PayPal Freezes $750K in MineCraft Dev's Account

[De Ronneman]

why in all holy hell would you keep 750,000 dollars in your paypal.

Read the article, it's one weeks revenues.

But seriously, how awesome must that game be to make 750k in one week?

 

[SnipErlite]

Minecraft is a great time waster. PayPal are being massive dicks right now....

 

[The Random One]

Paypal isn't technically a bank - due to how its set up, it doesn't have any form of regulation body to keep it in check. Not to mention, Paypal makes substantial interest on the money it has on its books - so, like this $750,000 here. Paypal is making money off that while its on their accounts.

Not to mention that, if you read the terms of service, they keep all the money they have in bank accounts and keep the interests. So if a bunch of people leave ten bucks in their accounts for a long time they make money off just keeping them.

I never had any problems with Paypal but I only use it to pay. It's probably better to use only for microtransactions. If you're making 750K a week you can pay more to use a better service.

I'll also comment that if Minecraft is the game I'm thinking of I tried the demo and found it utterly drab. Do notice that I'm not some ADD-addled idiot, I just found it to be a tamer, more colourful Dwarf Fortress. Which speaking of Paypal I need to give money to.

 

[Zing]

Minecraft is great if you're a neckbeard with a lot of time to waste. Gotta congratulate him on his success though...hope he gets his money.

 

[Thaius]

"600592 registered users, of which 133537 (22.23%) have bought the game." And the price have been ?9.95 so that's a total of ?1328693.15... A bit more then 750k...

Jesus, I wouldn't want to invest that money into a company. Just invest it into something else, generate more revenue so you can realize more dreams.

If your dream is to make games, that makes perfect sense. Heck, it's what I'd so. Well, a new car, a PS3, then split it evenly between college loans and money for my next game. Close enough.

 

[Swifteye]

why in all holy hell would you keep 750,000 dollars in your paypal.

Oh you didn't read the whole article did you? He empties the money in paypal weekly however there was a unexpected spike in sales.

 

[Sneaky Paladin]

I love Minecraft. Infact I reviewed it on this site once but anyway. I can't beleive how unfair this is. He made all this money as a bedroom programmer alone and now he may lose it all. And worse even Paypal gets to keep it then. I hope they figure out he just made a really good game is all.

 

[Quaxar]

Well, looks like Paypal and he won't be
*puts on sunglasses*
pals anymore.
YEEEAAAAAH!

I'm sorry, overused meme and everything. But this is weird. Can't he... tell Paypal that he's using the account for big business money transfers?

 

[dawdarsd]

the explanation why they took the money should be this
paypal guy:hey some kid just made 750k off an addicting indie videogame that was made with cheap resources
paypal guy 2:hey this asshole isn't donating his hard earned money, let's steal everything he owns and say it's clasified
paypal guy: this is the most awesome idea we ever though of thanks!
one hour later
minecraft creator:why are you taking all my money away from me?
paypal guy: it's clasified, but we probably will go rob some video game companies next, because they use millions on video games then instead of giving away the money to africa like we planned to, we are gonna take over the world k?
my op they're downright retarded

 

[fanklok]

Clearly he couldn't have been selling a game he must be taking bribes and dealing drugs to childrens hence Paypal rightfully freezing his account, we can't let this fiend access his drug and bribe money it should all go to Paypal so they can continue to stop such evil doers.

 

[Bulit523]

I, until recently, worked in the credit card industry. You cannot even begin to believe the number of Paypal complaints we received. Like any company involved in "banking", their main goal is to hold onto the money as long as possible. They earn interest on it by investing it. They saw an opportunity to hold over $700,000, thus earning TONS of interest on it. They will give it back, but only when they've milked it for every 1/2 penny they can. I'd like to say stop using Paypal for this practice, but really this is common practice. Why do you think banks hold deposits for a day or two before entering them to your accounts?

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

Nice job PayPal. We'll see how smug you are about it when people start avoiding you because of crap like this.

 

[TraderJimmy]

Yeah dam Paypal for conforming to international bank standards. How dare they apply the anti money laundering and tax evasion laws of the EU, what an evil company.

Ha, +1.

I get that this is irritating (Slight understatement ), but this is to prevent money laundering. There's nothing dubious about it.

 

[daftnoize]

Any fortunate news yet? I really hope this isn't still an issue

 

[Treblaine]

why in all holy hell would you keep 750,000 dollars in your paypal.

Taxes?

 

[Vrach]

PayPal are a bunch of fuckwits. I'm surprised he didn't think of switching to a more trusted company. Really rooting for the guy here, hope he gets his cash back and hopefully sues their asses off to boot.

One obvious question emerges from Persson's ongoing troubles with PayPal: How the hell does one guy rack up more than three quarters of a million dollars off a single indie game?

The better question is how the hell does one guy rack up more than three quarters of a million dollars off a single indie game within a single week - considering he said he clears the account weekly. Even if that was one major sale spike, 40k units sold in a single week? Wow is all I can say

 

[ViciousTide]

He could just Sue, then sue for damages, then sue for the loss of potential profits.
Paypal takes 3% of all transcations, even donations. Those Greedy...