Mojang Testing a Minecraft ''Realms'' Subscription Service

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By Kevin Parrish
published

If the service grows popular, Mojang may turn it into a MMOG.

Minecraft developer Mojang is looking to expand on its popular block-building sandbox sim by offering a stable, subscription-based service called Minecraft Realms. It will be focused on families instead of the core gamer, a place where parents and their kids can play without the hassles of setting up servers and loading special mods.

"Our customers [for Realms] are parents who are tired of trying to act as server administrators on behalf of their kids," said Mojang CEO Carl Manneh. "Minecraft Realms will be a simpler kind of service, aimed at families and kids. In the future we aim to offer certain profiles with mods that are certified to work without crashing, but this will still be a safe and easy way for kids and families to play Minecraft online."

Don't expect to see a Minecraft MMOG, at least not in the beginning, as Mojang plans to enclose each subscriber into their own little world. They will have full control over their personal realm, choosing who can or cannot visit. Anyone invited to join will need a copy of Minecraft and an obvious Internet connection.

"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."

It gets better. If the subscription service becomes popular, Mojang may consider building portals between the different user worlds. At that point, the game would definitely become an MMO, but with tools that would allow parents to prevent strangers from invading and building naughty things like boob mountains or huge phallic symbols. Still, a Minecraft universe would simply be awesome.

Pricing is still up in the air, although Mojang will likely gravitate to the $10 to $15 per month subscription fee. Although Minecraft PC has around 10 million paying customers and soon equally as many on mobile, the studio believes most of its revenue going forward will stem from Minecraft Realms, which has a potential to bring in current and new customers alike.

Just think about it: If 10 million gamers paid a one-time fee of $25 for a copy of Minecraft PC, how much money will Mojang rake in if they're paying $15 per month. Tons. "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," Manneh added.

The good news is that none of this is a pipe dream: Minecraft Realms is now in private alpha mode and is expected to enter beta in May. Multiplay will serve as the Realm's host and will probably dedicate more than 100,000 servers. A version for Minecraft Pocket Edition is also in development and will likely go into beta along with the PC version. This mobile edition will be hosted by Amazon.

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Kevin Parrish
25 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 457undead
    Man I'm surprised that my mom can turn on her computer, I have a feeling kids will be setting this up while adults play and the kids are the admins.
    Reply
  • echondo
    You can easily setup a private Minecraft server for free. I don't really see the point in this...I honestly see no point in this, just setup a private server using Bukkit and do whatever mods you want.

    Really no point.
    Reply
  • mouse24
    We already have hosting sites like this. All I know is that if this is official, mojang really should put SOME of the profits towards the mod makers (if they are including the modpacks as they said). They have been blatantly stealing mod makers ideas for a good while now. This isn't a bad thing per say because they usually put there own spin on it but blatantly copy and pasting mods to host on there own servers to sort of attract attention to this "easy to set up, plus mods" idea is just wrong. Atleast ask first, then give maybe 5% of profits to each mod dev (depend on how many mods are in the pack) (profits don't include the servers cost so it will be very small, but still probably more than they would be getting from ad.fly, like they are)
    Reply
  • JJ1217
    I just feel like this is another Indie company becoming corrupt and selling basically nothing for money. Feels like EA. Of course they aren't the only indie company to have done this.. but still. Its Mojang. Just doesn't seem like them to do something like this.
    Reply
  • thbrett
    $15 or even $10 a month is way too much for this "service" that should be part of the game to begin with, how can they feel its right to charge half what the game costs for this service?
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    JJ1217I just feel like this is another Indie company becoming corrupt and selling basically nothing for money. Feels like EA. Of course they aren't the only indie company to have done this.. but still. Its Mojang. Just doesn't seem like them to do something like this.they are NOTHING like EA. you are just another whining fanboy that complains about every little thing. it's not a big deal. if you don't like it, guess what? c'mon, use that head of yours, you know the answer...


    DON'T PAY.
    Reply
  • csH82
    "Just think about it: If 10 million gamers paid a one-time fee of $25 for a copy of Minecraft PC, how much money will Mojang rake in if they're paying $15 per month. Tons."

    Yeaaaaaaaa....about that

    No way in hell am I upping the cost from $40+ (my kids have PC and Xbox versions) to almost $200/yr. and sure as hell not for something that looks like an SNES game.
    Reply
  • jkflipflop98
    They'll do whatever they can to keep this little fad going.
    Reply
  • warmon6
    echondoYou can easily setup a private Minecraft server for free. I don't really see the point in this...I honestly see no point in this, just setup a private server using Bukkit and do whatever mods you want.Really no point.
    While I have setup a private server for my family, I can see a point in this.

    The service (from what i'm seeing) is for the lazy that dont want to set one up, those that don't have the computing power (although most people should be just fine on computer power if there only running vanilla), or is technologically challenged on configuring such a setup (come on, we've all found those few gamers that can hardly setup anything without some help from a friend and make you question how there a gamer to being with).



    thbrett$15 or even $10 a month is way too much for this "service" that should be part of the game to begin with, how can they feel its right to charge half what the game costs for this service?
    I would disagree on "should be part of the game to begin with" and I can see on how they charge at least $10 ($15 is a bit much IMO).


    1. compared to other online games that charge a subscription, that is fairly in line with others (if not cheaper)


    2. If there hosting that world, then they have to pay for Hardware, security, Internet, electricity, and the staff to keep all going.

    They really cant go much lower as I dont see this being the most popular feature.

    Mainly because most people are either single player types or multi-player types that know and have the proper stuff to setup a server if they want to be private.

    basically, as one of my points to the other person, this service mainly for those that dont want to setup a server for themselves.

    It's kinda like looking at a pre-built desktop and a custom built desktop (that you assemble your self) that have the exact same quality hardware.

    Chances are, that desktop you built yourself will be cheaper than the prebuilt because you payed to have someone else set it up for you.

    Same concept here. You don't want to foot in your own hardware nor you want to setup some software that's provided to you for free, then expect to pay.


    3. for my disagreement, there was no way Mojang would of been able to do such a thing when minecraft started out. Because they were not backed by any other company such as EA, they would not of had the server power nor the money to afford everything do such.

    Nor did they have the magical crystal ball that would tell them the Minecraft would be a popular game.

    Imaging if minecraft didn't become popular, imaging how they would feel if they somehow bought all those servers and had no one to use them for this very thing.




    At least there not forcing you to use this service if you dont want to. You still have single player, you still have your normal multiplayer, and if you are playing on single or a private lan server, You'll never need to have an always online connection DRM to play the darn game.

    Reply
  • warmon6
    mouse24All I know is that if this is official, mojang really should put SOME of the profits towards the mod makers (if they are including the modpacks as they said).
    100% agree on this.
    Reply