I am a videogame enthusiast. What does that mean? It means that I really like games. I buy as many games as I can afford. If the game is indie AND awesome (or getting some great word of mouth), I will be one of the first to pick it up. The Humble Indie Bundles have been a great way for people like myself to buy and support indie developers in their ventures. So what happens when one of us enthusiasts hits it big? What happens when we have the cash to spend? Enter: Notch
Markus “Notch” Persson is a normal man. At age 29 he was a guy who was building games for the fun of it, making them for the fans. At age 32 he is still a guy who is building games for the fun of it, still, for the fans. Something must be different…Oh, yea, Minecraft. With Minecraft came a big pay day. I haven’t had an opportunity to interview Markus Persson about his deepest, darkest secrets, but I do know he has a few dollars now. How much isn’t really my concern, and I wouldn’t ever ask him anyway. So what does a man who loves videogames that also has money do?
Well, it depends on how much he loves them, I guess. He could simply buy every game that came to market and attempt to play them all. Or he could buy his way into a major publisher and try his hand at developing games for Ubisoft or EA. But that hasn’t been the Notch the enthusiast gaming community has come to know. Nope, Notch is not only a man that loves videogames, but loves other folk’s take on them as much as his own.
Those Humble Indie Bundles I mentioned earlier? Guess who is always at the top of the contributor list: yup, Notch. Thousands of his dollars are spent to help out indie developers (amongst other charities and foundations) for no reason other than what I assume to be the love of games. If you are one of the 577,000 people that follow Mr. Persson on Twitter, you are well aware of his state of mind.
Fifteen to twenty times a day you are getting an update on his thoughts. Whether he is talking about his own games, pimping an indie title, or chatting about the latest blockbuster, Notch is tweeting about games. So when Markus replies to Tim Schafer saying that he has the capital needed to make Psychonauts 2, and he would really like to have it happen, you can’t help but believe him.
When I saw that tweet it didn’t faze me, even a little. Yea, a million dollars is a lot of scratch. It will take me a number of years to make that much money, and even then it won’t be spare dough. I wasn’t fazed because even though it was just a tweet, I knew that he was serious.
This takes him out of the game, right? He is just trying to show off? The answer is a resounding “NO!” Double Fine announces they want to make a classic point-and-click style adventure game, but they are but a small-medium indie studio that needs publisher funding to keep going. The problem is, publishers don’t want to take risks. So Tim Schafer and Double Fine turned to Kickstarter.
Instead of making a game and hoping people buy it, they are hoping the Double Fine fan or the fan of classic adventure games will help them fund it. With Kickstarter, you donate as much as you can and if the appropriate funding isn’t reached, nothing happens.
Now that you get that, know that Notch can’t possibly be ready to part with any more money especially to once again help Double Fine, right? If you thought that was going to be the case you must have started reading at this paragraph. Notch dropped a further $10,000 to support this project.
As I said when I started off, Markus Persson is just a man. He isn’t unique. I know plenty of people that when given the opportunity try to help that which they love. Notch just does it on a much bigger scale. I am not trying to detract from what he has done, because it is all phenomenal. He is simply an enthusiast that hit it big. I respect him because he believes what he does and what his peers do bring joy to gamers everywhere, and he is right.
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