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Minecraft subscription service revealed

littlespedve

littlespedve

Well-Known Member
New "Realms" service aimed at parents and children will cost $10-15 per month; could end up bringing in more money than the game itself.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/minecraft-subscription-service-revealed-6405253?

Minecraft developer Mojang has revealed plans for a subscription service called Minecraft Realms, according to a new report at Swedish news site it24 (translated by GamesIndustry International). Aimed at parents and children, the service will allow users to own a slice of the Minecraft world that friends can join free of charge, provided they own a copy of the game.

Pricing has not been finalized, but a subscription is expected to cost between $10 and $15 per month. The Minecraft Realms service comes as a response to inquiries from parents, according to Mojang CEO Carl Manneh.

"All we know is that there has been a great demand for this service," Manneh said. "We have never tried to sell anything to our gamers except the game itself and a little merchandise, so it'll be very interesting to see if the community will be prepared to pay for a service like this."

If the Minecraft Realms service does catch on, Manneh said he believes it will be a major revenue stream for Mojang, so much so that it could overtake sales of the game itself.

"But since we have about 10 million paying PC gamers and, soon, as many mobile gamers, there's definitely potential," he said. "And yes, if we look ahead, I do think [Realms will] be the biggest source of income in the future, and to bring in more money in total than the game itself."

If Minecraft Realms is widely supported, Manneh said Minecraft would become a "huge MMO; a really vast universe consisting of many very small worlds." He described this result as a "dream" the studio has had for a long time.

The PC version of Minecraft Realms is in private alpha, while a public beta is planned for this May. A version for Minecraft: Pocket Edition is also in the works, though it is "some way" behind its PC counterpart.

The entire Minecraft franchise has sold over 20 million units, with the PC version closing in on 10 million copies sold.


Not sure what to think of this, it seems like something that could be cool if pulled off correctly. I'll probably join the public beta when it's available. A Minecraft MMO-style thing would be very cool if it didn't mess with already existing servers.

What do you guys think?
 
Looks like it, if this is successful, which it will most likely be if this is the only way Pocket Edition users are going to be able to play with others properly.

It's interesting, but I'm not too thrilled about paying upwards of $15 a month to play Minecraft when I can do it for free on a server with good faction plugins if that's what Mojang's going for. If I had to choose between this and Elder Scrolls Online (which I will probably have to do, $30 a month to play online games is dumb imo), Minecraft looses by a long shot for sure.
 
Since you can run a server for free off of almost any computer (i have a friends-only thing, and I can support like 7 or so at a time with decent play, not to mention 20mbps dl, 5mbps ul, and 3gb of ram), this is just a scam-like thing. An extension of "open to LAN" where Mojang hosts the game and (i assume) friends search for your username to join them. I'll pass on this offer...
 
Seeing as it has been parents who are asking for it I am wondering if maybe it will be service where you connect to a Mojang-hosted server which is child friendly.
 
mcfar45 said:
Seeing as it has been parents who are asking for it I am wondering if maybe it will be service where you connect to a Mojang-hosted server which is child friendly.
Click to expand...
I've always wanted Mojang to make an official Minecraft server for reasons that could lean them towards creating mod/plugin api's for vanilla servers. Possibly making it so server mods can be imported to client and vice-versa.
 
mcfar45 said:
Seeing as it has been parents who are asking for it I am wondering if maybe it will be service where you connect to a Mojang-hosted server which is child friendly.
Click to expand...

This most likely. Since the average child/parent would not know what it takes nor want to bother with hosting a server. So... Mojang says give us $15/month, your child gets a small server world, we'll let his friends connect, and possibly censor bad language from it.

I could also see Mojang saying, only children/parents are allowed to join.
 
The thing here is, people already pay up to $ 30/month for a decent minecraft server for only 20 players. This isn't asking players to pay to play, this is providing an official, mojang provided hosting option for people who want to host a server not on their own computer for whatever reason. I envision this becoming quite popular among school groups, families, and small groups of friends.
 
JerzeyLegend said:
This most likely. Since the average child/parent would not know what it takes nor want to bother with hosting a server. So... Mojang says give us $15/month, your child gets a small server world, we'll let his friends connect, and possibly censor bad language from it.

I could also see Mojang saying, only children/parents are allowed to join.
Click to expand...

Why hadn't anyone thought of something like this before? This is a brilliant scheme to get loads of money (dosh).
 
I wonder if third party plugin support (block history, grief reversion, etc) will be available through Realms.

If not, I can envision a Realms world for a Church youth group being filled with penis builds over one unsuspecting night.
 
I wouldn't be building anything so dull and unimaginative. However, I would create a temple to Satan in secret, then as I prepared to leave that group, I would build a path directly to it.
 
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