[PA Comic] Friday, September 12, 2014 - The God-Womb

Dog

[PA Comic] Friday, September 12, 2014 - The God-Womb

The God-Womb

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/09/12

Read the full story here

Rhesus Positive

Dad comic!

I like how Tycho carries on thinking about selling a baby after Gabe has wandered off.

Quid

Holy shit I did not know it was for two billion dollars.

Well done, Notch.

MichaelLC

I wonder if Ms will proceed to sue the shit out of Minecraft rip-offs. Or at least send threating letters.

noxumbra

Healthy white baby for two billion? It's a crazy world! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1LDm1JGLog&index=168&list=PLTStjkv2oCc96DFfNDLAX2aeY6Sf5f2zm

Lingering Grin

$2 BILLION!?

SELL! SELL! SELL!

Skull2185

Holy hell, wat?

Should I buy Minecraft on my PS4 before it's too late? Good for Notch, though. Make a gorillion dollars with Minecraft, and then dump it to MS for 2 billion. Nice

Quid

I also can't fathom calling this selling out in anything but the most technical sense.

Minecraft is an extremely wonderful game but I don't doubt for a moment that Notch can do far more good with that money if he decides to.

king0zymandias

Yeah, I don't have a baby. Still I can't even begin to imagine how awesome the baby would have to be for me to not sell it for two billion dollars.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

I love the crazy tycho comics

curious to hear the podcast for this one too

Jasconius

i would also sell a real baby for 2 billion dollars

like in a heartbeat

prepare the documents

Rottonapple

Quid wrote: »

I also can't fathom calling this selling out in anything but the most technical sense.

Minecraft is an extremely wonderful game but I don't doubt for a moment that Notch can do far more good with that money if he decides to.

This. Someone offers me 2 freaking BILLION dollars for my "baby" and I'll be scribbling down the admin login and password on a piece of paper for them as I'm headed for the door.

gittonsxv

what i can not work out is what microsoft wants with minecraft,
everybody who wants it already has bought it and the updates keep making it better for free, unless they want the rights so they can make a minecraft 2 or a spin off...
the other thing is they could make minecraft have a subscription which would only make people hate microsoft even more.

this is like buying something that was highly popular, still is but does not need you in anyway. are they trying to buy friends?

Bremen

gittonsxv wrote: »

what i can not work out is what microsoft wants with minecraft,
everybody who wants it already has bought it and the updates keep making it better for free, unless they want the rights so they can make a minecraft 2 or a spin off...
the other thing is they could make minecraft have a subscription which would only make people hate microsoft even more.

this is like buying something that was highly popular, still is but does not need you in anyway. are they trying to buy friends?

If it's true (I believe it's still just a rumor) it's pretty clear they're buying the IP. There's no way they'll ever make 2 billion dollars just selling copies of Minecraft.

ffaristocrat

They're buying mindshare for kids 6-12. Minecraft is *huge* with them, bigger than it ever was with adults and much more pervasive in their lives. My fiancee's nephew is nuts for it. It's all he ever talks about. He watches Minecraft videos. He plays with minecraft toys. He plays with legos and I imagine we'll be getting him the Lego Minecraft sets coming out later this year for Christmas.

This is a long-term play to own the hearts of a generation the way Nintendo did with Mario et al.

Darkewolfe

Build linkage to their cloud server architecture directly into the single most prevalent private server game in the younger demographics?

Quid

I would not be surprised if Minecraft remained popular with kids for years to come. So anybody who wants it right this second has it, sure. But new kids are getting born every day.

Also, skins.

Gamer8585

This comic sums up my feelings on the matter (although I don't know if I would sell my actual baby). From when the new broke people started to scream that Notch was a sell out. These people clearly have no idea how much $2B is, because when you're talking THAT much for an individual it really ceases to be fully imagined. It become equivalent of saying a gajhlion.

I have a feeling most of the people that are criticizing Notch would throw their own grandmothers into a meat grinder if someone opened a briefcase of $25k in front of them.

Gaslight

Gabe in the first panel looks like a hyena baying at the moon.

Mono

Everyone has a price I suppose.

Demobot

It's funny, I might have been a bit upset about this had the selling price not been so high. $2 billion. Two thousand million dollars. And the thing is, it's worth more than that.

Swainwalker

Jasconius wrote: »

i would also sell a real baby for 2 billion dollars

like in a heartbeat

prepare the documents

Oh that won't be necessary

We don't want a paper trail

Commander Zoom

Man, you could get a Rubicite Breastplate for that.

_J_

Quid wrote: »

I would not be surprised if Minecraft remained popular with kids for years to come. So anybody who wants it right this second has it, sure. But new kids are getting born every day.

Which is why the $2 billion market value of a child is absurd.

A woman could retire after only 9 months of labor.

Lingering Grin

"Selling out", I was wondering when those comments would pop-up.

This is Selling out, it's smart business sense. Fine he sells off Minecraft for a literal BOAT LOAD of money.

But, don't forget, Notch made Minecraft with zero money simply because he WANTED to, he's not the kind of guy who's just going to stop. He LOVES developing games, and now he has TWO BILLION DOLLARS.

Just imagine what he can do with it.

Minecraft did everything he wanted and so much more.

Mono

Notch is selling the beloved franchise of many children to Microsoft.

To Microsoft to do as they will.
To Microsoft to be exploited.
To Microsoft to be used as a weapon against their competitors.
To Microsoft to be milked and ran into the ground.

