Lately, I’ve been reading quite a ton of hate about Notch. When news of his wife of one year left him, some people responded with hateful replies. Lately, he tweets that he turned down Windows 8 certification for Minecraft saying he is taking a stand for open platforms. I am reading so much angry response to this. “Notch isn’t worth responsing too,” I hear while these people whine for pages on forums. And to top it off, people are making fun of his hat.
That’s just cruel. You just don’t make fun of someone’s hats. I somewhat miss hats and wish they would make a comeback (I live in Texas so there is never a reason for me to wear a hat unless to protect against August scorching heat).
Has Notch said stupid things on the Internet? Sure he has. So have I. It is more of the consequence of talking a ton. The only way you can never talk without saying anything stupid ever is to never talk at all.
One interesting comment was “I don’t disagree with what Notch is saying. I disagree with his tone.” What does that mean?
My favorite is: “Notch is a hypocrite. He released Minecraft on the Xbox 360 which is a closed platform.” There is no such thing as an open game console, dumbasses. You’d have to go to pre-NES to find anything resembling an open game console. I don’t blame Notch for putting Minecraft out on the Xbox 360 and on the iPhone. It was a smart move that has made him a ton of money. PC games get ported to consoles all the time. Starcraft was ported to the N64. Diablo got ported to the PlayStation. Doom got ported to the Super Nintendo. So what’s the problem? Why are people suddenly incensed with Notch?
He’s fighting the Industry. That’s what’s going on. Notch singlehandedly proved you do not need the Game Industry or even Steam in order to MAKE a video game and to MAKE IT BIG. Notch’s existence invalidates the game industry. At first, Notch was the toast of the town. But doing things like rejecting Windows 8 certification or refusing to place Minecraft on Steam, he is making some very big enemies. He is demonstrating how irrelevant Steam is, how irrelevant the entire Game Industry is, and that a single person CAN, in this day and age, make a successful video game.
Out of the three gaming bigwigs who criticized Windows 8, Notch is the most significant. Gabe Newell has no true leverage since the Valve Corporation doesn’t make games. At best, it gives away other people’s mods for free to funnel traffic into the Steam store. Valve Corporation not being happy with Windows 8 is like K-Mart being unhappy with Wal-Mart.
Blizzard criticizing Windows 8 isn’t as relevant either since only mostly old farts play Blizzard games anymore. Blizzard’s star is fading, not rising.
But Notch is a different case. His Minecraft is HUGE among kid gamers. Folks, Minecraft may not be the equivalent of Mario during the 8-bit era to kids, but it is not far off. Who do you think is buying the inferior version of Minecraft on the Xbox 360? It’s children. They love playing four players at the same time on one TV. Adults don’t need it since adults can set up their own computers. Young kids can’t. Minecraft is one of the biggest games of the younger generation. And Notch is the most famous of the indie developers out there. Where he goes, many other people go as well.
I have to laugh when I read replies to Notch saying, “I’m tired of this personality cult garbage!” Notice how no one criticized the personality cult earlier. It seems the personality cult is only bad when it is used against the industry. Everyone seemed quite happy to prop up and add to the personality cult with Miyamoto so long as Nintendo kept with its decline of the N64 and Gamecube. But with the Wii, games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit were somehow “bad” and Miyamoto was mocked for making these extraordinarily popular games. Why is it that criticism only appears when someone goes against a larger industry?
I don’t know Notch. He may be bad person in real life or he may be a good person. What I do know is that he is wicked smart. Programming, alone, one of the best selling and innovative games would be enough for that. But Notch has shown he is very adept at marketing. At the beginning of the Minecraft alpha, he would go on radio shows, do interviews, interact with fans, and it is clear why. He threw a freaking convention when Minecraft came out of beta. Most game developers go on vacation when their game is released. The last thing they want to do is to do a convention.
Game developers seem to have two different relationships. They have a relationship to the Game Industry, and they have a relationship with the gamers. Notch keeps choosing to uphold his relationship with the gamers while constantly flipping off the Game Industry. In his twitter about Windows 8, Notch is essentially flipping off Microsoft.
Notch has maintained his popularity by siding with gamers as opposed to siding with industries. He knows who pays his bills. The Game Industry didn’t make Notch a success, therefore, they can’t tear him down. He is constantly there flipping them off with Minecraft’s continued success. Most of the Game Industry goes into the toilet while the little Java game of Minecraft keeps selling more and more. It’s actually hilarious.
But man… to attack someone’s hat. That is low. That is war. You don’t diss a man’s hat. Anyway, his hat shows he has more style than most of the pizza faced Industry drones. Most industry people either dress like a drone or they overdo it and look like a rockstar who got lost and wandered into a software studio.
Microsoft has taken for granted content companies would just jump onto anything they put out. But Notch is making us ask a question of: “What if they don’t?” Content companies definitely have the power to shut down an operating system. The big question is how hardware companies respond to Windows 8. I remember much resistance with Vista.
Minecraft is Notch’s game. If he doesn’t want it licensed on Windows 8, then that is his business. But man, the viral marketers are in such a tizzy over it. I love watching them get so frustrated. It was easy for them to attack Newell because he has an online store. But Notch has no store. So the viral marketers are attacking him in a personal way.