Minecraft And Microsoft What Now

Minecraft and Microsoft: What now? Mark Ward Technology correspondent at BBC News

Play the game to find out why Mojang, the Minecraft-maker, is being purchased by Microsoft.

The single-player version of the game is about a single person who survives in harsh surroundings with only their ingenuity. Their survival depends on their ability to build a home and fight monsters using only the tools and weapons that they create with their hands.

It would be easy to see this as a metaphor about Markus "Notch", the game's creator, if computer games were subjected to the same analysis as novels. He's talked in the past about growing up "relatively poor", about making his own entertainment, and about whether he will have to conquer the same "demons" that troubled his father.

Notch has been blessed with family, friends, and the ability to make things with his hands have helped him succeed in this harsh world. However, that success has brought about other challenges. And ones that are much harder to conquer.

At Minecon 2012, Notch was unable to walk more than a few steps before he was grabbed again by another fan eager to shake his hand and take a photo of him or sign their foam sword.

People power

This transformation from a humble programmer responsible for his code to a leader in a global movement was not one he was happy with. His heartfelt explanation as to why he quit Mojang, "it's about me sanity", demonstrates this.

He is aware that Minecraft is about managing a community, not just maintaining and developing a codebase.

Microsoft is facing a potential problem here.

It has a solid history of managing large-scale computer infrastructures that serve millions of customers. This is evident with Xbox Live and other cloud services. It will be crucial when it starts running the behind the scenes systems that keep Minecraft alive.

Microsoft will alienate the community if it doesn't understand how personal the game is for Notch and many others. It's where they get to know their friends and make new connections, where there is a place for them to express themselves, where technical and creative skills are showcased, and where it's all about finding themselves.

I've seen it with my own children, who play it in different ways. One is a big fan of modified versions that involve arena battles or capture-the-flag-type competitions. The other spends hours building intricate homes around swooping tracks of minecarts. Sometimes he builds treehouses that span forests. They enjoy adventuring with their friends, searching for treasure, fighting creepers, and battling skeletons, as well as exploring the forests together.

They, and millions like them, can only do this because of the freedom and openness of Minecraft. They can change the game to their liking due to its flexibility. It does this by giving people a degree of access that Microsoft, in its business software, has never embraced. This is what has worried the millions of Minecraft players. These fans don’t want Microsoft to limit their freedom to alter the game as much as they like. They feel a deep sense of ownership over the games they create.

Microsoft will face a challenging task in achieving this goal, given how crucial that community can become.

It will have to fight the two main enemies of online gamers - downtime (aka delay) and lag. Microsoft is likely to blame any future issues with the game's availability for the company, whether it is its fault or not.

If handled poorly, it could lead to a large portion of that community turning against Microsoft by making more drastic changes to the game's running, such as restricting how people can modify it or charging them for things they don't currently have.

It would be terrible, considering many of its players are children who will become the gamers of tomorrow. My Cms Microsoft is certain to be impressed with how it handles Minecraft. If it gets it wrong, it could end up being one of the monsters that people want to take on and slay.