I don't know how I feel about the Minecraft Coins concept, but otherwise this seems like a reasonable idea. Since it doesn't impact free add-ons, and it will (ideally) make it possible for professionals to devote time to creating content, it seems like a good idea to me.

As for the Coins, I'm reminded of X360 Moon Points, which everyone hated. However I do get that, given the small scale of these items, that vendors don't want to set the price per-region. I feel like having fixed pricing tiers (at least below $10 or so) would be a better way to go. Coins and other virtual currency are too ambiguous; it's too easy to forget the real-world value of that currency and spend like a drunken sailor.

MacLeod wrote on Apr 10, 2017, 14:55:

Creston wrote on Apr 10, 2017, 13:14:
99.99% of all minecraft players are young children, so I foresee no issues here whatsoever.

Except if you look at this quote from a year-old NY Times article, that quotes from Microsoft, that's not actually the case:

---
(It’s still popular across all age groups; according to Microsoft, the average player is between 28 and 29, and women make up nearly 40 percent of all players.)
---

which, considering the complexity of some of the redstone creations you see, makes sense that 99.99% of their playerbase aren't young children.

I'm not agreeing with the 99.99% stuff, there are lots of adults out there playing it (and making YouTube bucks doing it), but that Microsoft stat probably reflects the person who registered the account. The 6 year old isn't registering the account, their mom is.

Mr. Tact wrote on Apr 10, 2017, 14:17:
Microsoft has to get that $2.5 billion back some how...

They will easily quadruple that measly sum.

Creston wrote on Apr 10, 2017, 13:14:
99.99% of all minecraft players are young children, so I foresee no issues here whatsoever.

Except if you look at this quote from a year-old NY Times article, that quotes from Microsoft, that's not actually the case:

---
(It’s still popular across all age groups; according to Microsoft, the average player is between 28 and 29, and women make up nearly 40 percent of all players.)
---

which, considering the complexity of some of the redstone creations you see, makes sense that 99.99% of their playerbase aren't young children.

Microsoft has to get that $2.5 billion back some how...

jacobvandy wrote on Apr 10, 2017, 12:23:
Well, they only list Pocket Edition and Windows 10 Edition, which have nothing to do with the core PC (Java) version. So carry on.

That's what I was thinking and hoping for but I wasn't sure if the PC version and Windows 10 edition were one in the same so thanks for pointing that out!

99.99% of all minecraft players are young children, so I foresee no issues here whatsoever.

Wallshadows wrote on Apr 10, 2017, 10:42:
Soooooo what does this mean to us folk who use things like DireWolf20 and Sphax PureBDCraft texture packs?

Well, they only list Pocket Edition and Windows 10 Edition, which have nothing to do with the core PC (Java) version. So carry on.

Blackhawk wrote on Apr 10, 2017, 11:54:
What an odd decision. Minecraft is well past its prime, and is a game which is already played almost entirely with free mods and skins.

There just doesn't seem to be a market here.

Wildly inaccurate. Not only is it still growing, but it's doing so faster than ever before. They reached the 100M milestone last June, then in February it was 122M. In that same time they went from 40M monthly active players to 55M.

Consider that it took 5 1/2-ish years for that first 100M, then only 9 months for the next 22M... If Minecraft isn't in its prime now, then it hasn't even reached it yet.

This comment was edited on Apr 10, 2017, 12:38.

What an odd decision. Minecraft is well past its prime, and is a game which is already played almost entirely with free mods and skins.

There just doesn't seem to be a market here.

Good business move, bad for parents.

Queue millions of parental groans due to incessant nagging for Minecraft maps and skins!

Because trying to turn a free marketplace already supersaturated with content into paid content worked so well with Bethesda...

Soooooo what does this mean to us folk who use things like DireWolf20 and Sphax PureBDCraft texture packs?

Odd that it took this long to do that, given how greedy Microsoft is, and how much money and time people already soak into it... Blargh.

Holy shit talk about minimum effort, Minecraft is an altar to hideous graphics, and now kiddos are gonna pay more money for shitty looking stuff.