Mojang, the Swedish developer of Minecraft, is considering introducing a subscription model to its block-centric building game, according to an interview with IT 24 on Friday (translation courtesy MCVNordic).
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":427361,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"D"}']“I don’t think the Minecraft wave is over by a long shot, but the market will be saturated eventually,” Mojang Chief Executive Carl Manneh said. “Since Minceraft is a game you pay for once and then always have access to no matter how many updates and changes we release, we have to look at new ways to make money in the long run.”
Almost six million people currently play Minecraft, and the income from paid subscriptions will allow the developer to host its own servers for online play. This would replace the overly complicated do-it-yourself system currently in place in favor of a simpler, more user-friendly model.
Manneh also addressed Mojang’s decision not to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles next month, citing the Entertainment Software Association’s support of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. “The organization behind the convention supports the SOPA initiative in the US. We are against it and have no wish to support those who support SOPA, it’s as simple as that. So we’re not going.”
Interestingly, the ESA officially withdrew support for SOPA back in January, but it still considers piracy to be a “pervasive threat to [the game] industry’s creative investment” and is calling for more legislation.
