Re: Re: Re:
I bought it because of his attitude and because the price is fair. To be honest I rarely play it.
dammit, neither of them thought to record the match!!!!!
WHO WON!!!!
Re: Re:
I know right!? that match could have been used in case law for years to come!
Re:
Except for US Gov.