Summary: Persson sells out to Microsoft and lets the abusive monopolist destroy the popular cross-platform game that a community has been built around

Microsoft likes buying companies just to kill their GNU/Linux versions (unless a program spies on the users, like Skype does). We have given many examples over the years. Minecraft seems to be no exception.

Some days ago it became quite apparent [1, 2] that Minecraft was on its deathbed. As OpenSource.com put it: "A lot of very big, very reputable sources are claiming that Microsoft is acquiring Mojang, the makers of the astoundingly popular sandbox game Minecraft, and that the deal could be finalized as early as next week."

Watch this appalling hogwash. "Spinning Microsoft continued destruction of the industry as only "not cool" rather than the malice it is," told us one of our readers. "Notch's objections to Vista8 might be partially behind the discussed takeover."

"Passionate Players Fear Acquisition of Upstart Videogame Maker Will Destroy Its Indie Spirit" says the summary. Here is another article from the same publication. It shows the times "When Minecraft Founder Markus Persson Blasted Microsoft".

Despite all this, Markus Persson sold out. Minecraft will probably never release GNU/Linux versions anymore. See also this old article about "GPL Non-Compliance" in "Minecraft Plug-Ins" and this old page where Mincraft's Persson states: "I will release the game source code as some kind of open source."

Nonsense. Microsoft killed off this possibility. Persson threw away his principles and completely sold out. He sold out a community.

"Minecraft for Linux Conveniently Missing from Mojang-Microsoft Deal" says one article's headline [1, 2] as "Microsoft acquires Mojang and Minecraft for $2.5 billion". In our IRC channels Sosumi says he "never played minecraft nor I am interested in playing it" (it was always proprietary).

MinceR says that "Mojang is dead now... like terminal reality and ensemble studios" and Sosumi replies with "I’ll probably follow the same line as it did with bungie... with support dropping for non-Microsoft platforms as new releases come"

XFaCE says: "Expect an immediate rewrite to C#"

This is not "greener pastures", it is a deathbed. But Persson enriches himself in the process.

"Microsoft asserts that it “plans” to continue distributing Minecraft across PC, Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, and Android, but obviously the game’s cross-platform future is called into question by this acquisition," says the article above. Notice how GNU/Linux gets omitted. It is not a coincidence. ⬆