Notch Requiring Licenses for Minecraft Mod Developers

[walsfeo]

If im reading this right, this licence will allow modders to easily update their mods with each new patch, and will also make it easier to determine which mod belongs to which modder. Is that about right?

That sounds right. Having some kind of clearinghouse for mods will help prevent (or if prevention has failed correct) corrupted mods. It should make the environment safer an if they have a clean and easy to use interface it should give mods a higher profile and greater access to the casual player base.

I don't know if that means indy mods would necessarily go away but I haven't used any at this point so the immediate impact on me would be minimal. Will this licensing program have a cooling effect for new developers? It might, but this may also mean better experience from the mods that are made. And if that means the mods are street ready with the release of a new patch, so much the better.

As for charging, if Mojang buys the mods and then choses to charge for them or roll them into the current game for free, why not? It may cost them more in the long run, but it is no reason to get bent out of shape.

By the same token, if they had a licence process and a mod marketplace to offer Minecraft mods they are essentially advertising and promoting the licensed mods.

The mod makers who are bent out of shape because of this and flaming Mojang come off like privateers who might be interested pirating my account and installing mal-ware with their mods.

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

If im reading this right, this licence will allow modders to easily update their mods with each new patch, and will also make it easier to determine which mod belongs to which modder. Is that about right?

That sounds right. Having some kind of clearinghouse for mods will help prevent (or if prevention has failed correct) corrupted mods. It should make the environment safer an if they have a clean and easy to use interface it should give mods a higher profile and greater access to the casual player base.

I don't know if that means indy mods would necessarily go away but I haven't used any at this point so the immediate impact on me would be minimal. Will this licensing program have a cooling effect for new developers? It might, but this may also mean better experience from the mods that are made. And if that means the mods are street ready with the release of a new patch, so much the better.

As for charging, if Mojang buys the mods and then choses to charge for them or roll them into the current game for free, why not? It may cost them more in the long run, but it is no reason to get bent out of shape.

By the same token, if they had a licence process and a mod marketplace to offer Minecraft mods they are essentially advertising and promoting the licensed mods.

The mod makers who are bent out of shape because of this and flaming Mojang come off like privateers who might be interested pirating my account and installing mal-ware with their mods.

Yes because thats what all mods do! The biggest problem is for the past 5 months the modders are making more progress and innovation on his game, hell the user made patches are far superior to what he has been producing.

 

[Caligulove]

Honestly, that seems fair enough.

Annoying when the updates conflict with all the mods, this ensures to minimize those mods breaking- gives the modders credit and much like how Piston Mod was bought and integrated into the game- so would mods be purchased by Mojang from the developer again also giving them credit and reward for their amazing work. Similar to what Valve has done with its modding community. I could see a lot of these devs being bought and integrated into Mojang, similar to how CounterStrike and Left 4 Dead got started and arguably 'legitimized' by Valve with their official support.

That and the license is free. It's all about bringing credit to devs for great mods, also helping to prevent third-party mods from messing up save files or code during updates. Can't blame a company for being cautious and wanting to know who has THEIR source code, and it will always be their property.

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

Honestly, that seems fair enough.

Annoying when the updates conflict with all the mods, this ensures to minimize those mods breaking- gives the modders credit and much like how Piston Mod was bought and integrated into the game- so would mods be purchased by Mojang from the developer again also giving them credit and reward for their amazing work. Similar to what Valve has done with its modding community. I could see a lot of these devs being bought and integrated into Mojang, similar to how CounterStrike and Left 4 Dead got started and arguably 'legitimized' by Valve with their official support.

That and the license is free. It's all about bringing credit to devs for great mods, also helping to prevent third-party mods from messing up save files or code during updates. Can't blame a company for being cautious and wanting to know who has THEIR source code, and it will always be their property.

