Because Minecraft Pocket Edition is different software that required months of work and financing (if you've followed its development) to develop.
You have to pay again in order for the software developer to make those funds back. There would be a lot less incentive to port software or develop future versions if they had to be made free.
They wouldn't necessarily need to be for free. Porting it to another platform opens up a new market. There are probably a lot of people that have an Android phone that haven't bought Minecraft for iPhone or PC.
Minecraft for iPhone doesn't exist, so that's out. Minecraft for PC has existed for months. I could see it drawing in new people with the promotion a new port gives, but I doubt it would be enough to cover development costs considering how many people have already bought Minecraft PC.
Yes, just like shifting music or movies from CD/DVD player to mp3/Computer. When I buy "content" or a license to "play" I expect to be able to transfer it amongst all the devices I own.
I know software requires manual translation. But, the above behavior is what I expect.
Music is just data/content, no program code. You can certainly transfer any client files you got from the normal Minecraft installation to your phone and (unsuccessfully) try to use them.
If you bought a house would you expect a smaller replica of your house to be free? No, it requires work to build that house just like the original and therefore costs money.
If you bought a house, would you expect to be able to use that house on both your desktop AND your laptop, because it's the same damn house? Uh, no, because physical matter doesn't work that way. In case you haven't heard, though, copying data _does_ work that way, and many people DO expect that if they buy music they SHOULD be able to use it on more than one device. And similarly for games (when it's a single chunk of code), which is actually how Minecraft actually works.
Note, I'm not arguing that MPE should be free with purchase of Minecraft, or that it shouldn't. I'm just pointing out the deadly obvious: that physical-goods arguments are basically useless for digital goods.
I don't know, I think it's pretty good and certainly better than yours. I assume you don't write software because that's not how porting works. Mojang didn't do a copy/paste job to create the mobile version they actually had to hire a _separate developer_ for the sole purpose of developing the Android game. It probably reuses some assets and code but it's not an easy task to optimize a game as heavy as Minecraft for a mobile device.
You can't copy Minecraft from your PC to your Android phone like an MP3 (well you can, but it won't work). My analogy was trying to get to the point that a smaller house would be able to reuse assets (scaled drawings, design, etc.) but it still requires someone (similar to a new developer) to create it and port the existing design to the less complicated design.
No, that's where my analogy fails. The intention was to use an analogy that someone who doesn't understand software development would understand. It only applies to the development aspect and work required - not the ability to make copies (Minecraft Mobile is not a copy, a separate version).
You are able to transfer it. It's not the developer's fault Android won't run an J2SE application, just like it's not a music store which sells albums in FLAC that your e.g. iPod doesn't support the format.
I would expect to get, as you put it, the 3DS VERSION for free, if when I purchased the game for the Wii it specifically said that I will receive all future updates and new versions for free.
If it shows up for my phone, I might shell out $7 for it anyway.
Really? This kooky theory finds it way to HN from Reddit. Wow. Who would have thought? I’m very disappointed.
The language he uses in a blog post is not relevant. What’s relevant is whether a court would think that “future versions” from the license also includes different games using in some respects the same mechanic, that share some resources but not code. That’s very, very unlikely.
Your first sentence is justified, the second is speculation masked as a factual statement.
(This also reeks of entitlement. Even if Mojang made a mistake when writing their license, asking for all ports to be free is behavior I’m unable to comprehend.)
I'm surprised too. Anybody who thinks they should get MPE for free just because they bought MC is delusional. I have a hard time modifying my world view so that this is justifiable behaviour.
How many people really thought along these lines when buying MC alpha? I'm pretty darn sure that when people read "all future versions for free", it meant "Alpha, and everything up to and including RTM for free", and not "Everything MC related, forever".
Heck, I think Notch threw in expansion packs for alpha purchasers. They should consider themselves lucky that he did.
Heck, I think Notch threw in expansion packs for alpha purchasers. They should consider themselves lucky that he did.
Thats the difference between aplha and beta purchases. People, like me, who purchased the beta version get all version up until release and bug fixes after release. People who bought the alpha version get that plus any expansions and add ons.
Pocket Edition is, as far as I'm concerned, not part of the Minecraft version timeline, not an addon and not an expansion, therefore should be exempt from the for free clause.
Then again, since I purchased the beta version, I don't get the extra free stuff, so I'm not exactly invested in arguing that MPE should be free, so...
What makes you consider minecraft pocket edition to be a different game? It looks to me like a straightforward port of the same graphics and mechanics, but I admit I haven't seen any gameplay videos yet.
I don't feel particularly entitled to it but it certainly seems like a version of minecraft.
In some contexts "version" only applies to release numbers like that, but this is a more general sense of the word. It explicitly includes add-ons and expansions. I think it's reasonable to expect it to apply to everything minecraft, though I personally accept it if their wording was a mistake and only intended to apply to the pc version(s).
MPE is not an add-on or an expansion. In PC gaming both of those words have specific meanings; both imply the addition of additional content to the original game. This Android installment of the game does not even interact with the PC installment. (The installment which you purchased at heavy discount, I might add.)
Additionally, the PC game is only a few weeks away from getting one of the largest updates in its history. It is unreasonable to state that you aren't getting your money's worth.
That image reeks of stupidity. The mobile version (SEE, I said it) is a different game on a different platform. Like most words in any natural language 'version' is ambiguous. The original promise meant that you would get every update to the game for free, not that you would somehow be entitled to every derivative game released later on.
Why downvotes? Maybe for many of you, the answer is obvious, but I think this can be an interesting question.
Certainly, some additional work goes into each separate version and you shouldn't just get that for free. But to pay full price for both versions seems wrong too. Might there be a base cost, with an additional cost for each system? That's as simple as giving Tam a discount for the mobile version after entering a legitimate license.
Just think about all the trouble: Mojang doesn’t use one payment processor, they use two and they would have to find some way to let customers prove to one payment processor that they used the other one.
That’s not all that problematic on their side (though still a lot of work), maybe they could find some sort of (semi-)automatic way to get a discount on the desktop version of Minecraft with a receipt or a code the Android app displays. (I would guess that at the volumes Minecraft sells something like this has to generate a lot of support requests, though.)
The much, much more common case (existing buyers of Minecraft for the desktop buy the mobile edition) is also much harder. I don’t think the Android Market has a built-in mechanism for entering codes to get discounts or something like that. (Maybe it has, I don’t know. I have never heard of something like that, though.) They would have to create a way for buyers to, I don’t know, maybe enter a code the Android app displays on their website to get a discount. That would again be work but at least it’s possible.
But how is Mojang going to get $2, $3 or something like that to the customers? Is there a way to easily do that? I don’t think so and even if the fees would be horrendous.
All of this is work and would also probably be a customer support nightmare.
It’s easier to just have one price point, especially if it is so low anyway. Hardly anyone will buy the mobile edition and not the desktop edition, how would it be worth it to create an additional price point for this tiny minority? It just doesn’t make any business sense.
The issue here is that this is not a port, it's a completely new mobile code base with a new internal developer behind it. It doesn't benefit directly from any of the work done on the Java version. It might make business sense to give some discounts to existing players, but I think the logistics of that would be difficult.
It's just not how the gaming business works and Mojang would lose money. It's a different game on a different system and probably required a huge effort to optimize code and trim it down to work on a mobile device. They could do a promotion at some point to give discounts but this will never be the norm.
