These Minecraft Numbers Will Blow Your Mind

Yessir, anytime I can spend $2.5B and see a whopping $350,000 in sales from it after the first year, count me in...!...er, [out.] This is the kind of decision that comes from having far too much money on hand: "Burning a hole in his pocket..." is the phrase that comes to mind.
 
Wasn't that $350,000 in one 24 hour period? To quote the video, "in a 24-hour span the game has had as many as 16,000 downloads and $350,000 of in game purchases."
 
I seen this morning that Lego is going to bring out a similar game to compete. That should be interesting.
 
climb678 said:
Wasn't that $350,000 in one 24 hour period? To quote the video, "in a 24-hour span the game has had as many as 16,000 downloads and $350,000 of in game purchases."
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If that's the case they only need about 19.5 years of those numbers to break even :)
 
They don't need to make 2.5 billion to break even, they need to make 2.5 billion less whatever they could sell Mojang and the Minecraft IP for to break even. The financial reasoning they've given (publicly) for the purchase is that they believe they can make more in a year off of MC than they could if they left the money in the back to accrue interest. Privately I think it's all part of a "platform control" strategy. They don't really care about selling software. If they can control popular platforms they can write their own check for support and business-to-business relationships.
 
GaryJohnson said:
They don't need to make 2.5 billion to break even, they need to make 2.5 billion less whatever they could sell Mojang and the Minecraft IP for to break even. The financial reasoning they've given (publicly) for the purchase is that they believe they can make more in a year off of MC than they could if they left the money in the back to accrue interest. Privately I think it's all part of a "platform control" strategy. They don't really care about selling software. If they can control popular platforms they can write their own check for support and business-to-business relationships.
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Actually they need to make 2.5 billion plus the cost of inflation to break even as the IP will eventually be worthless, as no game lasts forever. If you just break even, you actually loose money as that same dollar amount is actually worth less due to inflation. If MS ever sells the IP then they will need to make up whatever the difference is between what they sell it for and the 2.5 billion with inflation added.
 
The thing to remember is that Minecraft was up for sale and if not Microsoft then someone else was going to buy it. Maybe not for 2.5 billion but certainly well over a billion.
 
sfsuphysics said:
If that's the case they only need about 19.5 years of those numbers to break even :)
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You assume that the only cash flow from that is game sales.

My kids have purchased so many MineCraft toys/clothes, it's insane. That's probably more money than the game by a large amount.
 
heatlesssun said:
The thing to remember is that Minecraft was up for sale and if not Microsoft then someone else was going to buy it. Maybe not for 2.5 billion but certainly well over a billion.
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What I read was that the founder mentioned that he'd probably sell Mojang and MS heard about it and they started negotiating.
MS needed to unload some cash due to taxes and bought Mojang.
 
The amount of money that can be made from owning the brand of minecraft is simply absurd. On top of owning the game on 3 platforms at my house, my son also has a variety of physical board games he wanted that are minecraft licensed, including a variety of put together minecraft blocks and other related materials. We have at least 3 minecraft books that I know of off the top of my head and he has 2 different minecraft licensed t-shirts at the moment. He also has received a variety of minecraft licensed keychains and other trivial junk at parties and as other gifts in the last year. He's only been playing minecraft for about 5 months and has accumulated this much minecraft 'swag'. I can only imagine how much more people who have played minecraft for years have established over that longer time period.

To summarize, it's not just the actual game that Microsoft has monetized, it's the entire world of licensing and products that they are making and fortune on right now. Compare it to Disney and a movie like Frozen and the billions of dollars in revenue they create outside of people viewing the actual product. Don't get so hung up on basic downloads of an already inexpensive game and realize that this is a globally successful family of products that clearly has not yet come close to running its course.
 
'Explained in 8-bit' is misleading. Should be 64-bit to represent those figures.
 
Zepher said:
What I read was that the founder mentioned that he'd probably sell Mojang and MS heard about it and they started negotiating.
MS needed to unload some cash due to taxes and bought Mojang.
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Yeah, Microsoft like a lot of big internationals has billions outside the US that are perfect for foreign acquisitions. The risk would come in having to write off the acquisition because you know it's a turkey that would never have any potential of making money, which I don't think it a problem for Minecraft.
 
It really was a bargain, Minecraft is the biggest single game behemoth this side of League of Legends. When you consider the nature of the game and it's enormous success with kids there's no reason it can't be maintained and expanded on to keep it relevant for another decade. On top of that they have also purchased for lack of a better explanation an entire generation of people, they'll have an easier time keeping the people aged 8-14 that have been playing Minecraft all this time as customers long term for other products.
 
If I was the original creators and had that much of a beast on my hands, I'd want out with a mind blowing payout too.

It isn't like Notch or his closest cohorts were born to the way of life that comes from running a billion dollar company as what amounts to a dictatorship. There are things that hammer at you daily in that kind of life.

Just walking with that kind of money will cause you a lifetime of headaches without having to worry about running the company also.

Who knows. Microsoft is as good a fit as any for the franchise. It's today's version of SimCity, Civ or The Sims... except on steroids.
 
jaxstraww said:
I seen this morning that Lego is going to bring out a similar game to compete. That should be interesting.
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Too little, too late.

Whoever at Lego Inc. was responsible for missing out on an opportunity like this should be sacrificed on the alter of capitalism.
 
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