Thats actually not what is happening though, more and more mods are ending up in the game without giving the modders credit, this is just making hit were notch can screw modders even more.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

I'd be happy with the planes mod I'm using doesn't require a new installation everytime there's an update. Plus it sounds like a pretty good deal for the modders as well, at least the one's who aren't profiting off their work (which really goes against the whole modding spirit, doesn't it?). I still don't like the idea of selling the best mods, just because the game is still in beta. Release the full version, and you won't hear any objections from me if a) the modding license remains free, b) only really great mods that add a ton of content (read: addons) are sold, and c) no attempt is made to stifle the modding effort.

 

[tahrey]

He ripped off a open source game it is not his.

I'd be interested to see what the actual politics behind that are, in fact. Is he in breach of any Open Source license that was attached to Infiniminer? Do the original creators of it therefore have a legitimate grief with him having done that?

Or is it, as I understood, that he like the game, but it was dreadfully limited, development had stagnated, and he basically rewrote it from the ground up, just reusing some of the basic concepts (i.e. the world is made out of cubes, and you can dig for ores)?

Really, after the guy's been selling it commercially for more than a year, it's a bit late to start making that complaint. I'm sticking to my viewpoint that this sort of thing - same as keeping the source closed in the first place (if it's actually forked from infiniminer, what's to stop someone else just modding THAT with their underground minecraft-mod, adding in the missing bits from MC they want to keep along the way?) - is more for player protection than scamming potential modders or giving the open source community the finger.

 

[Serioli]

'...And the pending Smith vs Jones case, to be heard on the 13th of December, brings to an unprecedented 5 million the number of cases of 'intellectual property theft' for modification packages or 'mods' for the popular computer game Minecraft.'

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

He ripped off a open source game it is not his.

I'd be interested to see what the actual politics behind that are, in fact. Is he in breach of any Open Source license that was attached to Infiniminer? Do the original creators of it therefore have a legitimate grief with him having done that?

Or is it, as I understood, that he like the game, but it was dreadfully limited, development had stagnated, and he basically rewrote it from the ground up, just reusing some of the basic concepts (i.e. the world is made out of cubes, and you can dig for ores)?

Really, after the guy's been selling it commercially for more than a year, it's a bit late to start making that complaint. I'm sticking to my viewpoint that this sort of thing - same as keeping the source closed in the first place (if it's actually forked from infiniminer, what's to stop someone else just modding THAT with their underground minecraft-mod, adding in the missing bits from MC they want to keep along the way?) - is more for player protection than scamming potential modders or giving the open source community the finger.

Actually the complaints were made when the game first was being developed. And no he didn't rewrite it from the ground up.

 

[walsfeo]

Yes because thats what all mods do! The biggest problem is for the past 5 months the modders are making more progress and innovation on his game, hell the user made patches are far superior to what he has been producing.

I'm not saying many mods try to spread mal ware, and you are probably right about user made patches. That being said the reactionary wing-nuts, the ones who make the cool and innovative modders look bad, are out in full force.

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Success has gone to his head, and the fucking game isn't even finished yet.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

This thread should just get locked because Notch has already agreed to let everyone see his damn source code for his million dollar game for free. But this news thread will immortalize the time that he was DARING to think about putting a cost on seeing the source code obfuscated. How DARE Notch do that. How DARE Notch put a barrier between 12 year old script kiddies and getting the full un-censored code of Notch's breakout game?

Is the code really worth nothing to people?!

As a licensed mod developer, users will be able to download Minecraft's source code direct from Mojang, and it'll be updated anytime a change is made...

sounds like pulling a kotick

How the HELL does THAT sound like Kotick to you? Notch has even made the license FREE. Notch will provide Mojang's personal SVN server to everyone who has registered to get the very latest minute code changes. FOR FREE. To ensure Mods won't break from version to version. This isn't anything like Kotick.

What a PERFECT first post for this thread! Q.E.D., this thread will never STOP being filled with whiners. Because of that first post and the thread title.

Paying for something that has always been free sounds a lot like Kotick to me. When I made that post Notch hadn't changes his mind yet.