It's his game.
It's his soul.
Who am I to tell him not to pawn it to the devil for money?

/shrug

Dracomicron

I enjoy the fact that Tycho's ultimate goal is to become the immortal god-emperor of the galaxy. It's good to aim high.

logiclord

LOL, is Gabe tucking him in? Does this happen every night? Why is this not weird to anyone else?

Rottonapple

logiclord wrote: »

LOL, is Gabe tucking him in? Does this happen every night? Why is this not weird to anyone else?

I got the impression that Tycho was sleeping in and Gabe burst in with the news, and when he didn't get the reaction he wanted, he walked out.

Tofystedeth

logiclord wrote: »

LOL, is Gabe tucking him in? Does this happen every night? Why is this not weird to anyone else?

It's pretty tame compared to this one.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/06/04

RatherDashing

I honestly don't understand the big worry here. I get that Minecraft is constantly updating, and that's great. But even if it never updated again, it's a solid game with endless replay value, and anyone who wants it already has it. So Microsoft could start charging $60 for it, start adding $40 DLCs to it, or release a FTP mobile game, or whatever they want, and it wouldn't affect anyone's play experience because they could just play the game they already own. I suspect, though, that Microsoft's primary interest is in the vast amount of merchandise already out, and they have the resources to merchandise even more. And as has been mentioned, Notch now has funds to start a completely different project. Minecraft isn't going anywhere.

streever

Gamer8585 wrote: »

This comic sums up my feelings on the matter (although I don't know if I would sell my actual baby). From when the new broke people started to scream that Notch was a sell out. These people clearly have no idea how much $2B is, because when you're talking THAT much for an individual it really ceases to be fully imagined. It become equivalent of saying a gajhlion.

I have a feeling most of the people that are criticizing Notch would throw their own grandmothers into a meat grinder if someone opened a briefcase of $25k in front of them.

I totally agree with, and I feel irritated seeing others call this selling out.

Selling out is something meaningful; it's when someone builds up something of value out of a certain ideology or dogmatism. I wonder what Notch's critics think his ideology was? Making a cool game that people liked? Well, he did that, so selling it now isn't actually 'selling out'; there isn't any hypocrisy or injustice in this sale. A man made a cool thing, people like it, someone else bought it. To call this selling out is just depressing.

TychoCelchuuu

logiclord wrote: »

LOL, is Gabe tucking him in? Does this happen every night? Why is this not weird to anyone else?

If you tuck people in like that you might want to work on your tuck in technique.

Commander Zoom

I think some of the rhetoric is the usual sneering about "selling out", and some is the slowly dawning realization/horror that Microsoft has essentially bought, not just Notch's offspring, but all our children.

Quid

Mono wrote: »

Notch is selling the beloved franchise of many children to Microsoft.

To Microsoft to do as they will.
To Microsoft to be exploited.
To Microsoft to be used as a weapon against their competitors.
To Microsoft to be milked and ran into the ground.

It's his game.
It's his soul.
Who am I to tell him not to pawn it to the devil for money?

/shrug

Kind of a silly goose I would guess.

A Dabble Of Thelonius

Mono wrote: »

Notch is selling the beloved franchise of many children to Microsoft.

To Microsoft to do as they will.
To Microsoft to be exploited.
To Microsoft to be used as a weapon against their competitors.
To Microsoft to be milked and ran into the ground.

It's his game.
It's his soul.
Who am I to tell him not to pawn it to the devil for money?

/shrug

This is my new favorite post.

NotoriusBEN

I'm late to the discussion party I but what does this mean for those of us that own minecraft?
We entered an agreement with Notch and mojang. Are we going to have to buy it again for the latest updates? (Probably)
Is there going to be this update button just hanging around waiting for us to agree to Microsoft's new terms?

I'm genuinely curious

Donnicton

NotoriusBEN wrote: »

I'm late to the discussion party I but what does this mean for those of us that own minecraft?
We entered an agreement with Notch and mojang. Are we going to have to buy it again for the latest updates? (Probably)
Is there going to be this update button just hanging around waiting for us to agree to Microsoft's new terms?

I'm genuinely curious

I doubt they would do something stupid like make you re-buy it, though there's a good likelihood they'll release some second edition as a separate program that you can buy. If you want the new fancies.

The bolded part is basically a guarantee, if you decide to update your installation if/after the purchase of Mojang goes through.

I don't play Minecraft - in fact I've never played Minecraft - so it doesn't really affect me, but it will still be fascinating to see what Microsoft will do to crater it. I can guarantee that some mid-level exec is going to try something "impress the stockholders"-y on it and fun stuff will happen.

Jam Warrior

Demobot wrote: »

It's funny, I might have been a bit upset about this had the selling price not been so high. $2 billion. Two thousand million dollars. And the thing is, it's worth more than that.

What? Oh an American billion. Pfft, this changes everything. Way to sell out for chump change Notch.

Dragkonias

So looks like Notch did something with Polygon.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/15/6151921/why-notch-left-mojang

From the tone of that interview it basically sounds like he was tired of being the face of Minecraft, so he took the money because why the fuck not.

I can respect that.

A duck!

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

logiclord wrote: »

LOL, is Gabe tucking him in? Does this happen every night? Why is this not weird to anyone else?

If you tuck people in like that you might want to work on your tuck in technique.

I'm sure he's very good at it. If you see him you're gonna get proper tucked.