Also lol at mods not breaking from version to version. Knowing what's happened before that sounds as probable as Jupiter crashing into the sun.

Calling Q.E.D. makes no sense at all bro.

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

Yes because thats what all mods do! The biggest problem is for the past 5 months the modders are making more progress and innovation on his game, hell the user made patches are far superior to what he has been producing.

I'm not saying many mods try to spread mal ware, and you are probably right about user made patches. That being said the reactionary wing-nuts, the ones who make the cool and innovative modders look bad, are out in full force.

Hate to break it to you the modders that make the innovative mods are out in full force, most are shitting a brick right now, hell you should of seen Notchs twitter feed explode.

 

[2xDouble]

Honestly, that seems fair enough.

Annoying when the updates conflict with all the mods, this ensures to minimize those mods breaking- gives the modders credit and much like how Piston Mod was bought and integrated into the game- so would mods be purchased by Mojang from the developer again also giving them credit and reward for their amazing work. Similar to what Valve has done with its modding community. I could see a lot of these devs being bought and integrated into Mojang, similar to how CounterStrike and Left 4 Dead got started and arguably 'legitimized' by Valve with their official support.

That and the license is free. It's all about bringing credit to devs for great mods, also helping to prevent third-party mods from messing up save files or code during updates. Can't blame a company for being cautious and wanting to know who has THEIR source code, and it will always be their property.

Agreed.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I don't see anything preventing people from making, or even distributing mods themselves (as long as they're not making money from it) without a license. You can still make them, but you lose company support and update protection. (and retain the ability to create harmful mods, but if that makes you happy, you're a sick, sick person.)

I see this as less "requiring permission to mod" and more "asking for recognition for mods".

Edit: IF these mods are being sold, as long as the creators get a sizable percentage per sale, I don't see that as unfair.

 

[IvoryTowerGamer]

Good. If this makes the existing mod community safer and better connected I'm all for it.

A lot of companies do that, however they recreate the mod using a new engine with huge and fantastic gameplay elements. Take, for example, the classic mod Killing Floor. TWI transformed it into a UT2.5 stand alone game with new everything. Trying to compare what other companies do with fun mods to what Notch will do with popular mods isn't a fair comparison.

Well, your right about one thing. It certainly isn't fair to make a comparison to make a comparison to something Notch hasn't even done yet.

Thats actually not what is happening though, more and more mods are ending up in the game without giving the modders credit, this is just making hit were notch can screw modders even more.

You're obviously very passionate about this given your responses. Were you denied a mod license? If not why are you complaining?

 

[Fake Nicker]

Ya all just jealous because he beat ya to it. Now hes rich and ya all in da poorhouse....
But seriously... READ THE WHOLE GOD DAMN TOPIC BEFORE POSTING!!!! Its totally free and if your mod is good it could be --||!!!BOUGHT!!!||-- So instead of maybee using all your free time for nothing modding, you can now get paid for it? I can see why all the whining!! oh yes...

 

[mechanixis]

Cue senseless entitled rage.

 

[Deus mortuus est]

Thats actually not what is happening though, more and more mods are ending up in the game without giving the modders credit, this is just making hit were notch can screw modders even more.

So how does buying mods make this worse? That way people will actually get paid for their work... This seems like a reasonable way to go and since it's free I really think that people are overreacting.

 

[Dogstile]

Did your eyes happen to go out of focus on the "weren't serious about mod making" part or what?

Did you just happen to forget to quote him so that he wouldn't see you respond?

Either way, Notch has been a bit of a douche recently. Just because he went back on the idea doesn't mean it wasn't a stupid idea in the first place.

Weeding out the ones who aren't serious? Since when has that been an excuse, people who aren't serious about making mods get buried under the good ones.

Edit:

I need to make an OT, keep forgetting

OT: See, if he hadn't said he might charge money for it, people would be fine with it. But as always, Notch really didn't think it through properly.

 

[radishhead]

I want the mods to be free

Hopefully the mod-marketplace won't be a rip-off.